Corn corn corn!

Mmmm. Sweet and now grossly ambiguous.

   Well, who's sick of corn? I definitely am. Whodathunk that it was behind so many of our foods. If they can be called that. Oy. What really struck me about all of Pollan's research and conclusions was the depth of interconnectedness between all the aspects of the American food system and corn. It isn't just that corn and its derivatives is cheap and can be used in so many different products, its that there has been so much intentional fiddling with the markets, the biology, and the psychology of the American people. Corn hasn't simply jumped into the limelight because of chance or because it is sustainable or beneficial. No, it has moved to center stage because of humans who intentionally forced its production over other crops, who place the capitalist ideals of supply and demand over health. I'll stop ranting now.
   The explanation of all the myriad uses that corn can have might have been the part of this section that effected me the most. My father often likes to point out the strange presences on nutrition labels. I've always noticed corn syrup on a good deal of those lists but I never associated it with a huge agricultural and industrial process established over many years. It always seemed like something familiar, even though I had no idea what it was. It seemed like something that belonged in food. Something, in my younger mind, like wheat. An ingredient that was a base for a ton of different foods present in my life. Now I've come to see corn syrup and other corn derivatives as some strange, almost evil presence in my foods. Maybe that's too strong. Even though it's natural and it comes from a plant that grows in the ground, it just seems like a weird omnipresent artificial additive. Traveling to other countries that don't rely almost totally on corn syrup as a sweetener and tasting soft drinks there can be a refreshing experience. I had the opportunity to sample the diverse array of Israeli soft drinks while I was there. The whole experience seemed so much more fulfilling. The cans cost more and were thicker. Being used to thin American cans, you'd think you still had a fifth of the can left when you picked it up after draining it. Something just tasted sweeter or more genuine about the cane sugar sweetened soda.

My god, even the corncob-holder is made of corn!

    The hardest part of the book so far has been seeing how entrenched we are in the current system. Like I said on someone's blog, breaking out of this cycle of industrial and capitalistic agriculture seems so incredibly difficult. I think one of the keys is the government's stake in the whole deal. The agricultural lobby is just so strong and concentrated, those four or five main companies that control corn and its production hold so much power because the corn industry is so linked to so many other industries; gas, food, plastics. It seems nearly impossible to dislodge the stranglehold corn has on all these aspects of the American economy without destabilizing something, whether its an aspect of the economy or the links between food lobbyists and the government.

A Mile-Wide Grin

Camp

    "We're going to clean out the Three Rivers sewer system," one of our counselors tells us, stifling a barely perceptible grin. "Make sure that you all wear clothes that you can get dirty in."

    "They're lying," Sam whispers to the seventeen of us as we gathered outside the white vans that would allegedly take us to the sewers. "They always say we're doing something gross when we leave camp like this," he says. "Last summer they said we were going to an old folks' home."

    "Where are we going then, Sam?" asks Maya.

Sam smiles to himself and remains quiet.

    This statement of fact by a knowledgeable camper and subsequent interrogation by the less knowledgeable one is a common exchange at Camp Tavor. Because of the esoteric nature of many of Tavor's traditions, new campers are often in the dark until an older or more experienced camper deigns them worthy of an explanation.

    “Come on Sam, just tell us already,” chimes in another camper from the back of the van as we turn down the long dirt trail that winds its way through the forest marking the edge of camp. The road heaves up and down past fallen trees and rusted metal fencing until you reach the first marker of civilization, the corn field. The field is always referred to as “the corn field” even when the farmer who tills it has planted a crop of dinky soy bean plants instead of the towering corn stalks that, at night, provide a much anticipated maze into which only the coolest of counselors take their campers to play a terrifying medley of hide-and-seek and tag called “Come Dance With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight.” As the vans heave over the road's last hill, and hang suspended at the cusp of the hill, the trees to the left of the road narrow into a sparse line, and the final symbol of civilizations' reappearance is revealed, the grey asphalt of A.L. Jones, the paved two-lane highway marking the beginning of the rural outskirts of Three Rivers.

    Ten minutes after the vans have turned onto A.L. Jones, they round another bend onto North Main Street. Sam recognizes the street name and a mile-wide grin spreads across his face.

    “Come on Sam, tell us where we're going,” implores Maya.

    “Goldies,” he finally replies, grin spreading even wider. “We're going to Goldies.”

Yummmmm.

    As the vans slow to turn into the parking lot, the white and green sign comes into focus. “Goldies” in black-lined gold bubble letters. “Pizza*Subs*Burgers" above the gold script, and the most important words below in capital letters, "ICE CREAM."

    We pile out of the vans and take their places at the picnic tables waiting outside, the giant umbrellas poking out of the middle of the tables like palm trees a welcome respite from the humid heat of the summer.

“All right,” says a counselor, “this is how it works. Four people inside at one time, when someone comes out, another person goes in”. As a camper, the inside of Goldies was mysterious, somewhere we only ventured into to pick out what kind of ice cream we wanted or to use the bathroom. We always scampered back outside to eat our ice cream, the summer heat made the coolness of the ice cream that much more refreshing.

As kids, ice cream was all we ever ate at Goldies, nothing else on the menu interested us. Looking back, we were hardly empathetic towards the lactose-intolerant kids who never got to experience the wonder of yellow cake batter or peppermint patty ice cream. They were limited to a box of good nonetheless french fries. The scoops of ice cream were enormous to our eleven, twelve, thirteen year-old eyes. No one could match our monstrous appetites. Even a small was too big for some of our sugar-headache-wary counselors. No ice cream was too large, too sugary, too cold for us. We scarfed down frozen delight with reckless abandon, monstrous grins on our faces the whole time.

    Goldies ice cream and I had been close friends for years but my more mature and passionate love affair with everything in the restaurant began in 2009, my first year as a counselor at Camp Tavor. The summer was one of exhaustion and excitement. The amount of work and planning that we had to do was inversely proportional to the amount of sleep we received and thus our general well-being. I soon discovered that everyone needs a break from the always-on mentality of camp. Luckily, the wise staff in the past had established a system of break taking that proves effective still today. Everyone is allotted one whole day, one half day, and two nights off per three- or four-week session. Counselors used these breaks to go out to eat at restaurants in Three Rivers, maybe go to a movie, and finally retire to the corn field at the edge of camp to commit unspeakable acts of debauchery.

    Being among my fellow counselors who had had the same wonderful experience with Goldies ice cream that I had, we naturally decided to explore the other fare that the restaurant could offer. What a decision. The experience of driving out of camp, not packed into giant white vans, but tooling around in crappy pre-college student sedans and minivans was a new and thrilling one. We screeched into parking spaces outside Goldies and walked into the cool air conditioned interior. Always focused on the steaming ice cream buckets behind the counter directly across from the door, I had never noticed what the inside of Goldies looked like. It was a diner, tables and chairs, booths along the walls, nothing fancy.

These wings come nowhere close
to the masterpiece of BBQ Hot wings.

    We walked up to the counter, and I, thinking I'd try a totally new meal, ordered both a Southwest Barbecue Burger and an order of eight chicken wings. It was love at first sight. My whole meal was $8, perfect for a broke camp counselor. Let's begin with the burger. Three onions rings atop a ½ pound burger covered with American and Pepperjack cheese, pickles and a hearty helping of BBQ sauce.

    Next, the dish that, after eating for the first time two years ago, I will now give nearly anything for, Goldies chicken wings. Slathered, and I mean slathered in BBQ and Tobasco sauce. These wings are gigantic. Goldies being my first experience with them, I had no frame of reference for the average size of chicken wings, but theses were enormous. When eating normal wings, you scarf a couple down without even realizing it but I tasted each and every of those eight wings that I devoured that night. The spicy sweet punch of the sauce against the crunch and texture of the breading and the soft smoothness of the chicken beneath was unbelievable. I burned through them like a hot knife through butter. Or a hungry camp counselor through a plate of incredible wings. This was an adult meal. My first introduction to the wonders of BBQ sauce and expanses of barbecued meat. There is nothing childish about wrenching the last morsel of saucy meat off of the bone, tossing the bare stick atop the mountainous pile of its companions, grinning contentedly, and gently reclining so as not to lose the meal you've just ingested. After a lengthy digestive rest, I staggered to the bathroom to wash the barbecue and Tobasco sauce off of my hands. I was still smiling when the jet of burning water from the faucet scorched my hands the same color as the sauce.

Tony B. and Food

      While reading about Anthony Bourdain's travels, I was struck by the seeming differences between America and the rest of the world. Bourdain takes note of this as well. I'm sure 99% of urban Americans, myself included, have never seen their food before it's been transformed into neat blocks sitting plastic-wrapped on yellow styrofoam in the local Meijer. I almost envy Bourdain's experience of seeing a pig being slaughtered and eating its meat two feet away. My own food consumption is mostly unthinking. I eat the cheap chicken in Meijer even though it may have been force-fed steroids in a factory farm, I eat the cheap beef because I've never seen a cow being raised and slaughtered. I'm very disconnected from my food. I need a shock, I think. I need to see a factory farm in action. I need to see a pig raised for six months and brutally slaughtered. I need to see how my food is killed, prepared and packaged. Maybe after I see one end of the spectrum in factory farms in America, and the other in local sheep in Scotland (hopefully), I'll be better equipped to make some sort of choice about my meat eating. Maybe I'm too reliant on lived experience for my lifestyle. Or I'm just lazy.
     Well, back to Anthony. I thought that one of the book's strongest parts was the seamless way that Bourdain melded place and food together. He usually begins his description of his new locale with a description of a person or an event that was taking place. In Russia he begins with the fighters in the club, San Sebastian with him walking down the street with Luis. His focus on location and setting before food really emphasizes the importance of place in the food he is eating. Each and every place he goes to he tries something totally unique to that area that wouldn't have existed if the specific culture and location of that place hadn't existed how they did. This breadth of description also makes his chapters extremely vivid and interesting. I might just be a stickler for imagery and description, but I think that those are two of the most important narrative devices in creating a vivid story. This kind of description would have made "Stealing Buddha's Dinner" so much more enjoyable for me. None of the locations in that story really stuck in my mind the way Bourdain's travels do.
     I really enjoyed the background Bourdain gave on all the different ethnic foods he was tasting. I have no idea what any of the dishes he names in their local dialect are, let alone many of the fancier English titles dishes or ingredients. So far my experience with this book has been great. I love reading about exactly what Bourdain is writing about; exotic and interesting cuisine and places. He manages to be very respectful of the cultures and foods he encounters, most likely because he relishes their diversity. He seems to want nothing more than to taste every possible combination of animal entrails and exotic fruits and vegetables in whatever combination a culture can invent.