Thursday, October 13, 2005

I am re-reading my copy of The Taste of America, kind of by accident and kind of because I need to refresh myself with a dose of reality every once in a while. I came across this quote, written by John Hess no doubt, "...The history of American food is the history of the destruction of its taste." John and Karen Hess wrote The Taste of America back in 1972, my first year at Reed. I didn't read it or even hear of it until I picked up a copy from my friend Mike Justman's book store in Sacramento, California, about 1991--almost twenty years later.

When I read it then it was as fresh as it's first printing and now some fourteen years of mine later it remains as fresh as ever. To me the book represents the great divide in American food: those on the side of Taste, as it has become known, and those on some other side with the likes of Harry Levenstein. I still write to Karen Hess (John died earlier this year at age 86 after writing about his time as the New York Times Food Critic) and, for a while to Levenstein. But he wont write back anymore since he found out I know Karen Hess: the great divide.

The entire nexus of Controversial Food Issues draws its roots from this great divide and nearly every food issue I have since discovered begins its rosy dawn from that time: not before and certainly not since.

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