[Foodplanning] Book review: Glassner, Telling the Gospel of Food

[Ashwani Vasishth]

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-vankin31dec31,0,1067113.htmlstory?coll=cl-bookreview

BOOK REVIEW
'The Gospel of Food' by Barry Glassner
      Why everything you think you know about food is wrong

By Deborah Vankin
December 31, 2006

The Gospel of Food:: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong
Barry Glassner
Ecco: 268 pp., $26

Barry GLASSNER would like you to eat. Everything. Or, more 
accurately, anything and everything you want.

Glassner, a USC sociology professor and author of the bestseller "The 
Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things," spent 
much of the last five years traipsing along what he calls America's 
"foodways" and acting as a professional debunker. He toured flavor 
houses, visited the corporate headquarters of fast-food chains, dined 
with and interviewed top chefs, questioned food critics and chemists, 
pored over government documents and medical studies, and attended 
food safety summits, natural food expos and all sorts of culinary 
conventions. He ate everywhere - from the haute cuisine of Thomas 
Keller's French Laundry and Alice Waters' Chez Panisse to McDonald's. 
The upshot? That pretty much everything we know about food is wrong.

Glassner's exhaustive survey of contemporary food culture, "The 
Gospel of Food," dissects and deflates the myths, misconceptions and 
flat-out misinformation clogging our collective consciousness. It's 
part journalism and social commentary along the lines of Eric 
Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" (although it takes a very different 
perspective), part culinary history and part sociological analysis, 
with a little food gossip for good measure.

Backing up a bit: Ours is, undoubtedly, a food-obsessed nation. Our 
appetite for food-as-entertainment - cooking shows, magazines, blogs, 
culinary tours and classes, specialty markets, exotic ingredients, 
new restaurants - seems insatiable. Never before have we enjoyed so 
much food-related choice - from mock meat patties to imported Kobe 
beef, organic products and genetically modified "Frankenfoods," 
artisan staples and mass-produced ethnic condiments now crowding 
supermarket shelves. Nor have we ever leaned so heavily on this 
myriad of culinary options as a means of managing disease, weight and 
societal stress. In other words, we take this stuff seriously.

Yet never have we had so many competing voices weighing in on this 
culinary explosion, demonizing certain foods and glorifying others. 
All those who tell us what not to eat - scientists, nutritionists, 
health columnists, government agencies, industry conglomerates, 
activists - Glassner calls killjoys who subscribe to "the doctrine of 
naught." It's "culinary correctness gone awry," he says, a veritable 
cacophony of conflicting information. With dietary research often 
flawed in its methods and scientific findings often changing or 
"malleable," as Glassner notes, in the hands of self-interested 
parties with ties to the food industry, who's to say what's safe to 
eat? Chili peppers either cause stomach cancer or prevent it because 
they are loaded with antioxidants; potatoes are either a "pathway to 
heart disease and diabetes" or a fat/sodium/cholesterol-free 
super-food rich in potassium and vitamin C. Eggs, once the devil, are 
now undergoing a resurrection. "We would all do well to maintain a 
healthy skepticism," he says, "about the presumed sanctity and safety 
of one food or diet over another."

In "The Gospel of Food," Glassner illuminates hypocrisies, turns 
assumptions on their heads and detonates dubious food facts, fads and 
deep-rooted beliefs. Among them: Irradiation may not be such a bad 
idea; certain fortified foods inhibit the absorption of antibiotics; 
vitamin waters have become the new soda pop. He also questions the 
health benefits of soy and suggests that McDonald's is the great 
populist dining hall of our society, where people of all ages, 
ethnicities and classes commingle, cheerfully, at brightly lighted, 
antiseptic tables. As for the fattening of America, he cites some who 
theorize that possible contributing factors are regular church 
attendance and, as sci-fi as it sounds, an "obesity virus."

Consequently, if "we are what we eat" - and the parameters for what's 
healthy and chic are forever morphing so that we don't know what to 
feed on anymore - then we are a nation in the throes of an identity 
crisis, with an ever-shifting, opaque and impermanent sense of self. 
And if, as Glassner purports, food is a religion complete with 
talismanic cookbooks, celebrity chefs and their devout followers and 
sinful/saintly practices laden with divine consequences - and our 
bodies are the temples within which we practice this faith - then 
"The Gospel of Food" could be considered a New Testament of sorts to 
help navigate the dizzying funhouse of distorted definitions and 
misinformation. Until, of course, everything changes again.

Good thing then that "The Gospel of Food" is pure fun to read. In 
pitting pundits against each other - the New York Times' Jane Brody 
versus former Los Angeles Times writer Emily Green, the New York 
Times Magazine's Gary Taubes versus the Washington Post's Sally 
Squires - and citing numerous food writers, including M.F.K. Fisher, 
Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl and Jeffrey Steingarten, the book is a 
deliciously gossipy, delightfully acerbic, voyeuristic foray into the 
inner circle of the culinary cognoscenti. In the particularly 
entertaining chapter "Restaurant Heaven," Glassner sheds new light on 
such things as the interdependent relationship between chefs and 
often not-so-anonymous food critics and tells the story behind the 
"reality" TV show "The Restaurant." (Incidentally, that chapter reads 
like a who's who of the Southern California food scene, with 
appearances by chefs Wolfgang Puck and Suzanne Goin, critics Jonathan 
Gold and Patrick Kuh and L.A. Times food writers Leslie Brenner and 
S. Irene Virbila, among them.) Another stand-out chapter, "The Food 
Adventurers," juxtaposes restaurant elitists at both ends of the 
spectrum, from highbrow purists like the New York Times' William 
Grimes, who believes "subtlety, finesse and refinement deserve a 
higher score," to the mostly younger and more reactive digital 
community at chowhound.com.

It's worth pointing out that Glassner's topic is an easy one, a 
hybrid of two wildly popular publishing niches, food and naysaying. 
But you can't fault a fellow for a good idea, even if it is the 
obvious one. And unlike ABC-TV commentator John Stossel's somewhat 
surface-y, TV-friendly survey, "Myths, Lies, and Downright 
Stupidity," Glassner's book more than rises to its title, taking no 
shortcuts.

If "The Gospel of Food" suffers from anything, it's too much 
research. In covering so much terrain - or terroir, in this case - 
the book can be a bit listy, even dry. Some sections are so ambitious 
in scope and so carefully annotated that they lack narrative 
coherence. But thoroughness is also what sets "The Gospel of Food" 
apart from less rigorous sociological works. Glassner is methodical 
and relentless in his exploration, fierce in his finger-pointing; and 
ultimately, his accessibility and humor offset the density of 
information (he opens with a quote from George Carlin).

For such a negative book, "The Gospel of Food" is actually quite 
uplifting. Glassner may be an iconoclast, even a bit of a contrarian, 
but for all his obsession with fear and failure and false food facts, 
he's an optimist. He's a lover of the Slow Food movement and all its 
peripheral idealisms. He believes in the primal power of food to 
sustain, bond, transform and transport. And he's genuinely concerned 
about our growing disassociation with, and emotional baggage around, 
food. As such, his nitpicking and naysaying come not from bitterness 
but melancholy. Glassner would like you to eat. And he would like 
you, as he does, to enjoy it.


Deborah Vankin is an L.A.-based writer and editor.

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

***   NOTICE:  In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this 
material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational 
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