Photo by Colin Finlay
Photo by Colin Finlay
Her name conjures up sublime visions: cool, leafy arugula, sweet tomatoes ripening in the sun, and sophisticated French fare whipped from simple ingredients picked out back. She’s been called the godmother of the sustainability movement, hosting everyone from Bill Clinton to the Dalai Lama at Chez Panisse, the landmark Berkeley restaurant she started in 1971.
But Alice Waters — author, activist and local food pioneer — is far more than your run-of-the -mill celebrichef. When she decides to strike imported bottled water from her menu, replacing it with local water filtered and carbonated from the Chez Panisse tap, it’s national news, inspiring change on an industry level. And when she spearheads a campaign, people listen. This year, more than 200 chefs in 33 states joined Vote With Your Fork — an effort to remove hydroelectric dams and restore wild salmon river habitats — several even rolling up their sleeves to help her prepare a pointed wild salmon feast for legislators.
“I want people to know they can be empowered by a united movement to give an opinion to our elected officials who make these decisions,” stresses Waters. Through her continued involvement with the Slow Food movement, the Edible Schoolyard Project (which teaches kids to grow and cook healthy, nutritious food) and a new book, The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution, hitting stands next month, Waters inspires us to eat our way to a more vibrant and flavorful world.
Can the way we eat change the world?
It’s the best way to do it, from my point of view. Eating is something you do every single day. If you do it with intention, it opens up your senses. Your senses are the pathways into your mind. It’s not just about food — it’s about the world around you. You see in a different way. You touch in a different way. You’re fine-tuned, you’re better able to discern.
What food most connects you with your senses?
I would say garlic. And herbs. Herbs are fantastic that way. Making a pesto by hand — just being swept away by the fragrances. All children like pesto — that I know.
Fruit always brings children to food. And bread does, too. I should say that I always begin with bread — baking it, if you can, in a wood oven. The experience of making, baking and eating bread awakens something inside most every person. Unless you’re just stonewall resistant. But I don’t know anyone who can refuse a slice out of the oven.
The way to start a movement...
Is through the bread.
The way to a man’s heart...
Is through his stomach [laughing]. We put a fireplace right in the center of the Edible Schoolyard garden. That’s how to begin a movement. That’s how it happened in Berkeley. We had a great baker, and people who were never interested in food started going to that bakery. And once they got the bread, then they wanted the tomatoes to put on the bread, and they started going to the farmers’ market, and it just sort of goes down that way.
As a chef, what pushed you into taking a more political role, to becoming a voice for wild salmon?
[Laughing] Am I a voice for wild salmon? I’m a voice for sustainability. Local, sustainable, seasonal, alive. So many chefs have gotten into the ease of using that particular fish year-round because it’s something everybody likes to eat and the availability is there. When you have something all the time, you don’t pay attention the way you should. When we decided [at Chez Panisse] that we were only going to use wild salmon, it really meant that we weren’t going to buy any more salmon in the winter. Thinking about what else we could use opened up this whole other world — it allowed us to really savor the moment that the spring salmon came back. Learning how to cook something like a sardine was kind of revelatory. It’s a pretty oily fish with a strong aroma; it was a challenge. It was beautiful, in the end, to find a way of serving sardines. They aren’t an alternative, really, to salmon, but they just put another fish on our menu. A lot of things became part of our repertory once we let go of the salmon.
Many people think they shouldn’t buy wild fish, and that farmed fish is healthier for human consumption and the environment. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about aquaculture?
One of the big misconceptions is that [aquaculture] is going to allow us a steady supply, that farmed fish is much more predictable — and that we are able to predict and regulate what they’re being fed. I think there are very few places on the planet that the ecological concerns are deeply respected in terms of farmed fishing. And I’m always wanting to befriend the hunter, because that’s where the taste is for me. No matter what you end up feeding [farmed fish], it’s not the diet they would have if they were out on their own. It’s not going to be the same taste.
You have said that eating wild salmon can connect you in a beautiful way to the sea. What do you mean?
I really believe in seasons for fish. The non-farmed fish just have a whole different texture and flavor. When you understand that we get wild salmon from April until September, and when you’re serving it at that particular time, you’re aware of all the little changes that are going on with the fish, related to what they’re eating, how they’re growing and how they’re moving. And it does bring you into a different kind of consciousness.
What issues do you believe are most woefully ignored in public discourse?
We don’t understand the issue of price. We are so indoctrinated by fast food, we think food should be cheap — when in fact we should be willing to pay a good price for food. We are ignoring our relationship to nature, [ignoring] that we are dependent on nature for our survival. Sixty percent of the economy is about food, at least sixty percent. Food is political. And yet we don’t talk about it, we don’t pay attention. No president in the United States has mentioned anything about it, can you imagine?
What’s your favorite conspiracy theory?
The outrageous one? That fast food is good for you — how they are trying to spin that. They’re plotting and planning around the world to — I really believe this — to put these restaurants near schools, and they’re going to have kids coming in and very quickly becoming addicted. That is immoral.
What keeps you up at night?
I’m interested in opening the biggest door that we can to make the biggest impression about all that we believe in. Trying to find what I really feel. I think it always has to do with education and children. They need to learn a set of values that help them survive and share the planet. They need to learn how to communicate with other people around the table — that is essential. We begin at the beginning and we start feeding them real food.
What question do you wish our readers would ask themselves?
Why wouldn’t you want to spend most of your money on food? Food is nourishment and good health. It is the most important thing in life, really. Why would you resist that and want to buy a cell phone instead? Why would you expect that food would be cheap? Why shouldn’t those who provide it be paid the most amount of money? They are the people who are feeding you.
We need a course in school, an academic subject in eco-gastronomy, as a requirement that every child has to take for credit. I think we all need to become eco-gastronomes. Gastronomy is the big subject of food from all points of view. It’s every subject, from botany to anatomy to history. We begin in kindergarten, and we do it all the way through college — and the [school] garden and the lunchhour become the labs of eco-gastronomy. We’ll make it delicious! That’s the good news, it’s a really tasty course.
With all that said, what keeps you focused, motivated and hopeful. Are you hopeful?
Believe it or not, I am hopeful. I was indoctrinated by the right people at the right time, which was when I was in college. And I became very hopeful that we can do this.
Ritzy Ryciak has noticed that food tastes better since her interview with Alice Waters.