Celebrity Chef, Luxury & Ethical Eating.

Virginia Catena Student ID: 60951 ​ Supervisor: Linda Lapina ​ Bachelor Project Autumn/Winter Semester 2018

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Abstract

This project explores through Critical Discourse Analysis the subjects of ethical eating and luxury, within the context of Dan Barber’s book “The Third Plate: Fieldnotes on the future of Food”(2014). The analysis section is structured in three main sections: Narrating produce, the chef and ethical consumption and lastly it explores Barbers ideas on food choices and taste. The analysis section is supported by Bourdieu’s notion of Cultural Capital, Habitus, The taste of Luxury and Necessity. Furthermore, Johnston & Baumann’s “Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape”(2010) plays a central role in unpacking the discousess regarding the politics of eating that Barber reproduces in his book referred to as “Win, win” Logic.

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Table of Contents

Motivation 3 Introduction 4 Dan Barber 5 “The Third Plate”, a short summary. 5 Problem Area 8

Methodology 9

Theory 11 Foodscape & The Foodie 12 Eating Ethically & Celebrity Chefs, a brief overview. 13 Bourdieu: The use of Cultural Capital & The taste of necessity and Luxury 14

Analysis 17

Part 1: Produce 17 Part 2: The Chef 24 Part 3 29

Concluding Discussion. 32

Bibliography 35

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Motivation

The trajectory to my current project is peculiar. This project started with the idea of studying Urban Gardens in Copenhagen, aiming to do participant observation in a specific one. I was fascinated by this rooftop space were people volunteer every week to pick vegetables, that they will later eat in their little farm-to-table restaurant. I emailed the garden, to ask them if I could participate in their volunteer days, to perform a series of observations. While I waited for their reply, I began to look at who had written about the farm-to-table movement. So within the possibilities I saw Dan Barber's name. I remembered Dan Barber as what was probably what I would qualify as the most boring episode on the otherwise brilliant show “Chef’s Table”. Barber, was not half as charismatic as Massimo Bottura talking about his epiphany during an Art Biennale in Milan or Alex Atala exploring the Amazon. He was this skinny New Yorker chefs, calmed, talking from his farm Blue Hill. I gave Barber’s book a chance, despite my lack of interest in his character or his food. What I found wrapped me in; stories of producers all over the world that do things differently and a chef that is concerned with how we eat. The side story to my project became the story, and in some way, I was fortunate that the garden took a while to reply.

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Introduction

This project will explore the book “The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food” by Dan Barber. The project will use Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA) as a tool to explore Barber’s narratives concerning chefs, eating ethically and luxury. The first section of the project will be dedicated to briefly introducing the reader to who is Dan Barber and to Barber’s book, how it is structured and what are its main themes. A method section will follow, explaining why CDA(Fairclough, 1992) is the adequate methodological approach in the context of the analysis. Furthermore, the theory section will expand on the main theoretical tools that will be used in said analysis. Firstly, a review of the “foodscape” today and the role of the foodie(Johnston & Baumann, 2010), that is whom Barber is addressing in his book. Moreover, will briefly review how the figure of the celebrity chef emerged(Lee, 2014). Later, I will review the concepts of Cultural Capital (Bourdieu, 1984) by Bourdieu as well as some of the notions he presents in “Distinction” regarding taste production and Luxury(Bourdieu, 1986). After reviewing all these key theoretical components, follows the analysis section. This will be divided into three sections. The first one will engage with produce or goods and how these are narrated within the scope of Barber’s worldview. The second one is the chefs' place in ethical consumption. This section develops on Barber’s broader ideas on what are the chef’s responsibilities and how do they relate to food choices.

Dan Barber

Dan Barber is an American chef. He became famous first for his work in Blue Hill restaurant that opened its doors in the year 2000 in New York City. Later, in 2004, he radicalised his farm-to-table approach by partnering with The Stone Barns Centre

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for Food and Agriculture in Upstate New York and opened a branch of Blue Hill in the same year. The Stone Barns Centre started as an initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation in 2001 to educate young farmers. Barber’s family farm, Blue Hill, (that served as inspiration for his first restaurant’s name) was the adjacent farm to the new Stone Barns Centre. Barber’s involvement in the centre was a pivotal point. His involvement gave the Stone Barns Centre a clear purpose, and he became instrumental in developing close relations with farmers around the world. Barber purpose became to communicate the intricate relation between agriculture and a plate of food. Barber was also, appointed during the Obama administration, to serve as counsel in matters of Nutrition.

“The Third Plate”, a short summary.

“In the future delicious food is in the hands of farmers who grow nature and abide by its instructions, we ought to become more literate about what that means. (..) The Farmers in this book farm one level down. They don’t think in terms of cultivating one thing. If your worldview is that everything is connected to something else, why would you? Instead, they grow nature by orchestrating a whole system of farming. And they produce a lot of things -delicious food, to be sure, but also things we can’t easily measure or see” -Dan Barber, The Third Plate, 2004. ​

“The Third Plate: Field notes on the Future of Food” came out in 2014. The book is a collection of stories Dan Barber compiled during ten years of interacting with other Chefs and Farmers; coincidentally, this was around the time that Blue Hill became part of the Stone Barns Centre. The book's structure is simple, its divided into four main sections Soil, Land, Sea and Seed. Each chapter begins with an opinion piece of the state of industrial practices on that particular environment and moves on to take an example of a specific producer or/and chef, that will guide the message Barber hopes to convey.

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The first chapter, Soil, addresses the changes that wheat, as a crop, has undergone in the context of American Agriculture. The section is a simple overview of American Agriculture, a story about abundance. How has the American landscape changed with the development of industrial farming techniques? Barber argues that because of the how vast and fertile American soil was, producers, stop worrying about feeding their land. American Farmers began concentrating on the yields of their harvest to the detriment of the land. Pesticides and fertilisers came into the equation later on and finally, genetical engineering changed wheat so drastically, that instead of relying on the richness of the soil, the crop became dependant on the heavy use of fertilisers to reach its optimal form. Barber’s example for “Soil” is Klaas Martens and his wife Mary-Howell, a couple of now renowned organic farmers from Penn Yan, New York. Klass tale is set on a farm that his family had own for three generations. He grew up in the rise of pesticides and genetically engineered crops that his father and grandfather revered since the yields were growing each year. In 1994, Klass got sick after spraying pesticides on his farm. Mary-Howell and Klass decide to go organic after that year, and they began the long process recovering the health of their farm. In the twenty years between their start as organic farmers and the publishing of “The Third Plate”, the couple became the pioneers of organic farming in the Penn Yan area. Perhaps the most interesting fact is that the community who was in disbelief in 1994 of their neighbour's new practices, is now a predominantly organic community. Klass and Mary-Howell might seem like two characters from the book far from the theme of this project, but they are key players in Barber’s worldview. Firstly in the idea of interconnectedness between the chef and the farmer, that I will develop on my analysis. “Rotation Risotto” one of Barber’s most famous dishes were he uses as a base for the Risotto whatever crop is rotating in the farm during that season is a gesture towards the couple as mentioned earlier, and will be another subject delved into in the analysis section.

Part two of the book is called “Land” and will be one of the main analytical focuses of this project. The main story Barber puts forward to convey his message is Eduardo Sousa’s “gavage” free foie gras. In this chapter, Barber discusses foie gras and its problematic production. Foie gras is fattened ducks or geese liver that in most of the

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cases has been produced by a force-feeding technique called ‘gavage’. Gavage consists of inserting a tube powered by a pneumatic or hydraulic pump into the animal's throat and force-feeding it corn in the 12-15 days before the slaughter (Rochlitz & Broom, 2017). The animal will eat more corn in those days than it would have consumed in a lifetime. To put it in relatable terms it is as if a human was force feed 40 kg of pasta per day, for 12-15 days. It is not surprising that the practice has been banned in many Countries. Barber presents two producers one is his friend owner of Hudson Valley foie gras, where they argue to produce ethical foie gras, but gavage is still included. Then he proposes another way of looking at ethical foie gras, that is radically different to the first one. Eduardo Sousa is a producer in the Spanish Dehesa. Mr Sousa’s practice sounds revolutionary to Barber, but his family had been practising it for generations. The practice is simple; he lets his geese run free, no cages, or feeding rooms. The geese feed on acorns, olives and anything that farm grows, Eduardo just steers them in the right direction. How does he fatten the geese liver one might ask? The Geese have a natural cycle, and when winter is nearing, they naturally gorge to prepare for it. The geese became obese, and that is where Eduardo “puts them to sleep”. Furthermore, Barber inspired by Eduardo begins producing his foie gras at Blue Hill Farm. This encounter has made Barber even more aware of the responsibility behind the production of animal products. The practices presented by Hudson Valley and Sousa are radically different and represent two different conceptions of what animal cruelty means. The analysis section will discuss Sousa’s approach in depth.

Part three of the book is called Sea. The two main characters of the book are Angel Leon, Chef of the three Michelin starred Aponiente and Miguel Medialdea, a biologist from Veta la Palma fish farm. The chef became famous for cooking with fish that were being discarded because they were not attractive enough to reach the shelves of supermarkets and stores. Leon is also renowned for serving “fish charcuterie” and doing what Barber calls nose-to-tail type of serving. The other side of this chapter is fish farming. Fish farming is seen as a solution of the overfishing of the seas. One of the multiple sides of this type of farming is that many species have yet to adjust to reproduce in captivity. Barber used Veta La Palma as a platform to talk about fishing

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and yet again, about the chef and how his relationship with nature is crucial. I will be using some extracts from this chapter to support some of the arguments of the second section of the analysis.

The Last Chapter is Seed; It tackles the complexity of genetically engineered crops. Barber, the owner of a seed company, discusses the virtues and the faults of this discipline. I will not be developing on this subject in this project.

Problem Area

This project explores the narratives surrounding Ethical consumption in the foodscape as understood by Dan Barber’s “The Third Plate”. This project will discuss:

-How does Barber’s narrative of foie gras production relate to his notion of luxury?

-What role does Barber’s position as a celebrity chef play within his narrative of ethical consumption?

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Methodology

The methodology employed in the analysis section will be Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA). Fairclough's Method will be used to unravel the ideas behind “The Third Plate”. Barber’s book is an opinion piece presented as “field notes on the future of food”. The statement and the scope of the book are broad, but at the same time, it represents the worldview of a particular fraction of people within the foodscape. Fairclough’s method was particularly fitting for this project for his focus on social change(Fairclough, 1992). Barber, from a chef's perspective, is delving into the subject of responsible consumption. The book aims to bring to light practices and ideas behind the current food system. By informing the reader, Barber seeks to change the way people consume and relate to a plate of food. Therefore, inducing a sort of social change through a discursive practice. According to Fairclough, the method can be divided into three main processes(Janks, 1997). The first one would be a descriptive one, where what is said expressively in the text is analysed. The second one would be while the analysis is processed, the content is interpreted. What does the text say, but also what does it imply? Moreover, the last level is social analysis, where the text is explained in a broader context. Fairclough’s method is adequate for this project since it provides a structure to the analysis process of Barber’s book. As previously mentioned his book is an opinion piece; therefore many of his narratives and intentions are loaded with layered meaning(Fairclough, Mulderig & Wodak, 2011). CDA is an apt tool to look at these different levels of meaning-making while serving as a structure of the analysis. Furthermore, “The Third Plate” even if it is the opinion of one chef, its part of a larger narrative within foodscapes. To contextualise this narrative within the foodscape, it is necessary to conduct a social analysis. Within a social analysis, we can observe the power structures that are presented within the text, starting from Barbers right to speak. Who gives Barber this authority and how and why he believes he has the right to exercise it. This is also important because Barber chooses to empower

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certain producers and chef by mentioning them in their books and explaining their practices to the reader. The author uses many of these stories as metaphors for grander social narratives. Critical Discourse Analysis here also serves as a tool to take distance and be critical of the meanings Barber is trying to transmit through these narratives. For these reasons, the analysis section will be divided into three main parts. The first one will deal with an individual level; a producer used as a metaphor of broader practices. The second one will be dedicated to the chef perspective, sections of Barber reflexions about cooking and the worldview of the chef. This will organically move on to understanding Barbers broader message in the book that Cooking should be a social gesture, to guests and producers

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Theory

The literature used in this project was gathered from several sources. The theoretical readings were found via Google Scholar, and REX(Royal Danish Library) with words search such as *Chef, *Celebrity Chefs, *Foodie. Most of the literature found concerned other chefs such as Jamie Oliver predominantly or Anthony Bourdain. Some of these articles found were still relevant to use in the context of Dan Barber’s worldview. One of the readings that became key to help me take distance from my initial fascination with Dan Barber’s book was “Foodies, democracy and distinction in the Foodscape” by Johnston & Baumann. This book was particularly important, not only to widen my perspective on Barber, but also because it led me to read “The Omnivore's Dilemma” by Pollan that is vital to understand the ontology of Barber’s worldview. Pollan posses more significant questions than Barber does on the food system and its ethics, for instance the fact that Barber never questions eating meat in his book. His work is also more structured than Barbers. The use I made of this book served more as supporting knowledge to broaden my understanding of the author, and I will only use it to hamper some arguments in the analysis section, but does not constitute an integral part of my theoretical approach.

Foodscape & The Foodie

Johnston and Baumann analyse in their book “Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape”(2010) what they denominate the foodscape and the foodie discourses within. Using as a starting point Appadurai’s scapes of cultural flows(Appadurai, 1990), they perform a cultural analysis over various source of media relating to food. A foodscape, as explained by the authors, is “a dynamic ​ social construction that relates food to places, people, meanings, and material processes.” The term highlights the dialectic relation between culture and food, and ​

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how our understanding of the food system is influenced by the different forms of media (Johnston & Baumann, 2009). Framing the foodscape is important to place Barber’s narrative in the context of a discursive practice that highlights the value of certain practices over others. Foodies, according to the authors are the central players within the foodscape. Foodies, first and foremost, are omnivores and they are primarily portrayed in the study conducted by the authors as democratic eaters. A foodie would be generally opened to trying new things, to eating food from different parts of the world and see this as a cultural act, as Johnston & Baumann argue. The foodie creates meaning in the act of eating and sees food and what they eat as a central part of their identity(Johnston & Baumann, 2009). The other side of foodie discourses is more complex. It looks at the foodie as a snob, a privileged eater that may pick and choose what fits the narrative of his or her “lifestyle” as a foodie. Ironically, according to the authors, obvert snobbism is now frowned upon within this discourses. Both sides of the foodie narrative coexist in the current foodscape. However, what both sides have in common, is that neither of them looks at food primarily over their nutritional value or even for its flavour. Food, in their scope, is a sign of status: either cultural or economic. Warren Belasco, a food historian, argues that “to eat is to distinguish and discriminate, include and exclude. Food choices ​ establish boundaries and borders” (Belasco, 2002). Food choice becomes distinctive ​ of lifestyle choices and an integral part of the foodie’s identity.

Eating Ethically & Celebrity Chefs, a brief overview.

Foodie discourses have a complex history, that due to the nature of this project I will not expand on. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to locate ourselves in a gourmet foodscape, where the dominant narrative is the omnivore one. The term omnivore, in the context of foodie discourses, aims to highlight a general trend of consumption that steps away from highbrow notions of cultural exclusion. Omnivorousness does not entail approval, but openness to consider multiple expressions of culture when exposed to them. The differential factor, is intellectualised appreciation of these cultural forms (Peterson & Kern, 1996). Food discourses might not pretend to be as stratified as

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they used to but have become increasingly politicised (Johnston & Baumann, 2009). A plate of food nowaday can reflect grander statements like multiculturalism in fusion cuisines or activism with vegan choices or simply “authenticity” in kitchens like Musa Dagdeviren’s who only cooks regional-heritage food. Sustainability today, is not only a political statement within foodie discourses but a trendy practice. Barber’s book is located within this fraction of foodie discourses. Ethical eating as a trendy discourse is relatively new. The first celebrity chef voice was Alice Waters who opened Chez Panisse in the 1970’s in Berkley, California. Waters, a 1970’s counterculture woman, did not become an immediate success, her restaurant and ideas did not prosper or resonate until the late ’80s. Chez Panisse was French inspired but focused on local ingredients, grown by California producers. In a time when imported foods were the ultimate luxury, this was disruptive. Waters was one of the first chefs to discuss publicly the political consequences of personal consumption habits. Largely influenced by Berkley’s counterculture, she begun serving food for individuals that were preoccupied with “where their food came from and how it was produced” (Citivello, 2007 in Johnston & Baumann, 2009). “The Third Plate” is part of a narrative of the chef as an activist, that only came to exist with Alice Waters. Her way of thinking influenced Barber greatly, this will be developed in the analysis section. As previously mentioned, eating ethically is now part of the mainstream discourse. Organic foods have come a long way since Waters stated and are now widely sold. This success has been in many cases the joint effort of supermarkets and celebrity chefs. One clear example of this is Jamie Oliver who has partnered with British and Australian supermarkets to promote the sales of free-range products, highlighting everyday recipes for family meals made with organic products the supermarkets sold (Lewis & Huber, 2015). Oliver, has also managed to use his celebrity status to shed light into social issues, like the quality of food, school children eat in the UK.

Celebrity chefs are modern phenomena enabled firstly in 1993 by The Food Network (Lee, 2014) and now even more encouraged by platforms like Netflix. Netflix is currently presenting shows that promote different chefs such as Chef's Table(2015), “Mind of a Chef”(2012) or “Sal, Fat, Acid, Heat”(2018). Lee analyses the construction

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of the chef as a celebrity noting that the due to the higher exposure in the platforms mentioned above, chefs currently have the space to discuss not only their cooking but their prerogative on cooking and the politics surrounding food. Moreover, she proposes that “Celebrity culture has been integrated into the chef industry because chefs themselves have become key sites of media attention” (Lee, 2014). According to the author, the added element of celebrity also influences the way the public perceives the chefs themselves, paying special attention to their points of view. Therefore generating a sense of familiarity between the viewer and the chef, as the author explains. This way, Chefs become signs of what the foodscape should aspire too. It is within this paradigm that we encounter books such as “The Third Plate”, that far from being a cooking book is a declaration of a chefs worldview.

Bourdieu: The use of Cultural Capital & The taste of necessity and Luxury

Some concepts from Bourdieu’s “Forms of Capital” will be used in the analysis section, with a special focus on “Cultural Capital”. According to Bourdieu, Cultural Capital may be present in three forms embodied state, objectified state or institutionalised state. Cultural Capital can, in some cases, be exchanged for economic capital or other forms of capital. The fact that I am only focusing on one form of capital is by no means ignoring their interconnectedness. But, solely because it becomes evident within foodie discourses that foodies do poses a certain type of capital, especially the “ethical foodie”(Johnston & Baumann, 2009). The type of Cultural Capital, embodied state, refers to habits or manners accumulated during the individual's lifetime. Since this type of Capital becomes such an integral part of the person, it cannot be inherited or transmitted instantly such as property, its exclusive to every individual. It is acquired by exposure to it in a long-term, such as a regional accent or family traditions. The second one, the “objectified state” can be seen in objects or “cultural goods” that denote meaning, such as owning a Kindle or a certain brand of computer “Cultural goods can be appropriated both materially ⏤ which presupposes economic capital ⏤ and symbolical” (Bourdieu, 1986). To understand Bourdieu in the context of this project:

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eating at restaurants such as Blue Hill, Noma or Central has become a symbol of cultural status. A person eating there does not only posses the economic capital to buy the experience but also the cultural capital to create meaning of it. The third one, institutionalised generally refers to academic qualifications. In foodie discourses, can be looked at for instance in relation to the Michelin Guide. Michelin stars equal prestige in the restaurant world, the more stars, the more prestige. Furthermore, the restaurant can exchange this institutionalised prestige in the form of stars in having a long waiting list for guest that become more economic capital in time. For the analysis, I will also be using some concepts from Bourdieu’s “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste”. In Distinction, Bourdieu unpacks the influence of class within the processes of consumption and taste production, while introducing the reader to some of his most significant conceptual contributions such as social fields or habitus. Although his analysis is mostly in function of musical preferences, it is quite relevant applied to the foodscape today. When Bourdieu wrote his book, celebrity chefs did not have the same media exposure they enjoy nowadays; therefore they did not pose a platform to manifest their ideas. Fine dining in 1970’s France was a part of the obvert snob’s lifestyle, and being an overt snob is something that is frown upon in today's foodscape, as previously stated. Omnivorousness is in a sense, in direct opposition to the snob archetype presented in Bourdieu’s work (Peterson & Kern, 1996). The role of a chef within his restaurant was different, of course, they were celebrated, but they did not have the celebrity status they possess today, as presented by Lee. Bourdieu could have never observed that in his time. His observations towards food consumption are related to everyday food and the understanding of the nutritional value and how do educated choices also reflect on social status. Despite the difference in analysis focus, the notion of Habitus is helpful to understand the celebrity chef as a tastemaker. Habitus is a “structured and structuring structure” that is both a “generating classifiable practices and works” while working as a scheme to understand and appreciate “classifiable practices and works” (Bourdieu, 1979). A celebrity chef becomes, both the one generating these practices and cultural products that will constitute his embodied authority in the food industry’s stratification. So he creates the practice

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and conditions and its stratification. This theory is helpful to understand Barber’s place within the narrative of “The Third Place”. How does his position as a “taste producer” relate to his ideas about consumption? Bourdieu’s analysis on the subject of food leads him also to find the difference between the “taste of Necessity” and the “taste of Luxury” (and Freedom), that are central themes in the analysis section. The taste of necessity referring to the notion that food is a universal topic, everyone needs to eat. So eating is present in all social classes. However, the everyday choices people make regarding food lie between necessity & nutritional value, and Luxury, which relates to abundance and choice. (Sato, Gittelsohn, Unsain, Roble, Scagliusi, 2015)

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Analysis

Part 1: Produce

The first section of the analysis will take up three main themes, all of them represent a distinctive point within Barber’s worldview. This section will be dedicated to produce or goods; it will take up the example of foie gras production. Section one will develop the interaction between the chef and the process of food production. The second section of the analysis focus on stories about chefs, and what is the place of the chef in what Barber believes to be a healthy food system. Finally, the third section will discuss the limitations of the farm to table movement; while discussing the new meanings for taste and luxury that he proposes within the scope of The Third Plate.

The chapter Land of "The Third Plate" is mostly dedicated to Eduardo Sousa, a Spanish foie gras producer, as previously mentioned. Sousa is a character that Barber takes time to portray; he finds it vital for the reader to understand how this man is connected to his animals. He mentions small details such as on his arrival to the estate; they caught him talking to his geese and taking pictures of them with his phone. Sousa is painted as a bizarre man, that only cares about the well being of his animals. Barber at the start of the first meeting pressures the producer to explain him about the workings of the farm, expecting to find a place with a schedule or clear procedures to obtain the product he sells. Barber assumed that even if there was no force feeding that there would be some kind of active feeding from the side of Eduardo. However, what he encounters confuses him. Eduardo, according to Barber does not know where his geese are, he does not feed them, lets them feed on his olives that otherwise, he would sell making a bigger profit. Moreover, what puzzles Barber the most is that he “protects” them with electric fences that only would electrocute animals on the outside, like coyotes coming to steal their eggs. Eduardo

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has experienced that his geese eat considerably less if he fences them in, but if the electricity goes on the outside, they feel protected from predators. Eduardo, tells Barber his geese are free to leave anytime, but they will only leave if he does not do his job correctly. During the first visit to the farm Barber witnesses wild geese flying into the farm. The scene generates the following interaction between Barber and Eduardo, and it is a good example of both of their positions:

The wild geese come to visit? I said Eduardo shook his head. “Sometimes they come and they stay” “Stay…?” “Sometimes they never leave”, he said. I tried to convey my disbelief, offering the analogy of a wild pig happening upon an American hog confinement farm and choosing to stay. Eduardo didn’t seem to understand the point, and not because of the translation. It was the concept of ten thousand pigs in confinement that he found hard to believe. At first, he thought it wasn’t possible. Then he just seemed uninterested in learning more. “But Eduardo”, I said, “isn't the DNA of the goose to fly south in the winter and north in the-” “No” he interrupted shaking his head. “No, the DNA of a goose is to seek conditions that are conducive to life, to happiness. When they come here, that is what they find”(Barber, 2014, p.130)

Two powerful images can be used observed in the text. Both lie within radically different understandings of farming practices. One is the hog confinement, analogy that Barbers suggests, where no animal would be happy to walk into. The second one is wild geese flying free into a farm, to live in captivity with other geese. Both images crash in the interaction, Barber unable to understand Eduardo’s way of raising his geese wild at the time cannot understand why a wild animal would fly into “confinement”. What the author is yet to see is that the reason Eduardo raises his geese wild is that it is the only way that their natural instincts kick in. This way the geese gorge prior to the winter naturally, their livers will become fatty, and Eduardo can produce his unique product without force feeding them. Eduardo’s lack of visible

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method is what Barber will later understand and denominate “growing nature” a non-aggressive form of farming, that allows nature to regulate the whole system. The idea of comfortable geese within the production of foie gras is alien to Barber, especially for the cruelty of the traditional practice. So he finds it hard to believe that any animal would flight into captivity, especially geese to a foie gras production farm. However, this farm has nothing in common with the farms Barber knows. Wildness in Eduardo's farm is encouraged, not domesticated. Unlike the hog walking into the hog confinement in Barber’s analogy, the geese flying in wouldn’t be demanded to lose their instincts. Those instincts are the critical component in the production of Eduardo’s foie gras.

Eduardo’s job is to make available to the geese, wild food all year round. If they are comfortable enough the geese will not feel the need to leave. Geese migrate only when the resources available to them seem scarce, Eduardo has to ensure that resources plentiful, year round. Barber is unable to see this in his first or second visit to the Spanish Farm. Years later when Barber is experimenting with raising his geese and having trouble replicating the process, he flights Eduardo over to consult on Blue Hill farm. One of the discussion themes is the slaughter or the animals as in the following extract:

“I asked Eduardo if his efforts were meant to ensure the highest quality livers or to guarantee the welfare of his geese. He shook his head slightly and smiled, a sign that he didn’t understand the question. I tried again. “What motivated you? If you had to choose, is it the sweet livers you want or the painless end of life? Eduardo raised his eyebrows.”What's the difference?”(Barber, 2014)

This short interaction is significant to understand Barber’s ideas on produce and ethical farming. Eduardo is asked if his intention behind his level of care for his geese is only to achieve a better end product. Eduardo acts like he does not understand the question or seems uninterested, like in the first statement presented. After being pushed to answer what is more important caring about an end product or caring about the well being of the geese, Eduardo says these two are the same

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thing. It is important to notice that Eduardo appears to attribute the quality of his product to his animals' well-being. This idea that there is a correlation between animal welfare and getting a better product to sell is underlying within Eduardo’s narrative. In both statements, Eduardo’s lack of interest both in a hog confinement or in differencing between animal welfare and the quality of the product can be attributed to the same idea. He has a holistic view of the system; he refuses to separate the quality of the product with animal welfare. This is the first time that Barber directly introduces the reader to what Johnston & Baumann refer to as the “Win, Win Logic” in sustainability-related foodie discourses(Johnston & Baumann, 2010). This Logic speculates that if the consumer buys what is best for the environment will also inevitability get the best flavour and healthiest choice. In this case, and most of the ones presented in this book, the producer acts ethically towards its animals, the sea or just towards its farm soil and it is in consequence producing a better product. This direct reasoning between being rewarded for acting ethically is the bottom line of foodie discourses and Barber acts in this book as an authority within them. Consequently, getting the best flavour is considered a reward for “doing the right thing”.

When the moment comes for Barber to taste the foie gras he’s been writing about: Barber is underwhelmed by the setting the plate is served in. The chef is unsure of what Sousa’s product will actually taste like, if it will even resemble traditional foie gras. At the same time, his fascination with Sousa and his geese makes him feel vulnerable as if no matter what the product tastes, he will love it because he is infatuated with the idea of this foie gras without gavage. When the waiter brings the plate Eduardo looks at Barber and announces “Freedom foie gras” and removes the ​ ​ garnish next to the slice of foie gras on the plate looking a bit embarrassed according to Barber. As if the chefs meddling with his product bothered him. When he tastes it he is astonished at the spicing in the meat and remarks how well suited are. Eduardo, tells him he has not added anything into the mix, which irritates Barber. He remarks “If you want to irritate a chef, start by questioning his palate”. This statement ​ ​ puts the palate of a chef as his most important attribute, as the anatomical function that is most important to himself. What makes him the chef, who he is. The word

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“chef” here is used as a denominator of his species, more than human he is a chef, a being dedicated to taste. Eduardo has dared to question his belonging to this species by questioning his palate. I will develop on the meaning of the portrayal of the chef, later in section two.

Barber keeps asking about variables of spices that he thinks he can taste, while Eduardo denies every-single-one. He explains Barber than an adequate diet in the geese everyday’s life will result in a balanced taste in the meat. Some herbs at salinity to their livers, while others add peppery notes, such as peppercorn plants. He admits to adding salt and pepper occasionally, but he says they do nothing to the taste of the final product compared to what a diet can do. Baber is completely astonished by this fact and will, in fact, return to this same statement in various form throughout the chapter in question. He asks Eduardo “You season the livers in the ​ field?”. The Chef persona takes over Barber though this question. He thinks of a diet ​ as a metaphor for seasoning. The animal, alive at that point becomes embodies as a product. Before the animal is slaughtered, before it gets to the restaurant or even the plate the animal is “seasoned”. The Geese diet is not random but catered to suit its future human consumption. The geese are raised free, only to be slaughtered. Eduardo claims he only makes available to the geese what they want. But the geese desires, in this case, ends up being in line with what will taste better to a human palate, when their livers become foie gras. The breeder, in this context, Sousa, is proposed by Barber as a chef of the live animal, seasoning the animal with the food that will make their livers taste better in the future. The field as his kitchen, the animal as their main dish. Eduardo’s feeding practices, the seasoning, should not be questioned just like Barber’s palate.

One of the final conversations Eduardo and Barber have regarding the animals and their taste is regarding the slaughter of the animals:

“They must enter the room with free will.” The geese don't struggle, they never lose self-control. Free will, he explained to me patiently,” is why their livers taste so sweet.”

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How did he know for sure that the animal hadn’t suffered? “The taste!” he said. “That liver you had -did it taste like a goose that struggled?” Of course, it hadn’t. It tasted like a goose that had been coddled and massaged to death, but how was I supposed to know the difference? Until I met Eduardo, I didn't even know it was possible to produce foie gras without at least some discomfort”(Barber, 2014)

This statement has two important sections two pay attention too. The first one is the presence of the logic in question, were Eduardo questions Barber back, asks him if he is unable to taste the humane treatment these geese have been subjects too. Which is yet another argument to support the logic. The geese liver wouldn't be as good, if these animals wouldn’t act with “free will”. Free will is one of the main idiosyncratic elements in Eduardo’s approach to his animals and product. The geese are free to roam the land, free to choose what to eat, free to leave whenever they wish. The importance Eduardo puts in the geese’s self-determination, and even at times in the book on their self-awareness is a notable personification of the animal. His foie gras is a better product because of the self-determination of his geese, they are wild, they haven’t been subdued by a tube or a cage. And according to Eduardo, one should taste that. Barber is proposing here, in a very subtle way, that if one ​ consumes ethically one can buy a product that tastes of freedom. If given the choice, who wouldn’t want to taste freedom?

This is allusive to Bourdieu's ideas on the taste of Luxury and Necessity. Luxury as discussed within the frame of “Distinction” implies choice within necessity. Choice being the luxury of the ones whose needs are constantly satisfied(Bourdieu, 1986) To both, the consumer of foie gras and the geese itself, food is a necessity. Firstly, to look at these ideas in the context of foie gras production where the act of feeding is the most problematic part. In the traditional form, as previously mentioned, the geese is forced to gorge on corn, just for the sole purpose of fattening its liver. These resonates of the idea of “The taste of necessity”. The only thing being considered when feeding the animal corn in this violent manner is functionality. Fast force-feeding equals more livers to sell. Food as the means to an end.

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On the other hand we have Sousa’s practice, were the geese choose to eat olives, which signify an economic loss to the producer, but he does not seem to care, everything for the happiness of the geese. Freedom is the directing value in the production of the geese. And freedom here is directly linked to luxury(Bourdieu,1986). The luxury to choose when to eat, what to eat and to leave if they want to, but mostly to listen to their bodies. Even if both geese are created to be slaughtered to become a luxury item; the fact that the geese Sousa’s raised are free, adds to the taste of Luxury and this is reflected in the price of his product. According to Barber, Sousa’s liver cost 500 Euros, while other livers are sold for 90 Euros approximately. While the traditional foie gras, carries with itself the element of guilt to the consumer and in some cases even the condition of illegality. So, guilt free foie gras is only accessible to the ones that can afford it.

The conversation finishes in an interaction that Barber will also bring back several times in the book. He asks Eduardo, who is serving his foie gras. Eduardo acts puzzled and just replies with another question “Chefs?”. Barber pushes for an answer. He mentions that some of the best chefs in the world are Spanish, so naturally, they would demand the best ingredients, and these livers were within that category. He cannot fathom how they would not sell it. Eduardo replies with one his most provocative lines, that will result on the end of the chapters about Eduardo's farm. “‘Chefs’, he said gently wiping his mouth, ‘Chefs ​ ​ ​ don’t deserve my foie gras’”. What Eduardo is implying here, is that his product is too ​ good for them, since its a finished product. A product he “seasoned” himself in the fields. And chefs, will try to add their own seasoning, to make it their own and he cannot accept that. Eduardo’s foie gras has a personality of his own, its free, just like his geese. The only alterations in these geese livers are induced, naturally, by Eduardo. The quality of his foie gras is a praise to himself as a producer for facilitating what these geese need to be happy. Chefs to Eduardo embody the opposite of his natural relationship with his animals. Eduardo’s product being the embodiment of authenticity, while chefs represent adulteration.

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Part 2: The Chef

This chapter will discuss the understanding Barber has of the chef's place within the foodscape. The chapter must be understood within the frame that Lee proposes for a chef like Barber, with a celebrity status, that has been given a platform to share his ideas. Barbers book allows the reader to glance into the mind of this chef. Barber, being empowered by the celebrity status in question, sees in chefs the possibility to be the agents of change of the food system. Even if I will not be analysing the contents of Barber’s episode of “Chefs Table”, I find some of his reflections pertinent in the frame of this analysis. For instance, there is a very interesting moment at the end of his episode, when he seizes the opportunity to enthuse about the importance of the chef. He mentions there are multiple ways to look at the problems with agriculture and nutrition today. But a neither a nutritionist, an ecologist or an agricultural economist can see the full picture. Because all of them are focused in their particular area. But the chef, he argues, has the possibility to connect them all in a plate of food. He claims that by producing more dishes like “Rotation Risotto” a chef can make a difference. “Rotation Risotto”, the dish he mentions it's one of his most famous plates, where each season he uses every grain farmers produce during their crop rotation. He firmly believes, as he expands on chapter one of the book, that a simple way to incentivise farmers to allow the soil to recover (by planting crops other than wheat or soy) is to cook with sunflower, rye, barley and oats. If there is no demand for this rotation crops, why would farmers plant them? He hopes to make more dishes like that one, dishes that create a market for products that are not necessarily consumed widely or are byproducts of popular ingredients or parts of the animal that are not as popular. For instance, crops like barley, that are good for the soil, but not necessarily prevalent for consumption. He means, it’s the chefs place to create a commercial space for what is discarded, what is unpopular. He supports his logic in the book by quoting Thomas Keller, a chef he admires and who is an environmentalist as well. Keller argues

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“It's easy to cook filet mignon and call yourself a chef’. Chef Thomas Keller once wrote. “But that’s not really cooking. That’s heating. Preparing tripe, however, is a transcendental act”. We can, and perhaps sometimes we should expect transcendence from chefs, in the way we expect it from artists. To lift us out of our usual understanding of things, of what we know.”

What he does by putting forward Keller’s statement is emphasising this notion, a chef should be challenged, and he should challenge his guests. Whether it is within a form of Omakase serving; the way Barber chooses to serve in Blue Hill where the guest surrenders to the authority of the chef. Where he will decide what are the best servings for them that evening. This type of servings have symbolic implications. The chef and the guest in these cases, play into the idea that the chef, due to his cultural ​ capital, has the knowledge and the authority to decide for them(Bourdieu, 1984). The ​ only way this type of service is valued is if the knowledge of the chef is the factor that guides the experience. Keller and Barber believe that the chef should provoke its guest by pushing their culinary boundaries. In a statement where he compares the chef with an artist, Barber invites the reader to expect more from the chef. To expect transcendence from a meal, something more than just a plate of food. And in the context of a comparison with an artist, transcendence in the hands(or the table) of a chef means to change the way we feel about food and ingredients. A filet mignon is a good cut of meat, something that can be enjoyed by most omnivores, while tripe has to be interpreted and not every meat eater will enjoy it. Aversion for this types of cuts, is not only common within foodie discourses, but a human evolutionary trait were our ancestors felt disgusted, having guttural reactions to items that might contain harmful bacteria, such us guts (Pollan, 2006). By “lifting us out of our understanding” he means, we need someone to interpret what is too complex for us to approach on our own -like tripe-. The chef, to his understanding, is the person that should do this. To challenge the guest palate by introducing new flavours and ingredients, but also empowering the guest with knowledge of what is on their plate and how did it get there. The chef in this statement is not only there to feed our appetites, but to stimulate it. The chef should show us that eating rotation risotto is

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not just tasty but essential to the health of the soil of the farms we rely on.

At times the book can be understood as a message to young chefs, more than to foodies as the general public. A guide to instil a sense of responsibility into what he believes to be the future of food and what role they (the chefs) should play in it. Across the book, he retells stories that shaped him as a young chef and that are somehow connected to the farmer or producer he is presenting at the time. In one of them, Barber is on his way to Europe gain experience from French chefs, when he decides to stop for some days in California to visit Alice Waters Chez Panisse. Waters served a peach, ungarnished, just a peach on a plate. A curious and a bit astonished young Barber approaches the menu to read “Mas Matsumoto Suncrest peach”. This was, as he admits, his first time encountering a California farmer. He writes about the experience:

“A chef’s worth is largely determined by his interpretation of great ingredients (..) Matsumoto's peaches were incredibly delicious. But more than that (...) they got people to consider good food as inseparable from good farming. You think that would be obvious, but chefs often make it difficult to see. When we cook ingredients -whether peaches or foie gras or most anything- we transform them” (..) Either way, when it’s in the chef's hands, all the vectors point back to the chef. Process trumps product Alice was saying: “Taste what Mas Masumoto created, I can’t do better”. She did not say what most chefs say:” Taste this dessert I made with Mas’s peaches” (Barber, 2014 p.136) ​

The fragment is vital to understand how Barber’s worldview came into being. The moment, the grandchild of a farmer and a chef on his formative years encounters a product that reminds him of something he had never imagined, the taste of peach before industrialised farming is, coincidentally, transcendental. Alice Waters, a chef humble enough to allow a flavour she had no hand in to shine through without intervening it because her guest deserved the original experience. Barber twenty years after the experience happened is marked by it, and feels the need to express it in the land chapter right after he narrated his visit to Eduardo’s farm. The taste of the

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authenticity of “the peachest, peach” was as memorable as of “freedom foie gras” (Barber, 2014). The choice to retell this experience is functional to the book since it serves as a preamble to the foie gras tasting moment discussed in the first part of the analysis section. It helps too as a precedent for the reader to understand what does Eduardo mean when he says a chef doesn’t deserve his foie gras.

If a chef’s worth, according to Barber, is defined by his interpretation of great ingredients; What is Waters’ worth? What Waters was doing was not cooking, but identifying a taste that she believed to be outstanding and bringing it to her table, where others could appreciate it too. Maybe what Barber is proposing is that a chef is a tastemaker(Bourdieu,1986), an individual that has the power to show people what to consume and with enough “Cultural Capital” to make these suggestions have consequence. It can be understood that according to the author; cooking is not the only task of the chef, but to define taste and its parameters. A chef authority’ jurisdiction used to be the kitchen and his restaurant. That was the space were his accumulated knowledge and authority on food, his or her Cultural Capital, prevailed over the rests. The exposure of chefs, in Barber’s case in documentaries about food and sustainability such as “Wasted!” (2017), “Sustainable” (2016) or both of his Ted Talks (2007, 2008), amongst others, has made his scope of influence considerably larger. Presenting him as an authority when it relates to food ethics. Lee poses that this type of media presence has brought “Accomplished chefs into our living rooms and public consciousness” (Lee, 2014). Furthermore, she theorizes on the notion that this type of celebrities’ authority seems to come straight from the public, creating an illusion of familiarity with the public” (Lumby in Lee, 2014). This is a specially relevant issue, when thought in relation to Barber; considering that what made him famous is his outstanding work in Blue Hill, a restaurant that plays on the idea of rural luxury and exclusivity. The fact that he is portrayed as the chef voice to listen to when it comes to food ethics, makes one wonder, To what extent are Barbers practices and suggestions applicable or larger scale? If transcendence is only possible by accessing the experience of restaurants like Blue Hill, the scale of change he proposes is microscopic.

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Food ethics have an intrinsic connection to consumerism, which makes them problematic and often paradoxical. Pollan, one of Barber’s great sources of inspiration wrote that “Our food system depends on consumers not knowing much about it beyonds the price disclosed by the check out scanner. Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing”(Pollan, 2006). Pollan’s statement is provocative. ​ Although the third plate, never discusses issues like access to ethical products, Barber expresses concern with consumers knowledge on what is on their plate. This is where he makes use of his celebrity status in a positive manner. Barber does not claim that what he sells is accessible to everyone, but he does hint that knowledge of what one is consuming is. This is the new purpose that Barber is proposing for young chefs to use their Cultural Capital, not only to be interpreters of great ingredients, but to be the bridge between what happens in food production to what is in our plate.

Part 3

This last section of the analysis will expand on Barber’s thoughts on the food system in general, unpacking what does his criticism convey. We will start with his ideas of the limitations of the farm-to-table movement and move towards his understanding of the future of food.

“Even with the farm-to-table movement running high at the moment, we are still guilty of reducing sustainability down to what we buy for dinner. Rarely do we imagine the whole picture, which means that rarely are we forced to realise that a truly sustainable food system is not simple" (Barber, 2014 p.430).

In the previous statement, Barber puts forth that the current solutions within the foodscape are too myopic to see the whole picture. Barber is hopeful for the future of food, and he thinks there is a possibility of improvement. However, he believes there is still much to do. He is concerned that the farm-to-table movement, a movement he has been the face of for many years is flawed. According to him, Ethical eating

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cannot only be only about the sourcing of the food or the distance it travelled to our plate, but it has to be more than that. Barber is not in love with Eduardo’s farm just because it produces a product that satisfies his epicurean need for ethical food that coincides with his search for better flavours (Johnston & Baumann, year). He is in love with a system of agriculture that blends into the Spanish Dehesa’s landscape. Sousa’s system is dictated by nature. The geese will naturally gorge to prepare for winter, so he sees no need to force feed an animal that will fatten on its own to create his product. “Eduardo let’s nature dictates the terms” (Barber, 2008) he does ​ ​ not impose his norms on it. His family farm has flourished with this system since 1812. The system also grows olives and nuts and hosts the famous Iberian Pigs. An agricultural system with emphasis on the culture within the agriculture (Barber,2014). Barber after his ten years of documentation of farms that produce the most ethical products in flourishing ecosystems; is convinced that farm-to-table is not enough. He furthers this thought by saying:

“Our current template for changing the system is to opt out of it: eat seasonally, buy local, choose organic whenever possible. For all the virtues of farm-to-table eating, a rooftop view of the Dehesa makes the shortcomings of that ethos easy to see. Our job is not just to support the farmers; it is to support the land that supports the farmer. (..) A rooftop view of the Dehesa almost inevitably raises the question, What if our ways of eating-not merely a plate of food, but a whole pattern of cooking- were in perfect balance with the land around us?” (Barber, 2014 p.182)

The image of the Dehesa re appears in many stages of reflexion in Barbers book. The harmonious cohabitation of the natural and the designed is what inspires him, working with nature. What he means by a “whole pattern of cooking [...] in perfect balance with the land around us” can be exemplified with the previously mentioned “rotation risotto”. The idea that the seasonal harvest is dictating the content of the plate is important. A rotation risotto in a way is a representation of the idea of nature dictating cuisine, and not the other way round. The dish is an ode to the fertility of the land. Moreover, that is what Barber is aiming to show. He, the chef, should support the land, by cooking with every product. This, he believes, is the best way to support

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the farmer. “Working with this crops seemed like an opportunity-and, the more I ​ thought about it, an obligation- to support the lands long-term ecological health. (...) In order for these farms to last, to be truly sustainable, I needed to learn to cook with the whole farm.” (Barber, 2014) Barber admits that his motivation to write this book was the search for great ingredients, but at some point, the stories about these ingredients became more important than the products themselves. The ethics behind the production made them outstanding. The “win, win” logic is so ingrained in Barber’s worldview; that he does not conceive great production without ethics (Johnston & Baumann, 2010). Cooking with the whole farm is a change of paradigm for a chef. Usually, the farm would produce what the chef, “the tastemaker”, dictated. Barber suggests the opposite, cook with what is available. The change is so simple, yet so transcendental. This pivotal change he is suggesting on the way the chef conceives cooking is a change of habitus. As explained by Johnston and Baumann, the foodie's ​ ​ identity is defined by their relations with food, something that Barber wants to change radically. A change of the actions and choices that structure the nature of the practices (Bourdieu,1986) that construe the foodscape, is a change in the food or ecological habitus of a chef, but also the foodie. If Barber is interpellating the foodie with his narrative of ethical eating; by attempting to modify the actions and choices that the reader has towards food, Barber is trying to modify the Habitus of the ​ Foodie. This reasoning becomes evident in the following statement:

In the same way that Eduardo stimulated the geese’s consciousness, a recipe or a meal or even a single plate of food can stimulate our own consciousness- about the animals we eat, the system that supports their diet, and the kind of cuisine a chef needs to create to support it (Barber, 2014 p.198).

The Chef is again placed at the centre of the foodscape, the one orchestrating everything. Barber hopes that chefs can stimulate their guest just like Eduardo stimulated his consciousness with his foie gras. He aims to enhance the understandings their guests have of the food system by encouraging them to taste

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landscapes and ecosystems like the Dehesa. Ultimately, to change their understanding of what taste should be. Bourdieu claims that: “every change in the system of goods induces a change in tastes. Nevertheless, ​ conversely, every change in tastes resulting from a transformation of the conditions of existence and the corresponding dispositions will tend to induce, directly or indirectly, a transformation of the field of production, by favouring the success, within the struggle constituting the field, of the producers best able to produce the needs corresponding to the new dispositions” (Bourdieu, 1976 p231). ​ Moreover, this is precisely what Barber aims to; a change in the system of goods, where chefs will have to work to define new parameters of taste. According to Bourdieu, Luxury and choice are intertwined. Baber, with his insistence to cook with what's available, is proposing a different notion of Luxury. Barber says the “Take more, sell more, waste more” (Barber, 2008) logic will not work in the future he envisions for food. By removing the abundance of choice that is associated with our current food system; Barber is challenging Bourdieu's notion of the taste of luxury. However, what is Luxury to Barber? The answer to this question is not simple, but it could begin with Authenticity. In part one of the analysis, a fragment were Sousa asks Barber if he can’t taste that his geese have not suffered, was presented. The chef responds that he can taste it, but before that moment he did not know that there was supposed to be a difference in taste. This new taste that Barber is trying to present might be something as simple as a geese that has not suffered or Mas Masumoto peaches, that tastes like a peach should taste like, authentic. This new luxury has more to do with knowing that goods are produced in environments that prioritise nature and ethics. But mostly and at risk of being redundant: the one that satisfies his hedonistic necessity for a great flavour, while keeping his conscious clean, no matter how much it costs. The Win, Win logic is the bottomline of his narrative.

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Concluding Discussion.

“The third plate” is ultimately a reflection on the food system and an effort on Barber’s side to make the reader question their relationship to food, but fundamentally an incitement to change the habitus of the foodie(Bourdieu, 1986). ​ The first part of the analysis discussed how produce, in the form of foie gras is narrated. The chapter opens up the subject of the authors search for superior ingredients not only in taste but in their conception, that end up being the most “authentic” and ethical as in the case of Sousa’s foie gras. The example chosen for the analysis is representative of Barber’s worldview, but in other ways, it might be limiting. Some of the other cases presented in the book might have been more adequate to delineate his admiration of practices that balance an understanding of nature while enhanced by technology. As mentioned in the book summary section “farmers who grow nature and abide by its instructions”. Eduardo Sousa’s example is one of Barber's first transcendental encounters with a different philosophy of production. This is probably why Barber’s account of this story is so compelling; there is a certain ingenuity in it that is not present in any of his other stories of producers he presents in his book. The choice of this story over, for instance, the ones in the chapter “Sea”, has made a certain impact on Barber’s take on authenticity. However, even if I had developed the example of “Veta la Palma” a fish farm, Johnston & Baumann’s “Win, win” logic would have still been the bottom line to his narration of produce. Chapter two of the analysis explored the author’s opinion on the chefs and their responsibility within the food system while discussing is intricate relation to food. His celebrity status has granted him with the right to speak for his field. He feels the need to expand the work he started in 2004 in the Stone Barns Centre to empower farmers. The third plate is his way to try to break into the consumers mind and attempt to encourage them to question what are they eating and how it got to their plates. Barbers examples are usually far from being democratic or accessible to

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most consumers, but they serve its purpose. They are examples of practices that are far from the mainstream and bring to the table valid approaches, that are often overlooked. Barber’s position as a chef, is the directing element on the tone of the text. Barber belongs to a generation of chefs that has been empowered by the media. In consequence, his belief in the importance of the chef as a tastemaker might be inflated. Nevertheless, his book serves also as a reflection of what this role as a chef and a tastemaker is. Breaking with the idea of the chef as the man solely dedicated to making food, but the chef as a critical player in the discourses surrounding food ethics and environmental responsibility.

Further Research

After looking at Barber’s worldview in the context of his book, I noticed that many of the ideas I had about chefs come from Netflix shows about chefs. That has kept me thinking about how has Netflix changed my perception of fine dining though “Chef's Table”. Fine dining is elitist, and few people get to experience many of the restaurants it portrays. Chef's Table produces an experience of familiarity with this ​ secluded experiences. Chef’s Table is utterly different from the previous shows about chefs. It removes the focus of the cooking and places it in the ideas and the person. And as for any cultural product, the understanding of its context furthers our understanding of the subject matter. How has Netflix changed the perception of fine dining and the chefs behind it?

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Fairclough, N., Wodak, R., & Mulderrig, J. (2011). Critical discourse analysis. In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction (pp. 357-378). SAGE Publications.

Janks, H. (1997). Critical Discourse Analysis as a Research Tool. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 18(3), 329-342.

Johnston, J., Baumann, S. (2010). Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape. New York: Routledge.

Pollan, M. (2006). The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin.

Peterson, R., & Kern, R. (1996). Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore. American Sociological Review, 61(5), 900-907. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/stable/2096460

Peterson, R. A. (2005). Problems in comparative research: The example of omnivorousness. Poetics, 33(5-6), 257-282.

Rochlitz, I. & Broom, DM. (2017) The Welfare of Ducks during Foie Gras production. Animal Welfare, Volume 26, Number 2, May 2017, pp. 135-149. https://doi-org.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/10.7120/09627286.26.2.135

Kamphuis, C., Jansen, T., Mackenbach, J., & Van Lenthe, F. (2015). Bourdieu's Cultural Capital in Relation to Food Choices: A Systematic Review of Cultural Capital Indicators and an Empirical Proof of Concept. Plos One, 10(8), E0130695.

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Media

Gelb, D.(Director). (26/5/2015) Massimo Bottura [Chef’s Table]. Netflix.

Jeter, C.(Director).(12/1/2015) Dan Barber [Chef’s Table]. Netflix.

Barber, D (2008). Dan Barber: A foie gras parable [Ted].Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_s_surprising_foie_gras_parable

Barber, D (2010). Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish [Ted].Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish?language=en

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