Alice Waters and Nikki Henderson: Slow Food Isn't Just for Yuppies

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:



Alice Waters and Nikki Henderson occupy radically different places in the sustainable food movement.

Waters is a white baby boomer who was raised comfortably middle class; Henderson is an African American millennial who grew up with seven foster brothers. Waters runs an iconic white-tablecloth restaurant in well-heeled Berkeley. Henderson runs an iconic anti-poverty nonprofit in low-income West Oakland. Waters speaks most naturally as an aesthete; Henderson, as a community organizer.

The fact that a single movement can contain both demonstrates its great potential—think of the civil rights movement, which really began to coalesce when an alliance along similar race/class lines developed in the late 1950s. But it also indicates crucial fault lines: If the food movement becomes dominated by its white-tablecloth faction, it risks devolving into a high-end tasting club that has little impact on the broader culture.

So when I was invited to interview these two formidable women via Skype recently, I jumped at the chance. The occasion was a class Waters has organized at UC Berkeley this fall called "Edible Education 101," as part of the 40th-anniversary celebration for Chez Panisse, her temple to local, organic food. Henderson, executive director of People’s Grocery, will be coteaching the course with Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and other best-selling critiques of the food system. They spoke to me from the Chez Panisse Foundation's Berkeley offices. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/alice-waters-nikki-henderson

[midnight]

1. I like what both of them had for breakfast....

In Minnesota , I heard about this from a student there, that some restaurants pull together cooking classes for lower income children to teach them how to cook basic meals.

[xchrom]

2. wonderful. nt