
Lessons from a 'local food' scam artist - gumby
http://narrative.ly/foodie-fables-and-foibles/lessons-from-a-local-food-scam-artist
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jqm
"“I wait every year for the real Jersey tomatoes. You can't get that country
flavor in the city!” They couldn't get it here, either: These were New Mexican
beefsteaks."

I used to work on a tomato farm (Florida) and I live in New Mexico. I've been
all over the state. They grow lots of chilies here. And some corn, onions
melons. They don't grow tomatoes on any scale that I've ever seen in New
Mexico.

It was an entertaining article but I think some "artistic license" was taken.

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guelo
Good to know, thanks. I was tempted to look up why they would be growing
tomatoes in the desert.

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desdiv
People need to keep in mind that buying local food isn't necessarily better
for the environment. Sometimes local produce production produces far more
greenhouse gases than imported produce:
[http://www.salon.com/2008/06/24/food_miles/](http://www.salon.com/2008/06/24/food_miles/)

~~~
mc32
That's quite true. To me the important thing to note is that while people in
SF or Portland can feel smug about sourcing locally --I mean, it's great, it's
nice to have fresh fruit and vegetables, I enjoy them myself living in this
fecund area, the implicit bias or even superiority, is that they are better
for having natural resources nearby than are people who live in metropolises
which are far from the fruit of the earth.

It's at time a kind of virulent elitist bias in that they feel that they are
naturally better --they are better for the fate of the planet than are people
who rely on long distance transportation for their foodstuffs. to be clear,
it's not many people who feel that way, but you can feel the vibe in the way
they talk about it. It's very latent, but the feeling is there.

Afterall, few people can be like René Redzepi and source locally in areas not
known for a cornucopia of harvests.

[edited out 'a kind of racism' for virulent elitist bias, at another poster's
suggestion --I still think it's racism just not based on 'race']

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extra88
Instead of "racism," how about "prejudice," "bias," or "elitism," or
"bigotry?" Human races are already a cultural construct, no point in misusing
a term by applying it to something that doesn't even have anything to do with
ancestry.

~~~
mc32
I've edited the word 'race' out --but want to make the point that race is not
based on ancestry. Its meaning can shift quite a bit. Recall the English
thought German immigrants were an 'inferior race'. But as conceptualized in
today's English, white Germans and white English are today considered the same
'race'. In vernacular speech 'racism' is equivalent to bigotry and also
intolerance.

~~~
extra88
In your example, the English had a problem with Germans and people of German
descent, that is, their ancestry. _Nobody_ calls San Franciscans,
Californians, "coastal people" (vs. Middle Americans), or "city folk" (vs.
"country folk"), a race.

Understanding vernacular English is how I knew what you meant, that doesn't
mean it's a good idea to poorly use a word that has a more specific meaning
when there are plenty of more general words to convey your point.

I also have a problem with prejudice against muslims being called "racist" so
using it to refer to San Franciscan localvore attitudes about the rest of the
country didn't stand a chance.

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voltagex_
This is a good article but that modal popup for the newsletter has to go.

~~~
MagnusVonBlack
I surf the internet with Firefox's NoScript plugin. I haven't seen a modal
popup in years.

~~~
dredmorbius
You _are_ almost certainly seeing increasing numbers of CSS flyover, pop-up,
modal, and other tricks, however.

I've been tweaking my default CSS to kill those, though with considerable
collateral damage.

Hint to Web designers: do _not_ use any of those names for elements you
actually want people to see. And don't hide stuff under legit-sounding
elements either.

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hyperbovine
In which the author learns that some real douchey people can occasionally be
found in New York and New Jersey...

~~~
wonnage
You can see this anywhere. My mom discovered I like expensive third-wave
coffee...and shelled out for a box of Starbucks Via instant for Christmas
(thanks, Mom). It all tastes the same to her. Meanwhile I'm sure someone is
scoffing at my plebian mainstream Blue Bottle preferences... and the farmer
who grew the beans has never had coffee at all but is happy to grow it and
sell it to the weird foreigners...

I believe authenticity, like confidence, winds up being something you have
rather than attain. My Chinese-from-China family and I will happily eat Panda
Express orange chicken...because it tastes good.

In the end, if people are happy, why not let them be? They're only being
douches if you believe authenticity itself has any value.

~~~
hyperbovine
> Meanwhile I'm sure someone is scoffing at my plebian mainstream Blue Bottle
> preferences...

Haha. That person would be me. Gotta roast your own bro :) (Plus, $5 a cup??)

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mc32
This is kind of the lesson for any kind of connoisseur. A lot of it is
pretense and the rest is just learned behavior --finessing it and narrowing
preferences ever more for mostly narcissistic reasons. We know that for the
most part all tastes are acquired tastes. Even for spoiled wines, or the ones
with the most natural adjectives. Their chemistry and effect on the body are
quite similar.

So yeah, most of it is in people's minds -- which is why even professionals
fail blind taste tests of characteristics the have been amassing expertise for
over years....

It's such a self-scam. It's not even other people scamming us. We willingly
participate in an elaborate social scam of a game.

If you want to know what tastes good or bad, ask a two or three year old --
before they learn the socially imposed preferences.

[edit] There was a time when people used to exalt at the freshness of the fish
at their local sushi (sashimi) bar. "It tastes like they just fished it from
the ocean." The received preference now to love 'tasty' sashimi --it takes
fish a few days[1] in the fridge or freezer to acquire a more mature taste,
whereas fish out of the water have almost no taste.

[1][https://tasteoftravelroge.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/fish-
to-a...](https://tasteoftravelroge.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/fish-to-age-or-
not-to-age/)

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ars
The only reason to buy local is for a lower price, otherwise what's the point?
Everything is local to somewhere.

Very nice article though!

~~~
Sivart13
Because maybe you want your money to pay for the food and not the global
transportation networks that brought you the food?

Do you really believe the only reason to buy one thing over another is the
price?

~~~
lkbm
> Because maybe you want your money to pay for the food and not the global
> transportation networks that brought you the food?

Sure, okay, but...why? Better for the environment? Doesn't seem to be the
case. Tighter-nit community? Idealogical opposition to roads? Protectionism?

Serious question. Why?

