A meditation on the pick-your-own fruit place in Ypsilani, Michigan.
It was quite interesting to see a place where the ubiquitous apple was exulted to the rank of precious commodity. This, while there are thousands of them lying about. Clearly it wasn’t about the quantity that was giving them such a value in the eyes of the apple pickers and eaters. Was it the quality, then (asks the economist)?
Well, they were good. As one who grew up in apple country, there can be an enormous gulf of gastronomic difference between the flavors to a grocery store apple and that of an apple freshly picked. But there are good apples to be had around here, it being apple country and all. However, the farmer’s market apples are quite good-good enough that I doubt that I could really tell the different if asked to judge. And the farmers market certainly carries a well-cultivated aura of quality. So, I tend to doubt its entirely about the difference in quality that produces this apple-awe.
This makes it all the more curious that the preciousness with which apples are treated here seems greater still than within the farmers-market-temple-to-fresh-produce.
Methinks it is the proximity to the source of the apple. You get a bit of this distilled into the farmers market experience, but it does not carry quite the same-what? It is a sort of reverence–we have a reverence for those gentle earthy places where that which sustains us is created. It is a reminder of all the vast time and territory and toil that goes into making a single sweet little fruit. Its scary. It amazing. It makes us eat our food a little more thoughtfully.
A reminder of the miracle of food is enough to make all of us pause and take our food a bit more seriously. It is exactly what farmers’ markets attempt to cultivate in their marketplace, and exactly what grocery stores attempt to sterilize out of the experience.
Wait, why would a grocery store do that, when food is taken so seriously in a farmers market or pick-it-yourself orchard? Wouldn’t they want to reproduce that? Yes, they would. Reference: whole foods, trader joes, etc. The problem is there is quite a lot about the “miracles” that bring food to those shelves that we wouldn’t want to know. The proximity to the source makes all of us aware of the ambiguous chain that connects us to its production. The purity of apple picking reminds us of all the little sins committed in getting our dinner to those grocery store shelves, carefully packaged, and carefully protecting our ignorance.
Grocery stores are getting good at the fine art of balancing the maintenance of our ignorance with the perception of proximity. We can look at the food on the shelf in the organic isle and be comforted by the feeling that we know where its coming from, without actually having any idea.
Here, have an apple I picked. How do you like ‘dem apples?
On Apples and Consumer Ignorance
A meditation on the pick-your-own fruit place in Ypsilani, Michigan.
It was quite interesting to see a place where the ubiquitous apple was exulted to the rank of precious commodity. This, while there are thousands of them lying about. Clearly it wasn’t about the quantity that was giving them such a value in the eyes of the apple pickers and eaters. Was it the quality, then (asks the economist)?
Well, they were good. As one who grew up in apple country, there can be an enormous gulf of gastronomic difference between the flavors to a grocery store apple and that of an apple freshly picked. But there are good apples to be had around here, it being apple country and all. However, the farmer’s market apples are quite good-good enough that I doubt that I could really tell the different if asked to judge. And the farmers market certainly carries a well-cultivated aura of quality. So, I tend to doubt its entirely about the difference in quality that produces this apple-awe.
This makes it all the more curious that the preciousness with which apples are treated here seems greater still than within the farmers-market-temple-to-fresh-produce.
Methinks it is the proximity to the source of the apple. You get a bit of this distilled into the farmers market experience, but it does not carry quite the same-what? It is a sort of reverence–we have a reverence for those gentle earthy places where that which sustains us is created. It is a reminder of all the vast time and territory and toil that goes into making a single sweet little fruit. Its scary. It amazing. It makes us eat our food a little more thoughtfully.
A reminder of the miracle of food is enough to make all of us pause and take our food a bit more seriously. It is exactly what farmers’ markets attempt to cultivate in their marketplace, and exactly what grocery stores attempt to sterilize out of the experience.
Wait, why would a grocery store do that, when food is taken so seriously in a farmers market or pick-it-yourself orchard? Wouldn’t they want to reproduce that? Yes, they would. Reference: whole foods, trader joes, etc. The problem is there is quite a lot about the “miracles” that bring food to those shelves that we wouldn’t want to know. The proximity to the source makes all of us aware of the ambiguous chain that connects us to its production. The purity of apple picking reminds us of all the little sins committed in getting our dinner to those grocery store shelves, carefully packaged, and carefully protecting our ignorance.
Grocery stores are getting good at the fine art of balancing the maintenance of our ignorance with the perception of proximity. We can look at the food on the shelf in the organic isle and be comforted by the feeling that we know where its coming from, without actually having any idea.
Here, have an apple I picked. How do you like ‘dem apples?
This entry was posted on October 21, 2007 at 2:49 pm and is filed under agriculture, consumer, consumer ignorance, food economics, social commentary, supply chain, the miracle of food . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.