The Omnivore's Dilemma

by Michael Pollan

  Wednesday morning I drove into San Francisco to pick up the meat from Angelo. By the end of the week I had all my ingredients. I’d picked a gallon of cherries, harvested my fava beans, prepared the brine for the pig loin, made the stock, and soaked the dried morels in warm water. On Friday night, when I made a to-do list and schedule for Saturday, it hit me just how much I had to do. What was really scary was how much of it I had never done before. That included baking a wild yeast bread and cooking a wild pig two different ways.

  I also hadn’t added up how many total hours of oven time the meal would require. Braising the pig leg at 250 degrees would take half the day. I didn’t see how exactly I could fit in the bread and the tart. For some reason it hadn’t dawned on me earlier that I was cooking a very difficult meal for a group of very picky food experts. Now dawn on me it did.

  OVER MY HEAD

  To give you an idea of exactly what I’d gotten myself into, here’s the schedule I wrote out Friday evening on both sides of an index card:

  GIVING THANKS

  That was my plan for Saturday in the kitchen. Of course in reality the day unfolded nothing like that neat and orderly schedule. Instead it was a blizzard of rushed work, missing ingredients, unscheduled spills and dropped pots, unscheduled trips to the store, unscheduled pangs of doubt, and second-guessing. There were moments when I sorely wished for another pair of hands, but Judith and Isaac were away all day.

  Did I really need to cook the pig two different ways? For dessert, why not just serve the cherries in a bowl? Or open a packet of fast-acting yeast?! Why in the world was I going to quite this much trouble?

  When I thought about it, there seemed to be several reasons. This meal was my way of thanking all the people who had helped me with my hunting and gathering adventure. The effort I put into the meal would be a way of showing how much I appreciated what they had done. A bowl of fresh bing cherries is nice, but to turn them into a pastry is surely a more thoughtful gesture. (As long as I didn’t blow the crust.) It’s the difference between a Hallmark e-card and a handwritten letter.

  The work was also a way of honoring the food. All these plants and animals and fungi were being sacrificed to our needs and desires. I wanted to do right by them. I guess I could have made wild boar hamburgers, but that wouldn’t have felt like the right thing. Maybe that is one way a cook celebrates the ingredients, by wasting as little as possible and making the most of whatever the food has to offer.

  AT THE TABLE

  It remained to be seen whether my cooking would honor my ingredients or just embarrass me. In any case, by the hour set for the dinner, everything was more or less ready, except me. I raced upstairs to change and, before I had my shoes tied, heard the doorbell ring. The guests were arriving. They came bearing gifts: Angelo with his wine and pâté, and Sue with a bouquet picked from her garden. Anthony brought a bottle of homemade nocino, a jet-black Italian liquor he’d made from green walnuts—yet another gift from the forest for our feast.

  Most of the guests were strangers to one another. All they had in common was foraging—and me. But as we settled into the living room with our glasses of wine, it didn’t take long for the conversation to start flowing. The fava bean toasts and boar pâté went over well and that led to a discussion about boar hunting.

  I disappeared into the kitchen to ready the pasta course. Within minutes Angelo appeared at my side, with an offer of help. I think he was a little worried I was in over my head. While we waited for the pasta water to come to a boil, I asked him to taste the morels. “It’s good, but maybe it needs a little more butter.” I handed him a stick and he dropped the whole thing in the pan. (So that’s how the professionals do it!)

  We dished out the pasta and I called everyone to the table for dinner. Candles were lit, wine was poured, the perfume of thyme and morels filled the room, and I raised my glass for a toast. I’d actually meant to write out something earlier, but the day had gotten away from me. So I kept it simple. I went around the table and spoke of each person’s contribution to my foraging education and to this meal. I talked about Sue’s generosity in sharing three of her choicest chanterelle spots. I talked about Anthony’s allowing a complete—and completely green—stranger to accompany him hunting morels in the Sierra. I talked about hunting with Richard in Sonoma during that first failed outing. And lastly I talked about all the many things I’d learned from Angelo—things about mushrooms and pigs, about nature and the arts of cooking and eating well, and so much else besides. Then, worried I was in danger of melting down into sentiment, I raised my glass again and urged everyone to start.

  I had actually wanted to say something more, to express a wider gratitude for the meal we were about to eat. I guess I chickened out, afraid that to offer words of thanks for the pig and the mushrooms and the forests and the garden would come off sounding corny. The words I was reaching for, of course, were the words of grace.

  THE PERFECT MEAL

  As you might expect, the talk at the table was mainly about food. Yet this was not the usual food talk of recipes and restaurants. These foragers talked about the plants and animals and fungi they had seen and met. They told stories of an oak forest in Sonoma, a pine burn in the Sierras, and a backyard in Berkeley. The stories brought all these places and the creatures in them to our table. Every item on our plates had a story—and not the kind of story printed on a milk carton about “organic” cows. These were stories the people at the table had lived.

  The food, the places it came from, and the eaters at the table were all linked together. How different this was from the typical meal, in which we never even think about where the chicken or cherries come from. How completely different from a fast-food hamburger wolfed down without a moment’s thought in a speeding car.

  I don’t want to make too much of it; it was just a meal, after all. A very tasty meal too, I don’t mind saying. The wild pig was delicious both ways, with a nutty sweetness to it that tasted nothing like store-bought pork. The sauce for the leg was almost joltingly rich and earthy, powerfully reminiscent of the forest. So were the morels and butter (or perhaps I should say butter and morels), which had a deep, smoky, almost meaty flavor. I could have done a better job cleaning the grit from the morels, and the tart was a shade overcooked. But the cherries themselves tasted like little bursts of summer on the tongue, and no one seemed to have any trouble polishing it off.

  In the end, I did feel it was a perfect meal. It wasn’t my cooking that made it perfect, but the connection we felt with the food, with the place we live and with each other. Wasn’t that exactly the feeling of connection I had been looking for when I began my journeys along the food chains of the U.S.? This food had never worn a label or bar code or price tag, and yet I knew almost everything there was to know about it. I knew and could picture the very oaks and pines that had nourished the pigs and the mushrooms that were nourishing us. And I knew the true cost of this food, the precise amount of time and work it had taken to get it and prepare it.

  If I had to give this dinner a name, it would have to be the Omnivore’s Thanksgiving. I certainly felt thankful to be eating those plants, animals, and fungi. I was thankful to have experienced them in full, as living creatures and not as items shrink-wrapped in the supermarket. And I was thankful to be in the company of friends who appreciated the miracle of it all.

  Of course, it was just one meal. The day after, I would go back to shopping at the supermarket or farmers market. It’s just not realistic for me to find and prepare meals like this more than once in a while. Most people will never be able to do it. Does that mean we are doomed to eating at the end of a long industrial food chain and never know where our food comes from, or what its true nature is? I hope not. Eating with awareness is one of the basic joys of life, and one that everyone can experience even without hunting and gathering your food.

  ALL OUR MEALS

  One of the wonders of my do-it-yourself meal was how little it had damaged the world. My pig’s place in
the forest would soon be taken by another pig. The morels would come up again when they needed to. The cherry tree would bear fruit again next year. The meal was fully paid for in every sense; there was no pollution or packaging left over. There were no hidden costs or waste to be disposed of.

  The fast-food meal seems cheap, but as we have seen, the costs are actually enormous. The industrial food chain costs each and every one of us: in government spending, in pollution, in global warming, and in our health. You can say that my forager’s meal is unrealistic, but I would answer that the fast-food meal is unrealistic also. It is not realistic to rely on a food system that poisons the planet. It is not realistic to call something a food system when it replaces food with an industrial product that does not nourish us—and in fact makes us sick.

  Imagine if we had a food system that actually produced wholesome food. Imagine if it produced that food in a way that restored the land. Imagine if we could eat every meal knowing these few simple things: What it is we’re eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what it really cost.

  If that was the reality, then every meal would have the potential to be a perfect meal. We would not need to go hunting for our connection to our food and the web of life that produces it. We would no longer need any reminding that we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and that what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.

  I don’t want to have to forage every meal. Most people don’t want to learn to garden or hunt. But we can change the way we make and get our food so that it becomes food again—something that feeds our bodies and our souls. Imagine it: Every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature. Every meal would be like saying grace.

  Isuspectthatreading this book will complicate your eating life. Writing it certainly complicated mine. And we’re not alone. Sometimes I meet people who tell me that they liked my book, but they couldn’t finish it. That’s not what a writer ever wants to hear, so I always ask them, why not?

  “Because in every chapter I learn about something I shouldn’t eat anymore. I’m afraid if I get to the end, there won’t be anything left to eat, and I’ll starve.”

  Hearing this kind of thing from readers makes me appreciate that, in some ways, The Omnivore’s Dilemma has deepened people’s dilemmas about food. Do I feel bad about that? Not really. It’s always better to know more rather than less, even when that knowledge complicates your life. Luckily, there are still plenty of things out there that are good to eat—and by good I mean not only delicious and healthy (good for us) but also good for the world: for the environment, for the workers who produce the food, and, in the case of meat or dairy, for the animals involved.

  One of the strongest reactions to the book is from people who tell me they became vegetarians after reading it. The Omnivore’s Dilemma definitely created a lot of vegetarians. But what’s more surprising has been to hear from former vegetarians who tell me that, after reading about Joel Salatin’s farm, they started eating meat again. Why? Because they didn’t realize that there were farms where the animals got to live good lives, eat the foods they were meant to eat, and then suffer only that one bad day right at the end of their lives. It was possible, they discovered, to eat meat with a clear conscience.

  So I’m guessing that the number of new vegetarians inspired by the book has been balanced out by the number of new carnivores. But whichever conclusion readers come to, they are more thoughtful about their choices—they act now out of knowledge rather than ignorance, and that’s the most important thing. Ignorance is not bliss, at least not if you’re a person who cares about the health of your body and your world.

  Since writing the book, my family has changed the way we eat in many ways. I’ve lost my appetite for feedlot meat and so have they. We used to enjoy a fast-food meal now and then, and even today my sixteen-year-old son, Isaac (when you met him in the book, at the McDonald’s meal, he was only eleven), likes an occasional chicken nugget. But what he’s learned from me about how the animals live on feedlots, and about what’s in those chicken nuggets, has made him think twice about eating fast food on a regular basis. He’s completely lost his appetite for Big Macs and Whoppers, and he has stopped drinking soda except on special occasions.

  My family also eats much less meat than we used to, and when we do eat it, we get it from farms or ranches or companies we know enough about to trust. We only buy grass-fed beef, which we can find in local markets (it’s becoming increasingly common); and sometimes we buy it directly from a rancher. (You can find farmers selling pastured meat and milk in your area at eatwild.com.) In the case of plant-based foods, we usually buy organic or local (and ideally both—I think organic fruits and vegetables taste better, and I also like the idea that my food dollars are supporting farmers who care about the land). We also try to shop at the farmers market as often as possible. The food there is picked fresh, which means it is at the peak of its taste and nutritional quality, and every dollar goes directly to the farmers.

  If this all sounds like a lot more trouble than buying whatever’s on sale at the supermarket, you’re right. It also costs a little more. But I think it’s worth it. It’s amazing how knowing the story behind your food can make it taste better. (Or, if it’s a bad story, worse.) But I also enjoy meeting farmers at the farmers market, and seeing how my food dollars can help build a new food chain in America, one devoted to health at every step: to the health of the land, the health of the plants and animals, the health of my family, and the health of my community.

  I call shopping and eating this way “voting with your fork.” How you and your family choose to spend your food dollars represents one of the most powerful votes you have. You can vote to support the kind of feedlot where steer number 534 spent his miserable life, or you can vote for farms like Polyface, where animals live the lives they were meant to, the land is healed in the process, and the farmers make a decent living. That kind of alternative farm was created not only by visionary farmers like Joel Salatin, but by visionary consumers—like you.

  I’ve never liked to think of myself as a mere “consumer”—the word sounds like someone who uses things up and diminishes the world, and very often that’s exactly what a consumer does. But a consumer can be a creator too, by using his or her eating choices to help build a new food chain. That is a potent vote, and you get three of them every day. But perhaps best of all, when it comes to food, you don’t have to wait till you’re eighteen to start voting. You can start today, at your next meal.

  That doesn’t mean we’re going to get that vote right every time or at every meal. We won’t. Sometimes there are no good alternatives to vote for. Sometimes you’re just going to want a Big Mac. There will be those special occasions when you crave that tall, cold cup of high-fructose corn syrup—I mean, a soda. But there’s a big difference between the special splurge and the everyday habit, and the problem these days is that fast food has, for many of us, become everyday food. You don’t have to go cold turkey—just put fast food back in its place, as special occasion food. And, when you are eating it, think about what you now know about your meal. How’s it taste now?

  If you cast your food vote consciously just once or twice a day, you will be doing a lot—for the farmers, for the animals, for the environment, and for your own health. I know: You don’t make all the food decisions in your household. But you have more influence than you realize. Ever since you were little, pestering your mom to buy the cool new cereal you saw on TV—or tossing it in the shopping cart when she wasn’t looking—you’ve had a major impact on how your family’s food dollars get spent. So what about using that influence in a new way—say, by encouraging your parents to shop at the farmers market or to join a CSA? (“CSA” stands for Community Supported Agriculture. These are local farms that families “join” for a few hundred dollars a year. In return, they get a weekly box of fresh produce. It’s often cheaper than shopping at the farmers market, and can even
be cheaper than your local supermarket.) And then offer to help your parents cook a couple of nights a week—or take over one whole night yourself. Cooking for your family is a great way to influence how they eat.

  Voting with your fork at school can be a challenge, but it’s worth trying to do. How a school spends its food dollars can have a tremendous impact on the whole food system. In many schools today, students and parents are working together to improve the food service: to take away the soda machines (why should those companies be allowed to tempt you at school?); to encourage cafeterias to serve real food made from scratch (rather than just microwave chicken nuggets and Tater Tots); and even to teach classes on how to grow and cook food yourself. Physical education is already a mandatory part of your school day, after all, so why not eating education? It’s just as important to your health. Is your school teaching you how to be a lifelong fast-food junkie? Or is it teaching you the importance, and the pleasure, of eating real food at real meals?

  It’s an exciting time to be an eater in America. You have choices today that your parents couldn’t have dreamed of: organic, local, CSAs, humanely raised milk and meat. When they were your age, there was basically only one way to feed yourself: from the industrial food chain. You have the option of eating from a very different food chain—you can vote with your fork for a better world, one delicious bite at a time.