|
American Public Television talks to food writer Anna Lappé — one of the
featured food experts from THE ENDLESS FEAST
What is THE ENDLESS FEAST? And what will viewers experience with this series?
THE ENDLESS FEAST is an exploration of where our food comes from. Each episode takes the audience on a journey, bringing to life a delicious, seasonal and sustainable feast on a farm. With the hosts as guides, the audience meets the farmers who produced the food for the feast, the vintners who made the wine, and the folks who raised the animals. Vicariously, they experience the sensory pleasures of dining as they watch the feast unfold. Although we all eat, few of us have the chance to really explore where our food comes from. This show gives all of us that opportunity.
In the series, we are introduced to farmers, producers and chefs. Who typically you are the guests attending the feast and enjoying all the glorious food?
What makes each show particularly interesting to me is that the guests are really varied. In the Vancouver Island episode, the feast was a benefit for an incredible local organization working on building skills among low-income women, using food and value-added food products as the vehicle. So the guests included the women leaders in that program as well as paying guests who were supporting that work.
Many of the guests I spoke to at the feasts had never been to a farm before. And, many had never thought about the importance of their food choices and didn't know what "sustainable" meant or about the impact of factory farming on the environment and our health. It was wonderful to see their excitement of being on a farm and learning about their meal.
What also made the feasts so special was that the food producers ate along with us. We all got to experience dining next to the very people who helped get the food to the table. Few of us know the hands who feed us; even fewer get to break bread with them!
Each episode is hosted by a different group of food experts. Among others, you hosted the Vancouver episode and gained first-hand experience in farming/production. Tell us about your experiences i.e. making the cheese or feeding the pigs.
I loved all of the producers we met; they all were so passionate about creating the best — and most delicious — food possible and doing it in ways that are truly sustainable, for themselves and the planet. On the Vancouver episode, Dirk (the pig farmer) was particularly impressive and in the few hours we spent with him we clearly saw his love for his pigs and his work. We accompanied Dirk as he did his morning rounds and watched as he tossed feed into the pens, gingerly calling out to "Nina" and "Franz" and the other heritage breed pigs he raises. Dirk, like many of the farmers we met, had given all his pigs a name. (My favorite name was a Griffon Aerie pig dubbed Gertrude Swine.) Dirk pointed out the many ways his process is the polar opposite of industrial farming and confined animal feeding systems. Much of those differences are, of course, captured on screen with the images of his healthy, happy, and free-roaming pigs and piglets. But what's impossible to capture on camera, though, is how good his farm smelled; you didn't catch a scent of bad odors, which is particularly striking when you compare that with industrial swine operations whose noxious smells can be detected for miles.
In the end, when you finally sat down to enjoy the feast, did you think about your food differently?
I definitely did even though I've been thinking about many of these themes nearly my whole life. It was incredible to sit down at a table with dozens of people and crunch into the carrots and bite into the blackberries, while you could see out of the corner of your eye the very farm bed the food came from.
Sitting down to the feasts after meeting all of the producers, I had renewed appreciation for farming and for farmers. Farmers and farm-workers are marginalized and mostly invisible populations in this country and yet what could be more important than the work of raising safe and nutritious food? THE ENDLESS FEAST honors them as they should be, and makes them visible.
You are a food writer for many publications and a co-author of the book Grub — Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. What was the most important thing you learned from your ENDLESS FEAST experience?
Working on this show reinforced a sense of urgency for me: Unless we radically change the way we think about food, the way we eat, and the food policies we endorse, we are headed surely for even more ill-health and environmental decline. I have an even greater sense that this may be the last generation of kids who have the opportunity to turn around the out-of-control, bad-for-us food system by getting more involved with where their food comes from. For me, that's why the THE ENDLESS FEAST episode in Brooklyn was so powerful (and so much fun). It shows that, when given the opportunity, young people are drawn to healthy eating and positive social change.
What can viewers look forward to with THE ENDLESS FEAST and/or from Anna Lappé in the future?
I hope THE ENDLESS FEAST continues to be a vehicle to help Americans connect with where their food comes from and share the incredible, under-reported stories of the tens of thousands of people who are engaged with sustainable food and farming, from the heart of Detroit to the hills of North Carolina.
I personally am working on several new books and media projects that continue to weave my interest in sharing stories of courageous and positive social change with audiences across the country. I will also continue the work of my volunteer-led fund, The Small Planet Fund, which raises money for groups around the world fighting the roots of hunger and poverty. I'm particularly excited about the Fund with the announcement this year that a second of our grantees was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
Why do you think THE ENDLESS FEAST will resonate with public television audiences?
I think public television audiences care about the world around them and want to know how they can be part of making the world a better place. Specifically, many of your viewers are probably fans of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. THE ENDLESS FEAST helps take the national conversation Schlosser and Pollan have helped to spark further, showing the real life people who are bringing to life a viable alternative to the "dark side of the
all-American meal."
***
This interview is available on APTonline.org for uses that are related to the marketing and/or promotion of this program (via program guides and/or Web sites). No part of this interview may be used relating to any product or service, other than the program.
|
|
Spain...on the road Again garners national press coverage
|
