Loca-motion and instant gratification
Mr. Freakonomics missed a major point with his article on locavores. The locavore concept does not entail preparing / growing everything yourself; rather, it emphasizes sourcing what you do eat from within a certain radius of where you live. I don't know where he got the specious "more delicious" argument -- food choices from anywhere can be rather bland, yucky, etc.
I'm also bemused at his presumption that a first attempt at making something yourself would have instantaneous and gratifying results. Ever heard of practice? Or that something requires skill and effort? And what was he thinking, putting food coloring in homemade orange sherbet?! Bleah. Serves him right for having extra taking up his precious shelf space.
What's with this instant results mind-set?! It doesn't happen with dieting and weight loss. It doesn't happen with cooking (necessarily). And why (on a similar note) would someone think that taking fenugreek for one day would radically boost her nursing results?!
ETA: Returning to the locavore topic, Dubner and others who shrug off the locavore concept as being 'hippie' or 'elitist' (using the term's in vogue reference to arugula) miss the boat. Prior to WWII and the subsequent increase of global and even national food trade thanks to modes of transportation reliant on fossil fuels (read: planes), food habits were more locally and seasonally driven. Locavore is a modern term that puts a glossy spin on practices that have been in place for centuries, and mainly out of necessity. If anything, it's elitist to expect that you can select out-of-season produce on-demand thanks to imports from the Southern Hemisphere and elsewhere.
Arugula in and of itself is hardly elitist. It's just another form of lettuce that happens not to be ubiquitous like Iceberg. The only reason Iceberg lettuce is ubiquitous is because bland American tastes, hold-overs from the 1950s, drove its demand among domestic growers. In Italy, arugula is something that people pick along roadsides, much like you can pick dandelion greens or wild blackberries in some places in the U.S. Someone decided they could dupe American consumers by turning what amounts to an edible weed into a salad they could charge $17 for at linen tablecloth restaurants or $6/pkg for at high-end markets. You, too, can eat arugula if you buy a $1.00 packet of seeds.
I'm also bemused at his presumption that a first attempt at making something yourself would have instantaneous and gratifying results. Ever heard of practice? Or that something requires skill and effort? And what was he thinking, putting food coloring in homemade orange sherbet?! Bleah. Serves him right for having extra taking up his precious shelf space.
What's with this instant results mind-set?! It doesn't happen with dieting and weight loss. It doesn't happen with cooking (necessarily). And why (on a similar note) would someone think that taking fenugreek for one day would radically boost her nursing results?!
ETA: Returning to the locavore topic, Dubner and others who shrug off the locavore concept as being 'hippie' or 'elitist' (using the term's in vogue reference to arugula) miss the boat. Prior to WWII and the subsequent increase of global and even national food trade thanks to modes of transportation reliant on fossil fuels (read: planes), food habits were more locally and seasonally driven. Locavore is a modern term that puts a glossy spin on practices that have been in place for centuries, and mainly out of necessity. If anything, it's elitist to expect that you can select out-of-season produce on-demand thanks to imports from the Southern Hemisphere and elsewhere.
Arugula in and of itself is hardly elitist. It's just another form of lettuce that happens not to be ubiquitous like Iceberg. The only reason Iceberg lettuce is ubiquitous is because bland American tastes, hold-overs from the 1950s, drove its demand among domestic growers. In Italy, arugula is something that people pick along roadsides, much like you can pick dandelion greens or wild blackberries in some places in the U.S. Someone decided they could dupe American consumers by turning what amounts to an edible weed into a salad they could charge $17 for at linen tablecloth restaurants or $6/pkg for at high-end markets. You, too, can eat arugula if you buy a $1.00 packet of seeds.