134.5 ]

Editor’s Column Hanging with Chefs

N 2014, CORNELIA BAILEY APPROACHED DAVID SHIELDS WITH AN UR- I gent request. She and her neighbors in Hog Hammock, a slave- descended Geechee community on Sapelo Island, Georgia, were about to lose their homes thanks to skyrocketing property taxes en- gineered by developers. To generate income they had tried to mar- ket one of the island’s specialties, the red pea, but it wasn’t enough. Could another crop be added, perhaps one with a bigger market? Bailey knew she was dealing with an unusual English professor. The author of many books on civil society, includingSouthern Provi- sions: The Creation and Revival of a Cuisine (2015), Shields regularly spends time with geneticists, entomologists, and soil scientists. The literature that he reads includes seed catalogs, agricultural journals, eighteenth- and nineteenth- century treatises on plant breeding, and manuals on pomology and geoponics. Farm ecology, seed variety, and soil chemistry are all part of his “philological research” (Shields). All sorts of people go to Shields for help. In 2003, after attend- ing the conference Cuisines of the Lowcountry and the Carib- bean, Glenn Roberts, CEO of Anson Mills, came up with an idea that would give new meaning to fieldwork. Knowing that the rice- centered cuisine of the global South would flourish only if the lost classic, the Carolina Gold, were to be restored, Roberts proposed to Shields that they create a seed- recovery project comparable to Native Seeds / SEARCH, a seed- conservation project based in Arizona.1 The hope was to bring back not only the once abundant but now van- ished Carolina Gold but also “the rotation crops, co-crops, provision crops, forage crops” that make this cuisine possible (Shields). Archi- val research was needed and Shields was the one to do it. Two and a half years later, the bleary-eyed researcher emerged from the microfilm bunker of the Thomas Cooper Library at the University

© 2019 wai chee dimock PMLA 134.5 (2019), published by the Modern Language Association of America 989 990 Editor’s Column [ PMLA

Dennis, Shields traveled to Trinidad looking for West African rice and benne, an heirloom sesame. The foundation also found and restored the lost Catawba flour corn, while working with the Mohawk chef Dave Smoke-McCluskey to explore the culinary possibilities of maize and chestnut. It gives away seeds for free. JuneBaby, Eduardo Jordon’s soul-food restaurant in Seattle, win- ner of the 2018 Best New Restaurant award, is a recipient of those seeds. Sean Brock, a James Beard Award– winning chef and vocal fan, named his restaurant Husk in tribute to the FIG. 1 of South Carolina, ready to go into the field. whole-body flavor of these grains. Jerome Dixon and With Roberts, Shields founded the Carolina When Bailey showed up in 2014, Shields Doc Bill Thomas, Gold Rice Foundation, a nonprofit organiza- was steeped in fieldwork and ready for more. owners of Georgia Coastal Gourmet tion dedicated to the restoration of lost grains With a team from the foundation, he traveled Farms, with sugar- in all their variety and “in some semblance to Sapelo Island to reconstruct the key ingre- cane seedlings. of their original soil context”—an alternative dients in its once flourishing plantation econ- Image courtesy of to the “genetic sameness” of commercially omy. He already knew—from a group project Georgia Coastal cloned crops, grown in sterile soil and under that he undertook with the students in his Gourmet Farms. a standard regimen of chemical fertilizers and class Southern Foodways—that somewhere pesticides (Shields). Unsullied by these petro- a variety of sugarcane had been cultivated on leum derivatives and boosted by “old growing such a scale and precipitated such a drop in schemes and rotations to make the soil as alive sugar prices that it transformed the national as possible,” restored grains are more nutri- palate in the 1820s. Where had it come from? tious and taste better. Their distinctive flavor To his surprise, philological research revealed comes from the interactions of their “complex that the epicenter was none other than Sapelo root systems” with the “microbial universe in Island itself. Its staple crop, the Purple Ribbon living soil, with mycorrhizas, with minerals.” sugarcane, brought to Georgia and Louisiana Flavor is a deep ecological effect, Shields says, from St. Croix in 1814, produced such a glut not a passing sensation but long- running and of cheap granulated sugar that vinegars and memory-laden, a chemical signature stemming pickles and jams and jellies would never be from a “whole-body uptake of energy.” the same again. A history-conscious, ingredient-recovering Disease swept across the region in the cuisine is the logical outcome of the foundation’s early 1900s, wiping out the cane fields and work. Not surprisingly, regional chefs have be- much of the sugar industry. When the United come the foundation’s staunch allies: they are States government helped with the replanting, the ones with gut- level outreach, turning archi- hybrids, chosen for their disease resistance val research into delectable mouthfuls, a public rather than their flavor, soon supplanted the humanities with taste, texture, and aroma. Field- Purple Ribbon (“Ark”). By the twenty-first work is probably always collaborative; it’s espe- century, there was no certified descendant cially so in this case. With the Gullah chef B. J. of the original strain. Still, through dogged 134.5 ] Editor’s Column 991 research, molecular forensic testing, and the FIG. 2 two- hundred- year- old inherited knowledge Pecan pie made of the black organic farmers Jerome Dixon with Sapelo Purple and William “Doc Bill” Thomas, a trial- and- Ribbon Sugar error experiment got off the ground. Eighty- Cane syrup. Image four candidates, some existing varieties and courtesy of Georgia some the result of back-breeding, were hand- Coastal Gourmet Farms. planted at Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farms in 2015 (fig. 1). Hurricane Irma almost destroyed the entire lot in 2017, but enough survived that the first batch of cane syrup from the initial variety (lipidcane) could further reduce emis- planting made it to the market that fall. In- sions by forty-one percent. Yet another dual- stantly sold out, it soon caught the attention purpose cane (energycane) promises to emit of Linton Hopkins, the acclaimed “serial” chef even less greenhouse gas (Kumar et al.). Oil and CEO of six restaurants in Atlanta.2 His companies are paying attention. On 22 July pecan pie suddenly becomes a culinary adven- 2019, BP announced that it was launching ture (fig. 2). Brock, meanwhile, could barely a joint venture with the agricultural trader restrain himself from hyperbole on Twitter. Bunge. Together, these two will operate eleven The Purple Ribbon syrup, he said, “has an plants in Brazil with the capacity to crush intoxicating aroma of Perigord Black truffles. thirty- two million tons of cane per year, mak- Easily one of the most exciting and delectable ing the energy giant the world’s third- largest things I’ve ever tasted” (qtd. in “Welcome”). cane processor (McFarlane; Teixeira). Pecan pies and Perigord black truffles Shields, Bailey, Dixon, and Thomas will might turn out to be only the first steps in a not be operating on that scale. And they don’t pathbreaking project, every bit as consequen- have to. The kind of trial- and- error experi- tial as its previous incarnation in the nine- ment that they devote themselves to is site- teenth century. As climate change increasingly specific and scale- elastic. It allows even those dominates the global economy, the future of with modest resources to have nontrivial Purple Ribbon might lie as much in the low- input into global energy protocols. Agency carbon biofuel sector as in restaurants. If here is horizontally and peripherally distrib- flavor is a “whole- body uptake of energy,” as uted, creating alliances across races, genders, Shields says, the owners of Georgia Coastal and classes. Vigorous in its future orienta- Gourmet Farms have every intention of liter- tion, this kind of experiment also brings alizing it as they experiment with a staple crop immediate satisfactions in everyday life. For simultaneously anchoring a food system and scholars used to solitary labor, it provides a an energy system. “Southern cane may power much-needed outlet, a laboratory translating more than kitchens; it could provide energy philological research into tangible outcomes for entire homes,” Dixon hopes (Taylor). in the public arena. Fieldwork, in this sense, The idea is not as farfetched as it might is shorthand for scholarly work aspiring to seem. For decades Brazil has been ferment- flourish in a nonscholarly world: a humani- ing cane juice to make alcohol- based biofuel, ties necessarily collaborative and experimen- which produces twelve percent fewer green- tal, speaking to our shared pleasures and house gas emissions than fossil fuel. In 2017, excitements as a public- facing discipline. new research published on the Smithsonian This humanities is already begin- Web site showed that a genetically engineered ning to have a big impact on undergraduate 992 Editor’s Column [ PMLA

education. The food studies minor at the Uni- were on hand to initiate conversations about versity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is the dangers of climate change, the vulner- a case in point (Lukianchikov). Proposed in abilities of conventional food systems, and December 2015 by Joseph Nagy, a professor of the need for broad-based innovations. In the En glish, the minor now has over one hundred next phase, the team will seek funding to de- students drawn from the life sciences and so- velop a street-ready mobile food-service unit cial sciences, as well as En glish (Pautler; Car- for the city, comprising an electric minitruck ruth [11 July]). Its gateway course, Food: A and a close- range drone that will deliver the Lens on Environment and Sustainability, is snacks. The drone will be designed to resem- team- taught by four faculty members from ble an undersea diving vehicle mimicking the across the campus. Marcie Rothman, a chef, undulations of jellyfish (Carruth [12 July]). cookbook author, and UCLA alumna, has en- Relatively unchanged since the Precam- dowed the program (“Marcie Rothman Schol- brian era, jellyfish today are significant to arship”). A teaching-and- learning kitchen, fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific under construction, will serve the entire and to food markets and culinary traditions university, allowing for chef residencies and across Southeast Asia. They are tasteless and hands- on experimentation by undergraduates. therefore exceptionally versatile as a base pro- Adding to these efforts, Allison Carruth, tein for diverse recipes and techniques. With associate professor of En glish and chair of climate change, many species of jellyfish have Food Studies at UCLA, recently teamed up become invasive, threatening marine popula- with the New York artist Marina Zurkow and tions as well as human swimmers around the the Los Angeles culinary duo Hank and Bean world (Chabin). Their culinary uses highlight (Henry Fischer and Anna Rose Hopkins) the role of the imagination—and hence the to publicize their joint project Making the role of the humanities—in the future of food, Best of It: Nimble Foods for Climate Chaos suggesting that precarity and experimenta- (“Nimble Foods”). What does it take for tion can be fruitfully intertwined. food to be “nimble” in an age of floods and Making the Best of It generated enough droughts, extreme temperatures, wild fires, interest to win Hank and Bean a spot on the and pandemics? For Hank and Bean, nimble- new PBS show Broken Bread in June 2019 ness means availing ourselves of overlooked (“Future”). Produced by KCET, the PBS sta- proteins, developing foraging techniques, and tion in Los Angeles, and hosted by Roy Choi, turning climate- emboldened invasive species the beloved Korean American chef known for into handy food items. The hope is to broaden his Kogi food truck (“Alumni Bio”), the pro- our palate and educate the public about cli- gram showcases unusual menus across Los mate disruptions and the future of food, as Angeles. The episode that featured Hank and well as to highlight alternatives to unsustain- Bean also included Ethan Brown, CEO of Be- able meat diets and redefine the “edible” by yond Meat, and Vegan Hooligans, a restaurant creating experimental recipes.3 serving an eastside Los Angeles clientele ap- The first phase of Making the Best of It parently converted to plant-based diner food. took the form of a series of tasting events As bespoke chefs, Hank and Bean curate in 2018–19, showcasing the project’s experi- meals for discriminating patrons willing to mental foods across the UCLA campus and pay a hefty fee. For PBS, they served up raw at strategic sites around Los Angeles. The key jellyfish wrapped in lettuce, cricket bread, ingredient here was jellyfish, made into a va- and a salad made with a local succulent, ice riety of snacks, including jerky, instant soups, plant, one of the top ten invasive species in noodles, cookies, and jellies. Team members Los Angeles (fig. 3). Did any of this taste 134.5 ] Editor’s Column 993 good? Interviewed on NPR, Choi reluctantly in a humanities attentive to food: what we admitted, “Well, no.” It was a trial- and- error eat, where it comes from, how it is produced, experiment, after all. There was no need to get and what ecosystem it serves? I’d like to end everything right the first time around. What’s by profiling one student educated in this way, clear is that more will be coming our way, not quite shaking up Wall Street just yet but more eye- popping menus cooked up by Hank inspired enough by what she has learned to and Bean and other chefs, not afraid to take become a pioneer while still in college. small professional risks at a time when large- Coming to Dartmouth College from the scale risks have become the global norm. Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Meanwhile, back at UCLA, students from Montana, Shelbi Fitzpatrick, class of 2019, has Carruth’s lecture class are waxing eloquent always wondered “what food and energy sys- about the free snacks created by Hank and tems in Indian country could look like if the Bean in collaboration with their professor and Blackfeet Nation were truly food-sovereign.” Zurkow. One of them, noting the long line of A double major in environmental studies and people waiting to try the jerky, writes in an Native American studies, she decided to use online post that “the concept of looking to in- the school’s two- hundred- fiftieth anniversary vasive species as a non- traditional food source as an occasion for a three- day conference on is very compelling, and I could see that be- indigenous food, “something that has never ing a part of a major change in the American really been done before at Dartmouth”—or diet in the next few decades. I was surprised indeed at any college or university in the by how salty and chewy the jellyfish were, and United States (Fitzpatrick). To bring this off, found that the edible succulent tasted quite collaboration with non–Native American stu- good with sugar.” Another student, also a fan dents was crucial; Fitzpatrick worked closely of the ice plant, said that “this was a really with Arthur “Benny” Adapon, class of 2019, cool approach to the problems that invasive originally from the Philippines. Seeing food species pose by making a snack out of weeds!” “through an environmental justice lens,” A third student, not entirely sold on the jel- Adapon noted that “[c]onversations around lyfish, said, “[T] he texture was pretty strange, climate change have to center on the lives and FIG. 3 but I really like the banana ketchup jellyfish experiences and knowledge of native people,” A snack of raw jelly- combination. . . . [T]his brings up such an who “have been stewards of their lands since fish created by Hank important issue of jellyfish overpopulation. time immemorial” (qtd. in Albright). and Bean. Image What if there was some way to get the nature The Food Sovereignty Conference began courtesy of KCET and Tastemade. of capitalism to work in the environment’s fa- on 20 May 2019 with a screening of Waaki vor?” (qtd. in Carruth [12 July]). Clearly, these students have been fired up. Some of them will no doubt go on to become entrepre- neurs like Brown, whose Beyond Meat start-up stunned the world when its share price surged 163% on 2 May 2019, its first day of trad- ing, putting the company’s value at a whopping $3.8 billion and making it the best IPO of the year (Popper). What other futures await students like Carruth’s, immersed 994 Editor’s Column [ PMLA

(“Maize”), a documentary by the Hopi film- the seed library she has been keeping since maker and artist Victor Masayesva, showcas- 2013, at the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum ing the world community revolving around in New Hampshire (Reed). There is indeed corn. Two days of packed events followed, in- nothing more important to the future of the cluding guided tours of indigenous artifacts planet and the future of the human species at the Hood Art Museum and of Abenaki than seeds.5 It makes sense that those most in- growing practices at the Dartmouth Organic spired by them are the next generation, those Farm; a panel of Dartmouth students and who are redefining the humanities, bringing alumni speaking about food ecologies among new meaning and new urgency to fieldwork. the Navajo, Hopi, and Tlingit; a workshop with Ross Racine, a soil conservationist and Wai Chee Dimock executive director of the Bureau of Indian Af- fairs, discussing the future of food through his work with the Intertribal Agricultural Council; and appearances by a trio of chefs: NOTES Sean Sherman, Valerie Segrest, and Liz Char- lebois (“Food Sovereignty Conference”). 1. Native Seeds / SEARCH was created in 1983 to Known throughout the world as the “conserve and promote the arid-adapted crop diversity of the Southwest in support of sustainable farming and founder and CEO of the Sioux Chef, a team of food security” (“Our Story”). Anishinaabe, Cheyenne, Dakota, Navajo, and 2. Hopkins is known for running a succession of Oglala Lakota ethnobotanists, foragers, cater- restaurants in Atlanta and is now executive chef and co- ers, and food- truckers, Sherman was awarded owner of Restaurant Eugene, Holeman and Finch Public the 2018 James Beard Medal for his cookbook House, Holeman and Finch Bottle Shop, H&F Burger, Hop’s Chicken, and C. Ellet’s Steakhouse. The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen. Media 3. A report released in August 2019 by the United Na- attention has given him an advocacy platform tions Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pre- for precontact cuisines, including an alterna- dicts that severe food shortages will occur simultaneously tive Thanksgiving dinner featuring foraged on several continents if we do not modify our meat- based ingredients such as cactus fruit, cattails, man- diets (Schiermeier). 4. The keynote dinner, Kikas: Feast of the Plant- zanita berries, morels, rosehips, and sunchoke ing Moon, consisted of four courses: quahog, pawpaw (Sherman). For the Dartmouth conference, broth, dried crayfish, and dried strawberry; nixtamalized Sherman prepared a “keynote dinner” reflect- steamed corn, dried ramps, rosehip sauce, and pea shoots; ing the local ingredients used by the Abenaki venison and smoked mushroom, sunchoke, dandelion pesto, and fiddleheads; and sunflower seed tart, sweet and the Narragansett, including quahog, squash, maple seeds, and fresh berries. crayfish, pawpaw, fiddleheads, and ramps.4 5. Perhaps the best- known seed library is the Svalbard Segrest, a Muckleshoot chef from the Pa- Global Seed Vault in Norway (www .seedvault.no/). cific Northwest and the author of many books, including Feeding Seven Generations: A Salish Cookbook, used her keynote address to high- WORKS CITED light the extent to which food and futurity Albright, Charlotte. “Native American Paths to Food Sov- are one within the indigenous cosmos. To be ereignty and Sustainability.” Dartmouth News, 13 May dedicated to food is to be dedicated to a time 2019, news .dartmouth .edu/ news/2019/05/native frame extending to generations of the unborn. -american- paths- food- sovereignty -and - sustainability. The conference wrapped up with a closing “Alumni Bio: Roy Choi ’98.” The Culinary Institute of America, www.ciachef .edu/ roy- choi/. feast prepared entirely by students and coor- “Ark of Taste: Purple Ribbon Sugar Cane.” Slow Food dinated by Charlebois, an Abenaki chef whose USA, www .slowfoodusa .org/ ark-item/ purple-ribbon perspective on food is profoundly shaped by -sugar -cane. 134.5 ] Editor’s Column 995

Carruth, Allison. E-mail to the author. 11 July 2019. “Nimble Foods for Climate Chaos.” Institute of the En- ———. E-mail to the author. 12 July 2019. vironment and Sustainability, University of Southern Chabin, Michele. “How to Handle the Worldwide Jelly- California, Los Angeles, www .ioes .ucla .edu/ project/ fish Threat (No, Don’t Treat Stings with Urine).”The nimble-foods- climate- chaos/. Washington Post, 5 July 2019, www .washingtonpost “Our Story.” Native Seeds / SEARCH, www .nativeseeds .com/ lifestyle/ travel/ how -to - handle- the - worldwide .org/pages/ history- mission?id=28. -jellyfish -threat- no- dont- treat -stings -with -urine/ Pautler, Anne. “A Minor Revolution.” UCLA Magazine, 2019/ 07/05/d205ec7a- 9cfc- 11e9- 85d6 - 5211733f92c7_ 1 Oct. 2017, magazine .ucla .edu/ features/a-minor story.html?noredirect=on&utm_ term=.e6d300ca4519. -revolution/. Choi, Roy. “Chef Roy Choi Explores Food Activism In Popper, Nathaniel. “Beyond Meat’s Share Price Surges His New Show, ‘Broken Bread.’” Interview by Mary on First Day of Trading.” The New York Times, 2 May Louise Kelly. NPR, 20 May 2019, www .npr .org/ 2019, www .nytimes .com/2019/05/02/technology/ 2019/ 05/ 20/725139699/chef-roy- choi- explores -food beyond -meat- ipo- stock- price .html. -activism - in - his- new- show- broken- bread. Reed, Elodie. “Woman Works to Preserve Indigenous Fitzpatrick, Shelbi. E-mail to the author. 24 July 2019. Foods, Native American Culture.” Concord Monitor, “Food Sovereignty Conference.” Native American Pro- 22 Nov. 2016, www.concordmonitor .com/ Indigenous gram, Dartmouth College, 2019, students .dartmouth -food- traditions- Thanksgiving- Warner- NH- 6283706. .edu/ nap/ student-organizations/ food-sovereignty Schiermeier, Quirin. “Eat Less Meat: UN Climate-Change -conference. Report Calls for Change to Human Diet.” Nature, 8 Aug. “Future.” Broken Bread, season 1, episode 3, PBS, 3 June 2019, www .nature .com/ articles/d41586 -019 -02409-7. 2019, www.pbs .org/ video/ future- podix5/. Sherman, Sean. “The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell Is a Harm- Kumar, Deepak, et al. “Can Sugarcane Fuel Airplanes?” ful Lie: As a Native American, I’ve Found a Better Way Smithsonian.com , 21 Nov. 2017, www. smithsonianmag to Celebrate the Holiday.” Time, 19 Nov. 2018, time .com/ innovation/ can- sugarcane -fuel - airplanes .com/5457183/thanksgiving- native- american - holiday/. -180967288/. Shields, David. E-mail to the author. 12 July 2019. Lukianchikov, Anastasia. “UCLA Serves Up Food Stud- Taylor, Nicole. “A Sweet Ancient Staple Crop Is Coming ies Minor.” Daily Bruin, 3 Dec. 2015, dailybruin.com/ Back to the South.” Saveur, 24 Jan. 2017, www .saveur 2015/12/03/ucla- serves- up- food- studies- minor/. .com/southern- cane- sugar/. “Marcie Rothman Scholarship.” UCLA: Undergraduate Teixeira, Marcelo. “Bunge and BP Team Up in Brazil Education Initiatives, www .uei .ucla .edu/ academic Bioenergy Venture, Create Number Three Sugar- - programs/food- studies/marcie- rothman- scholarship/. cane Processor.” Reuters, 22 July 2019, www .reuters McFarlane, Sarah. “BP Boosts Its Biofuels Business .com/ article/ us-bunge- bp/bunge- and- bp- team- up with Brazilian Joint Venture.” The Wall Street Jour- -in -brazil -bioenergy- venture- create- no- 3- sugarcane nal, 22 July 2019, www .wsj .com/ articles/ bp -boosts -processor - idUSKCN1UH15O. -its - biofuels - business -with - brazilian -joint - venture “Welcome to Our Farm.” Georgia Coastal Gourmet Farms, -11563805710. www.georgiacoastalgourmetfarms .com/ index .html.