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Food and Media are Deeply Connected

Food is direct cultural memory;
it nourishes as it keeps us alive and connects us to the past -- our own, our families,' our communities.'

Our media is also direct cultural memory.
It has the fierce ability to nourish our consciousness just as powerfully and to keep us alive to imagine realities other than our own. -- -- Helen De Michiel

carrotsinjeans.jpgWell said! 

This quote is from Helen De Michiel's article, "Toward A Slow Media Practice," in which she outlines the relationships between food and media.  Her ideas are a good platform from which to explore the many ways in which our daily immersion in food and media can make sense as unifying experiences, one nurturing the other. 

Both presenting the same choices about how we choose to address corporate control, local food and media independence, transnational yet grassroots collaborations, fair trade.  And what I like best:  both offering joy.

Michiel goes on to say that "Both Slow Food and Media Arts represent significant niches in our cultural landscape.They are quiet movements built on the ideals of self-determination, community empowerment, and preservation of legacy in a throwaway milieu. While neither valued nor well understood by the mainstream, they both are sustaining individuals and communities with imaginative practices that transform consciousness in a slow and steady flow.

While Slow Food defends endangered foods, we struggle to carve out and protect a public space where independent media arts practices can thrive."

Now I'm going to make a nice breakfast!

A Serving of Justice

It's a good thing that I'm feeling jumbled, riled, mixed up and chaotic.  The protests against the corporate reality in which we live (corporations are persons now) are chaotic, which means powerful, energizing and substantive.  Injustice is always served with food.  So is justice.

ServeWhitesml.jpg The recipe that I'm posting today is one for chefs and foodies.  We will continue to serve food when needed to support  Occupy Wall Street rallies.  We will blog about food and it's corporate control.  Foodies will take up anew conversations about the food movemen and about:  Native Americans denied the right to plant corn seeds in their gardens because Monsanto has patented the seed, Obesity resulting from corporatized food,,etc., etc., etc. 

Personal actions in choosing what we  do are the cornerstone.  This essay by Kristin Wartman maps well the food movement opportunity. 

Going out for brunch now!
Adán

notes on cooking...

a series of video shorts
"critical thinking about food and its meanings"

3 minutes with a chef, filmmaker or food activist.  The series covers trends in food pathways, food conglomerates, kitchens, farms, labor and entertainment. Issues about social justice and the cultivation of enjoyment and fun. And of course, inventive recipes--delicious taste is IN!

The series uploads one segment weekly on www.jmcommunications.com


--a High Definition version is on the Vimeo channel, "Notes on Cooking," http://vimeo.com/channels/245942



The series begins with critically acclaimed Chef Iliana De La Vega who speaks out on Mexican cuisine. Her call is for "no more burros!"  Originally from Mexico City and Oaxaca, she currently serves on the Faculty of the Culinary Institute of America and the Center for Foods of the Americas. She is Owner/Chef of El Naranjo in Austin, Texas.
 Other chefs included in the series are:

-Chef Johnny Hernandez, Chef/Owner of "La Gloria" in San Antonio, Texas is acclaimed for his inventive recreations of Mexican street food and regional cuisines. His stellar positions include the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara.

-Chef Hinnerk von Bargen, International Consultant on Restaurant and Culinary Trends, Faculty at the Culinary Institute of America, His chef positions have included hotels and restaurants in Germany, South Africa and China. He is currently authoring a book on Street Foods of the World.

-Chef Melissa Guerra, Host of "The Texas Provincial Kitchen" Television series, author of Tejano and TexMex cuisine cookbooks including "Dishes From The Wild Horse Desert."

-Chef Alain Dubernard, His positions have included chef-owner and general manager of La Balance Pâtisserie in Mexico City, Chef de partie at Hôtel Bristol in Paris, and commis pâtissier/chef de tour for Roux Restaurants Ltd. in London.

See a High Definition version on Vimeo:  http://vimeo.com/channels/245942

Produced by Adán M. Medrano

The series is licensed under Creative Commons License: Attribution, Non-commercial, Share-alike 


A wonderfully severe, sinister humor video art piece about food and cooking.  Don't expect the approach that:  "Video, like TV,  is a tool whose purpose is deliver food and cooks prancing about as entertainers or "stars."  Nope that would be the Food Network.  Here, the video itself is the content.  And it is a sharp critique.



The artist, Martha Rosler says "An anti-Julia child replaces the domesticated 'meaning' of tools with a lexicon of rage and frustration."





She takes kitchen utensils, one by one, in perfectly dead-pan delivery, and changes their meaning.  You won't use an ice pick in the same way again,,,nor a ladle!  Ms. Rosler made this in 1975. I think the critique speaks to today.  I think, we need more.  Let me know your reaction. 


 





"El Bulli: Cooking In Progress"

Just wanted to make this quick post about the 2-hour documentary by Gereon Wetzel that I  saw this week.
elbulli.jpg
"El Bulli: Cooking in Progress" is beginning to screen in theatres here in the US and the critics are somewhat tepid about it.  I loved the film and just wanted to note that the director, in this work, has found creative synchronicity with El Bulli, the restaurant.  For me the film successfully and powerfully shows what it's like to make a serious, personal creative decision.  With no narrative (some critics wanted a voice-over to explain what we are seeing) and no interviews (some think that it is only in  the speaking that the idea is clear), the film gets inside the interactions of chefs, their desires, their personal relationships, the unspoken behaviors that lead to:  the making of a dish and with it the desire to express something new and meaningful.  The film is itself a work of art and the style mimics the style of the El Bulli cuisine which privileges discovery.  This is an example of the relationship of media to food that goes beyond media being a conduit for showing food.  There is an interaction of art forms.

Variety explains well the general US reaction so far, I think: " the pic doesn't have the narrative drive or emotional appeal of a documentary like D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus' "Kings of Pastry," but still will serve as a tasty item for fests on its way to broadcast."

I hope that you will see it if and when it shows at your hometown.  I think you'll see synchronicity of film and food.

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