Alice Waters’s School-Food Revolution – WSJ

Fifty years ago, after returning stateside, she opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, establishing her slow-food ethos. In 1995, she founded the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, which has a one-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom where students grow and prepare food on-site. At 77 years old, she continues to publicly advocate her belief in sustainable production and cooking, releasing her latest book this June, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto. In Waters’s ideal world, every family would have a World War I–style victory garden to grow their own food. Schoolchildren, she believes, should be fed organic, healthy meals, weaning them off of the fast food that make up most school lunches. “It’s a crime to have children, before they’re 6, addicted,” she says, of the excess fat, sugar and salt in so many American kids’ diets. She sees the Covid-19 death toll as partially a consequence of American obesity, too.

California, she hopes, will be at the center of a progressive, nationwide change in how we think about food. “We have to be deliberate in the way that we teach the values of stewardship and nourishment and community and diversity and equity to the next generation,” she says. “And what better place than the public school system?”

2021 is the 50th anniversary of Chez Panisse. What successes have you seen in your slow-food ethos? What still needs to get done?

Something really needs to get done right now because we have forgotten about public education in this country. The fast-food industry has come in there and brought the values of fast food into the school system. That’s what my manifesto is really about. It’s showing how fast food isn’t just about food that’s not nourishing, it’s taught us a set of values that has destroyed our humanity and our planet. If we change the food [in schools], wow, what an economic engine. We can give to Black, brown farmers, the whole nine yards. And for 50 years, [Chez Panisse has] been buying food directly from the farmers. No middleman. The values come right through the kitchen door. Having the Edible Schoolyard for 25 years at a middle school in Berkeley with [about] a thousand kids and 22 different languages spoken, I know for sure one thing: that when they experienced math in the garden and history in the kitchen classroom, where they’re cooking the food from India and eating the chickpea curry, they’re coming back to their senses; they’re touching and tasting. We live right now in a sensorially deprived world. We aren’t tasting anymore. We aren’t listening carefully.

I want an economic stimulus for the state of California. What better way than to buy all the ingredients [for school lunches] from the state of California. It could put people in business tomorrow.

The standard argument with fast food in schools is that it’s cheaper and easier. It sounds like your economic argument could be a breakthrough?

We’ve been educated by the fast-food industry. “You can’t feed kids in school—it’s too expensive—organic food.” A myth. “They don’t like food from other countries; they like only these foods.” A myth. “There are too many children; you couldn’t possibly get lunch out.” Oh, yes, we can. What if we consider lunch an academic subject? What if we’re studying the Arabian Peninsula [in] geography, and they’re eating pita bread and tabbouleh salad? They could be talking about the geography of that place. They could be looking at their place mat that has a map on it. There are so many ways we can find.

Do you think Covid-19 would have been less significant had people not been raised on fast-food diets?

I believe that. We have an obesity epidemic. We know it comes from eating fast food and addiction to salt, sugar, fried foods—they’re all part of the obesity epidemic and we don’t like to talk about them. But [obese people] have been the most vulnerable in this country because of their diet, and it’s a crime. It’s a crime to have children, before they’re 6, addicted.

The ending of your latest book says, “It only takes a taste.” When were your eyes opened to the social possibilities of food?

All it took for me was a wild strawberry in France when I was there in 1965. I wanted to live like the French, and I wanted to eat like the French, and fortunately it was a slow-food nation. Everything was seasonal in Paris.

Has France continued in that way, or is it on the same path as the U.S.?

It’s on the same path. There’s a wonderful three-[Michelin]-star chef who just wrote a book called For a Delicious Revolution. It’s very easy to read and beautifully translated. His name is Olivier Roellinger. He’s a Frenchman, and he talks about how, in the last 50 years, everything has changed in France. They are using [more] pesticides. Olivier is speaking about what used to be, but it’s much harder for the United States to come back to something. Because for the U.S. to come back to its roots, we have to face slavery. There are very few examples of the love of the land [in the U.S.], except in the history of Black America. Black farmers of this country hold the really deep understanding of the land, of seasonality, of biodiversity. When I see what’s buried in the ground in Georgia, Tennessee, in the South, I’m just blown away by it.

What have you been cooking and gardening during the pandemic?

As soon as [Covid lockdown] happened, I said, “Oh, my God, if I couldn’t have a salad, what am I going to do?” So I dug up—I shouldn’t say I, the woman who takes care of my garden and I dug up—the whole front yard, and I made a victory garden. My parents had a victory garden during my childhood always, and it fed the six of us in the family. I’ve always loved that idea.

Victory gardens were promoted by the federal government during World War I—is that the kind of governmental, economic implementation you’ve been advocating?

They were talking about sustainability. They didn’t know any other way. They weren’t putting on [chemical] herbicides or anything. They had a [Civilian] Conservation Corps. Why [can’t] we have a Conservation Corps, planting lemon trees, orange trees, peach trees, apple trees?

Is there anything you think we’ve missed?

Just one last thing that’s very important. [I always refused] the idea that our lives should be filled with meaningless work if it gets us money. I guess it comes from seeing people in all kinds of jobs—bussing tables, selling at farmers’ markets, all kinds of things. In France, giving out tickets to concerts, to students and all that. That was meaningful because there were always values of humanity that were present in the culture. There were big gardens. There was always the feeding of children, nourishing them and always feeding families sitting down. We think of time as money. We can’t do that.

And here, in her own words, a few of Waters’s favorite things.

“The bottle on the right is a Bandol rosé wine from Domaine Tempier. It’s kept my spirits up during Covid because I drink two glasses of rosé every night. To the right of that, a signed Wendell Berry poem, ‘The Wild Geese.’ He has always been somebody I’ve greatly admired. I love the atmosphere [he creates]. Next to that, my 2013 cookbook, The Art of Simple Food II. The scarf laid across the front was hand-embroidered in India and designed by Christina Kim, who I met at the beginning of the Edible Schoolyard Project. Everything I wear practically is from her [line, Dosa]. I love the fact that I don’t have to think about what I’m wearing. I don’t have to go and shop. I never have liked that. The necklace behind it is not a necklace really, but I use it as a necklace. It was blessed in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Behind that, an art piece by Olafur Eliasson. [His art is] so provocative, like the weather project he did for Tate in London. I just thought about how important it is that an artist is an activist. In front of that, a paperweight from Elizabeth David. She has always been, I guess, my first cooking teacher. When she died, her good friend gave it to me. The book to the left is an 1854 edition of The Physiology of Taste, by [Jean Anthelme] Brillat-Savarin. That was a surprise gift, but I am always quoting Brillat-Savarin. ‘The destiny of nations depends upon their diet!’ In front of it, my National Humanities Medal. For me to be given that award by [President] Obama and to be recognized in the United States was and is incredibly meaningful to me. On the far left is a mortar and pestle. I use it all the time. Every day I make a vinaigrette. On the far left, a picture of my daughter, Fanny [Singer], photographed by Brigitte Lacombe. One day, Fanny grabbed this picture out of her room. She said, ‘Mom, I’m leaving. Will you hang this in your bedroom?’ I just feel like she’s there.”