Michael Pollan, Carlo Petrini and Wendell Berry
In the seventh month of Covid, September 2020, life for so many is coming into focus around the essentials – Home and Food. Including my home, threatened by the California fires, and my tiny garden with tomatoes and peppers. Meanwhile the whole world is bursting in with Covid news. And a conversation is beginning about how bes to rebuild the food web when Covid ends.
For me this brings back memories of an extraordinary on-stage conversation at UC Berkeley at the end of November 2003. The hall filled to capacity long before the beginning of the event. Who would have thought that a simple title such as “Fast Food World” would draw over 700 people.
In the end those, who were lucky to get in, realized that a humble hamburger and a fizzy soda have global causes and consequences in industry and culture and survival of farmers and farm-land. They also made for an intriguing conversation on stage ranging from Kentucky to India and Italy to Berkeley.
When statistics come up in this radio program keep in mind that this was the year 2003. But also that cost and price of corn for farmers is still, in 2020, determined by subsidies, the obesity epidemic in the US has only grown, and you also have to pay almost $5 for a salad at a fast food joint where a hamburger is also only one dollar.
That was the first of two parts of excerpts from a 90 minute recording by Maria Gilardin with the UC Berkeley School of Journalism on November 24, 2003.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 39.8MB)
