Gumption: America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

by Nick Offerman

  The next day, the public was shocked to see the headlines referring to the young ladies and their “Torches of Freedom.” This maneuver was entirely successful for a couple of reasons: In later interviews, Bernays explained that he simply applied Freudian psychology to the situation, giving women the sense of having “a penis of their own” to brandish, a powerful incentive given the women’s suffrage movement afoot at the time. Even more nefarious, the term “Torches of Freedom” pandered to the public’s sense of patriotism, so that if one were to disagree with the idea of women smoking, one could be accused of un-American sentiments. Bernays had practically written the Fox News playbook in one fell swoop.

  Our nation had come into a time of manufacturing prosperity heretofore unseen, with a surplus of products available for purchase but a frugal populace that pinched every penny. Edward Bernays was determined to convince people that purchases would make them “feel better,” and one of his investors, Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers, said, “We must shift the focus of advertising from ‘needs’ to ‘desires.’ People must be trained to desire; to want new things even before the old has been consumed.”

  I don’t know about you, but I find that information and its clearly successful execution horrifying. Our national obesity and diabetes epidemic, our death rates due to alcohol, tobacco, and automotive- and gun-related incidents, have been ushered along by our friendly corporations entirely on purpose. In 1927, an unnamed journalist said, “A change has come over our democracy, and it is called ‘consumptionism.’ The American citizen’s first importance is no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.” In 1927! That’s sixty years before Rogaine even showed up, and forty years before the advent of Doritos! By God, they had our number.

  By now, food companies have our string-pulling down to a science. A vast array of popular products on the grocery store shelves and the drive-through menu are engineered to be light on the health and heavy on the flash. Delicious flavor powder! New color, now even greenier! Wait’ll you get a load of the aromatic gases emanating from these microwavable food envelopes! Advertising has become pure psychology, tugging at our long-conditioned desires. Some modern classics are the McDonald’s campaign that gives us images of happy families and their pets, running in the yard and playing sports, to the sugary refrain of “I’m lovin’ it,” or “We love to see you smile.” I fear they may have mistaken my grimace of intestinal discomfort for a smile, but I suppose that’s forgivable given the vast viewing distance from the bank all the way to which they have laughed. It now occurs to me that they are merely referring to themselves when they intone, “I’m lovin’ it,” as they watch us mindlessly gobble those irresistible fries and deep-fried chicken clumps.

  “So now what, dumbass?” I ask myself. That’s where Michael Pollan’s entertaining and illuminating road maps come in. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he breaks down four different meals for us, spanning the spectrum of purity from an entirely fast-food meal to a meal comprised only of ingredients grown, hunted, or foraged. In between, he goes into gratifying detail about what items in the grocery store bear any resemblance to what their labels tell us, and how Freudenberg’s “corporate consumer complex” has even commandeered our formerly trusted descriptors like “organic” and “natural.” Just the long list of products in the store that are made with high-fructose corn syrup is a staggering wake-up call.

  Mr. Pollan can take a complicated biological subject, like how stupid it is to feed corn to cattle, and lay it out for us in digestible layers: Our country had a postwar surplus of corn. The excess corn was fed to cattle. Cattle are literally not built to digest corn, because they are ruminants (they have a “rumen,” or extra stomach, for digesting plants that carnivores can’t), so corn makes them sick. The beef industry, instead of putting an end to the corn diet, just shoots the factory cows full of drugs to keep them alive long enough to harvest their beef.

  This is obviously an oversimplified summation of only one of the many revelatory topics delivered in Pollan’s writing, but it should give you the gist. I’d love to see a statistic here in 2015 of how many restaurants and butchers are now touting their grass-fed beef as opposed to corn-fed, thanks to Michael Pollan’s benign whistle-blowing. I have recently eaten in classic steakhouses in Indiana and California whose menus were still loudly advertising the “finest in corn-fed steer meat.”

  Five minutes of research into factory farming will immediately turn your stomach and reveal to you the filthy, and simply evil, production methods of most of our country’s meat products: beef, pork, chicken, eggs, salmon, trout, and more. We have allowed these abominations to occur, and we continue to support them through lazily ignoring the truth. Mr. Berry, Mr. Pollan, and others have given us no excuse to remain in our passive denial.

  Both of these writers speak very plainly and effectively about the heavy-handed bullying that agri-giants like Monsanto and Cargill have employed in order to legalize their genetically modified organisms, also known as GMOs. Even the acronym seems unscrupulous, its initials softening the creepy science-fictional quality of an organism that has been genetically modified. The truth that Mr. Pollan makes quite plain, that seems to me the point to which attention should be paid, is that these organisms have not been genetically modified to make our food better. Is that not the bottom line? Shouldn’t a food company succeed because they strive to make good food? That these global corporate monoliths have forced these aberrances upon us for profit alone seems inarguable. This is not the first time that man- and womankind have thought they might prosper by outsmarting nature. The Greeks have plenty to tell us in their dramas about hubris, and I’m afraid that historically things don’t ever turn out well for the guy or gal, flying too close to the sun, or inventing a “better” corn seed.

  We were doing so well just a few generations ago. Among his rules for eating, Michael Pollan tells us to “avoid anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” As I learned from his In Defense of Food, in 1977 Senator George McGovern headed up a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, and they discerned that the solution to America’s growing epidemics of diet-related illness could be alleviated if we would consume less meat and dairy. Simple and good, right? Apparently not if you were McGovern’s cattle-ranching constituents in South Dakota. They led a firestorm of criticism that caused the committee to reword their guidelines in much softer language, meat-wise, and soon saw McGovern ousted.

  Remember the Oprah Winfrey burger debacle of 1998? In the throes of fear over mad cow disease, she merely stated that a guest’s remarks about mad cow “just stopped me cold from eating another burger.” A group of Texas beef producers sued Oprah under Texas’s False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act of 1995. Of course, the Texans had their asses handed to them, but to me, the case begs the question: Why would you ever need to enact such a state law in the first place, unless there was something unseemly in your methods? The specter of mad cow had been raised because the factory farmers were feeding their beef cattle ground-up dead beef cattle. This is the fact that had these “ranchers” taking the moral high ground? Michael Pollan puts it into perspective very succinctly with his adage, “You are what you eat eats.”

  In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the dedication of the John Brown Memorial (and I am most definitely not saying Brown was not a Freemason). Roosevelt said, “It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.” In 1907 the Tillman Act had been signed into law to curtail the very corruption of which number twenty-six spoke, but no federal committee was ever enacted to enforce the new legislation.

  Michael Pollan is one of the key investigators today, po
inting out the direct effects of this malfeasance running rampant in the aisles of our grocery stores. Food corporations are aware of the harmful effects of their products, so they muscle legislation into existence so that nobody is allowed to say that their food is unhealthy? We are dietetically mired in a morass of advertising falsehood, when all we want to do is feed ourselves and our families delicious and healthy comestibles. How do we get back to the kind of eating wherein good health is simply a matter of course? Pollan tells us, in no uncertain terms. From In Defense of Food: “If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.”

  As we were finishing up our delicious chat at Chez Panisse, a restaurant that it seems like Alice Waters started in 1971 just to wait for Michael Pollan to arrive and champion it, the waiter asked if we would like dessert. I scrutinized the menu and declared that I really shouldn’t have dessert with lunch, but for the sake of research, I had better order the Epicenter Orchards Apple and Huckleberry Galette with Vanilla Ice Cream. Michael generously offered to help me out with it, and we ordered coffee (for me) and tea (for him) as well.

  Just then, the waiter brought out the first dessert on the menu, charismatically entitled A Bowl of Bob’s Black Mission Figs and Frog Hollow Farm Warren Pear, as though it’s nomenclature had been penned by Mark Twain for a café at Disneyland. Michael said, “Look at this. This bowl is absolutely just simple fruit; it’s the ultimate Chez Panisse creation. What they’re saying is, ‘We can’t improve on this.’ Some of it’s not even cut up . . . it’s just curated.” We shared the fruit, and it was sublime. I mentioned that it reminded me of a recurring theme in the woodworking we do at my shop, particularly with the slab tables: We try to inflict as little ornamentation as possible upon the wood, oil it and polish it, and get out of the way of Mother Nature. Like George Nakashima, of whom you may soon read (in chapter 15).

  “Oh, I love Nakashima,” replied Michael Pollan. “My parents own a bunch of his pieces.” O the serendipity. Hilariously, in fact, Michael remembered going to Nakashima’s studio as a kid, and while George sketched ideas for his folks’ furniture needs and they browsed among the stacks of slabs to find just the right piece of walnut for their dining room, Michael ran around bored with Nakashima’s son, Kevin.

  Michael said that he understood my comparison of Nakashima to Chez Panisse: “You’re describing the philosophy of this restaurant. If they get the right ingredients, cooking’s not an issue.” He tells us in his essay “Unhappy Meals”: “Even the simplest food is a hopelessly complex thing to study, a virtual wilderness of chemical compounds, many of which exist in complex and dynamic relation to one another.” In fact, that too sounds just like the woods we use in my shop. “Fine woodworking” comprises a set of techniques shaped around a respect for the unpredictable and sometimes downright ornery behavior of wood. We know that wood is an organic compound, made up of cells that can behave in mysterious ways, and so we join pieces of the compound together by methods that pay respect to that misbehavior.

  When it comes to knowledge, again, I feel that we have been seduced into thinking that total comprehension is possible, because we have on our phones instant access to more information than we can cognitively handle. But there is a huge difference between information and knowledge. Tanya Berry said to me that she finds it upsetting nowadays when people look into their phones in the middle of a conversation, first because it’s rude, but second because anytime there is a question, people will now just Google the answer. Wendell chimed in and added, “They’re losing the ability to use those three beautiful words: I don’t know.”

  Wendell Berry snagged this inbound 1945 quote from Sir Albert Howard, tossed it to Michael Pollan, who then passed it along to me via his writing, and now I’m lobbing it to you, in the hope that you’ll resoundingly dunk it through the hoop of public clarity, over the outstretched hands of FDA befuddlement: that we would do well to regard “the whole problem of health, in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject.” With that wisdom in place, I vote that we try to simplify things as much as possible, starting with our food purchases. Another bon mot from Michael Pollan’s deep well: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”

  The answers to all the confusion about food lie in simplification. Michael Pollan suggests that we simply make our food, and hence our health, more of a priority. If you love your child/spouse/pet/self, then don’t feed them fast food or processed products that you know are unhealthy. Make your meals important enough that you simply take the time and effort to pack a lunch rather than depend on what is offered by retail food locations near your work or school.

  Seek out local sources, like a farmer’s market or CSA (community-supported agriculture), which will deliver fresh produce to you weekly.

  “Pay more, eat less,” says Pollan. It sounds antithetical until you realize that cheap food has not been created for your health or quality enjoyment; it’s been engineered to be cheap. I am still working on it, but since I first started reading Michael Pollan’s food/cooking books, my wife and I eat exponentially better, and we feel great, and she looks great. I still look like me, but I did go down a size in jeans. Suck on that, McDonald’s. I’m smiling wide, but you can’t see me.

  PART 3

  MAKERS

  13

  THOMAS LIE-NIELSEN

  If you are the type of person (excellent nerd) who is obsessed with the shaping of wood using hand tools, then you are my kind of lady or fellow. If you enjoy discussing the difference between a half-blind dovetail and one that is fully sightless, then you and I could hang out, so long as you can tolerate a beefy feculence in the immediate atmosphere and the occasional ripping report announcing the refreshing of said funk. If you are so into your wedged tenon that your coffee grows cold awaiting your attention, then you are undoubtedly the sort of initiate who is aware of the “Cadillacs” of American hand tools, that is to say, the ones that are made at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks. If you are not my sort of weirdo, then chances are you remain ignorant to these sublime, finely crafted implements. Let me inform you.

  (Note to youngsters: In my day, the Cadillac was an automobile made by the General Motors Corporation that was considered the “top of the line,” and so to refer to any member of a given classification as the “Cadillac” was to employ a figure of speech indicating that it was “the best.” To this day, they continue to make a fine, quality ride, but I no longer find that metaphor to be in popular use.)

  Actually, let me back it up another degree. Have you heard of Maine? If you drive east to, say, Boston, then take a left, after nipping off the corner of New Hampshire, you’ll find yourself in the magnificent state of Maine. This is the rugged locale of the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, as well as the WoodenBoat School and countless other inspiring individuals. (Check out Robert Shetterly’s painting series Americans Who Tell the Truth.)

  Thomas Lie-Nielsen, born in 1954, is the son of a Norwegian boatbuilder who had immigrated to the United States in his teens, where he skippered local boats and eventually ran a handful of wooden-boat shops. Having grown up in the skilled atmosphere of these shops in the relatively remote area of Camden, Maine, Thomas then went to school at Hamilton College to study English before moving to New York City to seek his fortune. He took a job with a tool mail-order company called Garrett Wade in the late 1970s, once again exposing himself to the types of tools he’d grown up around. The company offered a variety of items, including the finest hand tools available for woodworkers at the time. Trouble was, “the finest available” didn’t always necessarily mean anything that great. It’s just that there were very few companies in the world making these specialized tools. (GarrettWade.com is still a source of tools and other swell implements, where I often shop for gifts.)

  Interestingly, WoodenBo
at magazine had begun publishing in 1974, and Fine Woodworking magazine had just fired up its presses a year later in 1975. These were the result of our nation’s tool purists wanting a better education and community in support of crafts like heirloom furniture construction and wooden-boat building. Nobody in the States was making high-end woodworking tools in any substantive way, because there was not yet a noticeable demand, and companies that were making tools were cranking out tens of thousands of them per week, which didn’t leave much opportunity for quality control.

  In the Garrett Wade catalogue, there was a small hand plane called an edge trimming block plane that was an adaptation of the Stanley #95, handmade by a machinist named Ken Wisner in Freeport. Mr. Wisner decided to retire from producing this plane, and Lie-Nielsen recognized an opportunity. As I mentioned, the planes and chisels available at the time were generally mass-produced, and so they lacked the level of detail and finishing that we have come to appreciate in today’s hand-tool market. Thomas understood that these catalogue tools were not remotely up to snuff; in fact, they were downright shitty, and so his gut told him to take quite a plunge.

  He contacted Mr. Wisner in Freeport and acquired the tooling, plans, and components necessary for producing the #95 himself. Moving to a blueberry farm in West Rockport, Maine, he began producing these planes in a small shed, successively delivering his first product to Garrett Wade by 1981. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks was born. Thomas was twenty-five years old.