Adam Gopnik on Eating Local in New York
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 4.07
Photograph by Josef Astor, New Yorker
Adam Gopnik and his kids are learning to forage in Central Park from "Wildman" Steve Brill.
“This is lamb’s-quarter,” Steve was saying, clearing a path to what, to the unknowing eye, looked just like the desultory weeds where the softball ends up after the fat kid with glasses you’ve stowed in right field watches it go by. Lamb’s-quarter turned out to be a matte-green plant with arrow-shaped leaves.
Only a great writer like Gopnik could put that together, (read Through the Children's Gate and weep) so I loved his article about "Eating the fruits of the five boroughs" in the New Yorker this week, which they have made available online.
Tom Philpott of Maverick Farms and Grist, who knows a lot more about the subject than just about anyone else, is far more critical. He calls it "a disappointing performance -- an exercise in glibness over depth -- by a prominent writer in what's probably our most influential magazine." ::Grist
How many dogs found that lamb's quarter first?
This is par for the course for Gopnik. He has always been patronizingly clever and totally devoid of any substance. I remember a review of Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, which is a serious and important book, where he basically concluded that Veblen was getting all worked up over nothing, whee isn't life fun, I'm going to go play tennis while my wife makes lunch. He's just a dandy, not a real writer, not fit to carry Michael Pollen's bag of foraged mushrooms, and he'll be forgotten the minute he's dead.
Incidentally his parents were both professors at McGill (his mom was one of the first to show a link between specific genes and language learning) and his sister Allison is a very important child psychologist, so maybe he's reacting to all that intellectual contribution to society in his family by being Mr. Lollipop.
I read the piece and didn't think it was so bad. Raised some very important issues in this area. Yes it was entertaining but also wasn't a reverential treatment of localism...some may be disappointed by that.
I'm wondering where all the bile comes from towards this man.
i'm with philpott on this particular article; gopnik dabbled in local eating for a week, and he couldn't even stick with it that long (he caved toward the end and bought an out-of-town chicken), though he's completely unapologetic about the failure. his tone implies an approach similar to someone picking up something shiny off the sidewalk and then tossing it over his shoulder fifteen seconds later. if he wasn't going to take it seriously, why bother? and did you notice that he mentions having driven to all of those spots in nyc? a week of local eating to spare the fossil fuels used in food transport, and he can't muster up enough devotion to the cause to make use of public transportation!
whatever, man. give me beavan any day.