The Social Construction of 'Good Food'

By going around Europe, I'm often struck by the differences between the shops selling 'good food' in various countries. For example, Natura Sì and Holland & Barrett. Natura Sì is one of the most popular Italian supermarket chains of good food, or at least of what good food means in Italy. Holland & Barrett is the British provider of 'good food' par excellence.

In Natura Sì, everything relates to Nature, starting from the name of the chain. Advertisements, food packaging, furniture and the names of the products continually remind the consumer of the fact that food comes from Nature, and that Culture (meant as human intervention) rarely counts. 

Holland and Barrett's idea of 'good food', instead, is quite different. Each shop sells two kinds of food: the first is similar to the food sold by Natura Sì, but it does not have the same approach to naturalness. A couple of months ago, for example, I wanted to buy some cereals (spelt, millet, etc) but I didn't find the geographic origins of those products on the label. When I asked the clerk, he answered: “... China ... India ... or something like that...”

I laughed while imagining the same scene in Italy. Probably the customer would have sent a ferocious letter to newspapers and TV programmes, and the clerk would have been fired in a couple of days. (Incidentally, not knowing where those products came from, I didn't buy them). The same approach may be found on the respective websites. For example, Natura Sì declares the geographic origins of the cereals, while Holland & Barrett does not. In short, being aware of the geographic origins of an item of food is a relevant part of the Italian notion of 'good food', while it adds little to the British meaning of the term.

However, what is really surprising is the second part of each Holland & Barrett shop, selling plastic pots of proteins, vitamins, hydrolysed collagen, and other products which underline, declare and exalt the fact that good food is made by humans, and that Nature only provides the raw ingredients. It is technology, instead, that turns natural ingredients into something good. It is in this part of the shop that the British notion of 'eating well' contrasts with the Italian one. In Italy, in fact, technology is seen as the worst food's enemy, and companies often hide the industrial process necessary to produce many items of food. In their advertisements, Italian food companies invent natural scenarios that nothing have to do with those foods, as they perfectly know that a natural frame will help to sell the picture.

In conclusion, I think that 'good food' is a concept composed of two parts. The first is scientific, as we perfectly know that some foods damage our bodies. The second part is instead a social construction, and it changes according to where we are. What is interesting, for me, is to see how one part overwhelms the other according to the social and cultural context. As is said in the title of a wonderful book by David Bell and Gill Valentine, which contributed to shaping my passion for food culture, 'We are where we eat'.

The Strange Case of the Book of the Ingredients

(Find below the Italian version)

During this week, I spent some time visiting six Italian supermarkets in Milan and Venice and trying to shed light on the strange case of the book of the ingredients. As said in a previous post, for the last few years, in many Italian (but also European) supermarkets, the ingredients have disappeared from the labels of bread, meat and other products packaged by the retailers. These labels only show the mysterious writing: “Ingredients: See the book of the ingredients”. As said in the previous post, the book of the ingredients is usually on the other side of the supermarket, in places as mysterious as the ingredients of bread and meat.

This week I have gone further, and have asked some employees why this happens. Most of them immediately showed surprise and embarrassment, and all of them called their managers. All the managers said roughly the same thing: we resort to the book of the ingredients when the ingredients and the allergens are too many. As a recent law forces us to also put allergens on the labels, it often happens that the list would be really long, and we would need a bigger label. The law allows us to turn to the book of the ingredients, and we frequently choose this option.

This is the case in which a law that is certainly right worsens things. In fact, we have the right to know both the ingredients and the allergens of the foods we buy, no doubt. However, the result is that now the great majority of people ignore both, the ingredients and the allergens. In fact, in all of the cases I was the only person who read the book, no one else was interested in it while I was in these supermarkets.

How to solve this problem? I think that bigger labels (and font sizes) would be the easiest way. However, if supermarkets didn't want to do this, allergens could remain in the books, and ingredients could appear on the labels again, as they are of interest for more people.

Actually, this is only a part of the problem. By looking at the books of the ingredients, in fact, I also noticed that sometimes ingredients and allergens are only a few, and labels could contain them. The real problem is that some of these ingredients are somehow critical, such as palm oil, lard and other elements that discourage consumers for health or calorie-related reasons. Thus, the book of the ingredients has become a precious tool to sell products that people wouldn't buy.

In conclusion, before the law people ignored the allergens, but at least they knew the ingredients of the food they bought; after the (right) law, they ignore both the allergens and the ingredients. I strongly believe that something should change.

Versione in italiano

Durante questa settimana sono andato in sei supermercati di Milano e Venezia, per cercare di capire qualcosa dello strano caso del libro degli ingredienti. Come ho già scritto in un post precedente, da qualche anno in molti supermercati italiani, ma anche europei, gli ingredienti sono scomparsi dalle etichette di pane, carne e altri prodotti confezionati dagli stessi supermercati. Le etichette di questi prodotti contengono solo una scritta misteriosa: “Ingredienti: Vedi il libro degli ingredienti”. Come detto nel post precedente, il libro di solito si trova dall'altra parte del supermercato, in posti misteriosi almeno quanto gli ingredienti di pane e carne.

Questa settimana sono andato avanti, e ho chiesto a qualche impiegato come mai i supermercati fanno questa scelta. Molti di loro hanno mostrato sorpresa e imbarazzo, e tutti loro hanno chiamato i loro capi. Tutti i manager hanno detto più o meno la stessa cosa: usiamo il libro degli ingredienti quando gli ingredienti e gli allergeni sono troppi. Poiché una legge recente ci obbliga a scrivere gli allergeni sull'etichetta, spesso accade che la lista sarebbe troppo lunga, e così avremmo bisogno di un'etichetta più grande. La legge ci consente di ricorrere al libro, e noi spesso lo facciamo.

Si tratta di un caso interessante, perché una legge giusta ha peggiorato le cose. Infatti, noi abbiamo tutto il diritto di conoscere sia gli ingredienti che gli allergeni contenuti nel cibo che compriamo, su questo non c'è dubbio. Ma il risultato è che oggi la grande maggioranza delle persone ignora sia gli ingredienti che gli allergeni. Infatti, ogni volta che ero al supermercato, sono sempre stato l'unica persona a chiedere di leggere il libro, nessun altro ne era minimamente interessato.

Come risolvere il problema? Intanto credo che etichette (e caratteri) più grandi sarebbero la soluzione più facile. Ma se i supermercati si opponessero a questa soluzione, gli allergeni potrebbero restare nel libro, mentre gli ingredienti potrebbero tornare sulle etichette, visto che interessano più persone.

Comunque, in verità, questa è solo una piccola parte del problema. Leggendo i libri degli ingredienti, infatti, ho anche notato che a volte gli ingredienti e gli allergeni erano pochi, e che le etichette sarebbero state sufficientemente grandi a contenerli. Il vero nodo è che alcuni di questi ingredienti sono, per così dire, problematici, come ad esempio l'olio di palma, lo strutto e altri nomi che di solito scoraggiano i consumatori per problemi nutrizionali o sanitari. Quindi, il libro degli ingredienti diventa uno strumento per vendere prodotti che altrimenti la gente non comprerebbe.

In definitiva, prima della legge le persone ignoravano gli allergeni ma almeno conoscevano gli ingredienti del cibo che compravano; dopo la legge (che ripetiamo, è giusta), la gente ignora sia gli allergeni che gli ingredienti. Credo davvero che qualcosa andrebbe cambiata.

New Questions for Local Food Companies

In another post of this blog, I wrote about the critiques surrounding the zero-miles food theory. To sum up, the problem is that today people travel around the world and live big parts of their lives far from their birthplaces much more than in the past. All of this has caused displacement, and food from birthplaces is the easiest and best way of curing distress. That's why Italian people living in London don't buy zero-miles English food, but lots-of-miles pasta and Parmigiano. And the same happens to the Indians living in Europe, the Egyptians in the US, and so on. 

In addition, much research has demonstrated that sometimes importing food from other countries is less polluting than growing food at home. Finally, many local companies are selling their products on the internet globally, sending local foods to other countries and thus contradicting the basic rule of the theory. Interestingly, those who buy this local food are both people suffering with food nostalgia and people who have nothing to do with the geographic origins of that food. As a result, the idea of eating food coming from the same area where one lives is still fascinating in theory, but is becoming less feasible in practice.

If we assume that the zero food miles theory is in difficulty, we must also assume that the companies producing and selling local food have a problem. In fact, these companies have often based their communication on the fact that they are a zero food miles company. Now that the theory is less fascinating, new questions arise. Why do people buy local food? How should local food companies promote their products?

The problem is already here, and some of these companies are looking for new strategies. Interestingly, Italian national channels are broadcasting the commercial of mozzarella Francia, a local brand which is very popular in the area surrounding Rome. This brand has often promoted its products by underlining its local production process. The new commercial, instead, ignores the local character of the brand, which is now available in many Italian regions and is in fact promoted on national channels. The commercial focuses on the fact that this mozzarella doesn't contain citric acid and other ingredients extraneous to mozzarella's traditional recipe, only containing milk, salt and rennet. Thus, the commercial seems to say: “Wherever you live and were born, buy it because it's local, and thus it's good”

I strongly believe that local food will be increasingly successful in the near future. However, what I also believe is that the people who will buy it will live far from the region where that food has been produced. They will buy it either for nostalgia or because they simply like it., because it's better than the global counterpart By contrast, local foods will decreasingly be bought as it is produced close to home. In short, the famous lardo di Colonnata will be more successful out of than in Colonnata.

Zero Food Miles: Theory and Practice

Zero miles (or zero kilometres) is a really fascinating food theory. It asserts that we should consume food grown and marketed close to the place where we live. By doing so, we avoid food that travels for many miles by flight, ship, truck and other polluting means of transport. Apart from pollution, zero miles also allows us to eat fresher food which does not contain preservatives and other ingredients that threatens health, taste and nutritional values.

As often happens, good theories fail when they are turned into practice. First of all, it has been demonstrated that the environmental relevance of zero miles does not apply to everywhere. In the northern part of Britain, for example, growing fruit and vegetables needs energy-consuming, heated-up greenhouses, as the weather does not permit the natural growing of some vegetables. A recent research has demonstrated that importing products from Spain pollutes less than growing them in the central and northern part of Britain. Thus, the first point is that zero miles does not guarantee environmental advantage on some parts of the planet.

However, the real problem with zero miles is cultural. In fact, in this era more than in any other, people travel and live for long periods far from their original places, often for their entire lives. In these new places, they build new lives, establish new relationships and do things that they would have never done at their original homes. Yet, they often feel the need not to lose their roots, and consuming foods from their birthplaces is the easiest and best way to retrieve those roots.

My Italian friends living in London theoretically support zero kilometres, but their refrigerators and kitchen shelves are full of Parmigiano Reggiano, authentic Italian pasta and mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil authentically produced in Italy and an array of Italian foods much more various than those I have in Italy. They find them in the most popular supermarkets in London, which import all that food from Italy ignoring the zero miles theory. Questioned by me, my friends have said that they would never replace Parmigiano Reggiano with British cheese, Italian pasta with British pasta, and so on. Clearly, those products make them feel at home. Apart from their wonderful taste, those foods have the function of retrieving my friends' roots. The same happens to the other Italians who have emigrated everywhere, and to the Indians, Egyptians, Bulgarians and so on that have built new lives far from their birthplaces.

Food is a magician. It conveys memories, emotions, scents and people that have been important in our past. This is not theory, but everyday life. A useful and effective theory such as zero miles cannot keep up with the strength of the flood of emotions and nostalgia that sometimes gets into our lives without asking permission. It is probably disputable, but when at the crossroads where we will have to choose between correctness and emotions, we will more often give up our environmental awareness and take the road of the taste of our past.

Cosa ci insegnano Slow Food e il Salone del Gusto 2016

Spesso criticato per il suo conservatorismo e per la sua attenzione al passato più che al presente o al futuro, Slow Food quest'anno ha dato a tutti una bella lezione, dimostrando di capire i trend sociali e culturali emergenti meglio di chiunque altro.

Sociologi ed esperti di fenomeni culturali, si veda ad esempio questo bel libro di Bonomi,Masiero e Della Puppa, ci spiegano come oggi ogni cosa stia cambiando e come la società digitale comporti nuovi modi di produzione, commercializzazione, consumo e comunicazione. Questi studiosi ci dicono che il vecchio sistema lineare di produzione, ma anche di scambio sociale, sta lasciando il posto a un sistema 'circolare'. Tutto questo si traduce nella scomparsa di un unico 'emittente', di una fonte di sapere affidabile a cui tutti si rivolgono. Le fonti, oggi, ognuno se le sceglie a suo piacimento, non solo costruendo reti di sapere con le mille fonti che la tecnologia e internet mettono a disposizione, ma anche partecipando attivamente ad esse, diventando produttore di sapere in prima persona.

Purtroppo, il mondo del cibo, soprattutto in Italia, sembra impermeabile a questo cambio di paradigma e continua a cullarsi su allori che, se non adeguati al presente e non proiettati verso il futuro, si dissolveranno nel giro di qualche anno.

Un po' a sorpresa, è stato Slow Food a muoversi con coraggio. L'edizione 2016 di Terramadre Salone del Gusto è stata infatti totalmente diversa dalle diciannove precedenti. La rassegna non si è più tenuta al Lingotto, 'luogo unico del sapere' dove negli anni scorsi tutti andavano a 'imparare' qualcosa in fatto di cibo. L'evento è invece diventato un happening diffuso in tutta la città di Torino. Il Parco del Valentino, via Roma, piazza San Carlo, il Borgo Medievale, la Reggia di Venaria, il Teatro Carignano, Palazzo Reale, il quartiere multietnico di San Salvario e molte altre zone della città sono diventate piccole fonti di sapere che ogni visitatore poteva inserire nel proprio personale percorso. Insomma, ogni visitatore ha potuto costruire un proprio network di saperi attraverso la città, nella maniera teorizzata dal libro di Masiero & C. In più, molti visitatori hanno anche preso parte all'evento in maniera attiva, grazie a workshop e laboratori in cui hanno potuto misurare lo stato del proprio rapporto con il cibo.

Insomma, mentre i visitatori del lingotto erano ancora 'consumatori' o ancora peggio 'spettatori' all'interno dei padiglioni fieristici, i visitatori del Salone diffuso si sono sentiti qualcos'altro. Non hanno pagato il biglietto d'ingresso (a parte qualche iniziativa speciale) e hanno partecipato in maniera più attiva (ma sul ruolo attivo dei visitatori si può fare molto di più).

Slow Food ha, ancora una volta, aperto una strada. Adesso tocca agli altri capire che anche il cibo nei prossimi anni cambierà, e cambierà il modo in cui gli esseri umani lo producono, lo lavorano, lo consumano, lo comunicano e, cosa sempre più importante, lo smaltiscono. Dimentichiamo le vecchie modalità lineari, e prepariamoci tutti ad avere a che fare con logiche di rete, ruolo attivo del consumatore, circolarità e benessere sociale. Il nuovo è già qui, prendiamo tutti esempio dal Salone del Gusto 2016 e, perchè no, facciamo ancora di più.