Raveret Monica Richter Skidmore College, Department of Biology [e-mail] Ecology of Food Fall 2005
Chef's Choice Field Trip Chez Sophie Bistro Leave Skidmore at 1:15 on Saturday 3 December (Meet in the parking lot behind Dana) Here is a copy of my correspondence with Cheryl Clark and Chef Paul Parker. Also, please visit their website at http://www.chezsophie.com before our trip, so that you can familiarize yourself with the restaurant and its philosophy. While at Chez Sophie, you will observe meal preparations in the kitchen and ask the chef questions so that you get the information necessary to answer the questions on the accompanying pages. Also, PLEASE BRING A FEW SPECIFIC QUESTIONS OF YOUR OWN TO ASK CHEF PAUL AND CHERYL. Your questions could be related to the history, harvest/production, selection, preparation or presentation of a food (maybe the food you are researching for your final project?), or the cultural significance of a food. Listen well; take excellent notes. This is an incredible opportunity to learn about food! Here is my most recent note from Cheryl: Paul and I are looking forward to meeting you with your class on Saturday at 1:30. We'll be opening the kitchen and setting up at that point, so if you wanted to start off with a little speech and questions as we're pulling the stuff out, that would be good. Our style of cooking reflects three of your subject headings, the elegant table, the family table and the sustainable table. I'll print out your notes for Chef Paul to read this week so he'll have his head in the game. Cheryl An earlier note I sent to Cheryl and Paul: At the point in the course when we hope to take our Chef's Choice field trip (early December), students will have studied the food choices of a variety of animals. They will have designed and conducted experiments to test how honey bees choose among flowers, conducted field studies on how plants defend themselves against herbivores and, as they analyzed their field data, eaten their way through physical and chemical plant defenses from artichokes through mustard greens. While consuming tropical fruits, they will have pondered the theory and practice of seed dispersal. Students also will have visited local farms and learned about the ecological consequences of human production and harvest of
food, and studied the history, practice and ecological impacts of various sorts of agriculture (the agro-industrial approach, small farms) and hunting. One course reading uses the following criteria to characterize how one's day-to-day diet might be selected: the gourmet table, focused on "elegant cuisine," the fast-food table, the safe-food table, the family table (affordable, easy to prepare, the family will eat it), and the sustainable table, focused on procuring sustainably raised food. Both at the beginning and the end of the course, I will survey students regarding how they personally rank the importance of each of theses criteria when they select food. The week immediately prior to the Chef's Choice field trip, students will work outdoors, investigating whether or not energetic considerations influence food choice in winter flocks of birds. Following this demanding outdoor lab with a lab in which students learn about how a chef chooses the for ingredients his dishes, while gathered in a warm restaurant, is a really attractive (and, I hope, effective) sequel to all of their previous laboratory studies and fieldwork. I'm hoping that the ensuing discussion will help students to relate general principles regarding food choice from their previous broadlybased studies to their own food choices -- we are starting to make these connections in earnest this week in class. The main questions we hope to address are: What criteria are important to you in your choice of foods for the "table" you present to guests at Chez Sophie? Why do you have these preferences? Considerations might include (comment on whatever you choose here, or feel free to add things we haven't thought of) --safety of food: Do you choose organically raised foods, foods from farmers whose agricultural practices you feel produce safe foods? Do you consider possible bioaccumulation of PCB's, mercury, etc when choosing animal foods? (yes, based on this weeks newsletter!) Do you consider the potential transmission of disease (chronic wasting disease in farmed and Midwestern deer herds, "mad cow" disease) Hmmm; this section is beginning to sound like the fear monger's guide to food... --quality of food: What standards do you have for food quality (you might give some specific examples). How do you ensure that your suppliers meet these standards? --To what extent do you use local food versus foods from distant sources? --To what extent do you purchase food from food large suppliers versus small suppliers or producers? What criteria influence these decisions? --Do you consider how animals are raised when choosing food? (Grass-fed lambs, freerange chickens, other aspects of animal husbandry?) --Do you use genetically modified organisms as food? --Do you consider sustainability of harvest and conservation of biodiversity when
selecting foods (I used your newsletter on caviar to address this issue in the last v...