The Latest Culinary Fad: Famine Food
5th October 2014
Unfortunately, for many of our remote ancestors, the absence of effective transportation, such as railroads and container ships, meant that they had no choice but to survive on a local diet and, in the process, put all their agricultural eggs into one geographical basket. This was always a recipe for disaster. The Roman poet Virgil in his Georgics described how, in bad years, weeds invaded the land, voles and mice spoiled the threshing floor, cranes and geese attacked the crops, goats ate the young vines, and moles, toads and ants each feasted on or undermined the farmer’s work. (Virgil could also have discussed fungus, insect pests and other problems.) Of course, whatever survived these pests could be damaged or wiped out by summer droughts and winter windstorms, as well as snow, hail or heavy rain. Even in good years, Virgil observed, a field might be accidentally set on fire.
No matter the location or agricultural system, local food for local people not only meant that most people struggled with famine and malnutrition – it also meant many were well aware of the undomesticated local plants they could use as either supplementary or emergency food sources. In the words of economic historian Peter Garnsey: ‘Peasants have always been systematic foragers on uncultivated land [including fallow fields], in woods, marshes and rivers.’ (1) Indeed, for the average European peasant, with the exception of poisonous or very bitter plants, ‘anything that grew went into the pot, even primrose and strawberry leaves’ (2). According to a recent survey, despite their absence from official statistics and the ‘routine underestimation’ of their importance, many ‘wild foods’ are still ‘actively managed’ by nearly one billion people whose annual income would probably not pay for one evening’s dining at NOMA or Coi.
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The fact that food snobs now need to revert back to the famine foods of old should not be viewed as an indictment of our modern food production system, but rather as astounding proof that, today, that system feeds middle-class consumers better than most kings in history. Far from wearing sustainable adornments, all the emperors of SOLE food really offer us in the end is an unaffordable witch brew that caters to the palates of people with too much time and money on their hands.