Andrew D. Todd -
6/10/2007
I don't think you are correctly addressing the European Union's case. The EU's position is in effect that foodstuffs produced in an industrial/deracinated context should be sold under a correct technical description, using the kind of language that an expert, such as a connoisseur or a chef, would use to classify many approximately similar products. For example, "Feta," however defined, is an instance of White Brine Goat Cheese or White Brine Cheese, as the case may be.
http://europa.eu/bulletin/en/200512/p108038.htm
"Champagne," likewise however defined, is an instance of Sparkling Wine. L. W. Marrison, in his _Wines and Spirits_ (1957), devotes a chapter to "Champagne and Sparkling Wines," and another one to "Fortified Wines" (viz., Port, Sherry, Madeira, Tokay, etc.). My understanding is that the major English grocery chains have had a long-running battle with the EU over nomenclature for years.
If you want to address the EU's position, "on the merits," by all means do so, but as it stands, you are not addressing the merits of the case.
Knowing something about the history of food adulteration, I think I am on the side of people who draw lines in the sand, whether they are EU or Japanese bureaucrats, Kosher Rabbis, Islamic Halal Butchers, or whatever, because they collectively resist the natural tendency of the corporate food processor to make everything out of sawdust and plastic. I am not a drinker, and I don't know very much about wine, but I do know something about cheese. The local mega-grocer (Krogers) tends to a downward drift of quality. Their cheeses are inexpensive, if you buy selectively, but even their best cheeses are only good enough to be used in a dish overwhelmingly flavored by garlic, paprika, etc.
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Reading Note of:
John Burnett, Plenty and Want: A Social History of Diet in England from 1815 to the Present Day, 2nd ed., Scholar Press, London, 1979 (1st ed. 1966).
This book is constructed around the convergence of the food of the English masses, who lived hand to mouth, and the English classes, petit bourgeoisie or better, who had sufficient means to have the luxury of choice.
Since the nineteenth century, the food of the common people has been becoming both purer and more nearly adequate.
Up until about 1850, adulteration was on the increase, due to the increase in town-dwelling and the increasing anonymity with which the Englishman's daily food was provided. Apart from comparatively traditional, and even beneficial additions, such as pease in bread, food began to be spiked with things which were positively poisonous, eg. heavy metals, dangerous drugs (French absinthe was matched by English beer, as actually concocted), and even industrial materials such as sulfuric acid. At that point, chemists learned to document adulteration (especially with the aid of the microscope). Under their prodding, law caught up with reality, and compulsory regulation began to be introduced, generating a wave of self-regulation in advance of itself. This self-regulation was especially effective since it coincided with the increasing horizontal and vertical integration of the emerging food processing industry. Also, the fall of food prices made adulteration less and less necessary. However, the legend of adulteration outlived the reality, and adulteration's retreat was and is to the present day continually harassed by reformers complaining of more and more minor tainting factors.
In the early nineteenth century, the few well-fed workers tended to be those in the modernizing industries, as well as the agrarian workers in 'the dark corners of the land,' the pastoral regions. But the overwhelming majority, either agricultural workers in the 'improving' regions or traditional craft workers were on the margin of subsistence in purely calorific terms, let alone the more refined criteria which were ultimately adopted.
The first improvements in diet were when liberal reformers reduced taxes on food. But the single biggest factor in nineteenth century dietary improvement was the improvement of transportation (and refrigeration), which lowered the cost and increased the availability of grain and meat from north America and Argentina, fish from the North Sea and the North Atlantic generally, and fruits from the tropics. The falling price of food triggered a wave of mechanization and rationalization in English agriculture, with rapid emigration of farm workers. English farmers found niches where they could produce at North American levels of value for money.
At the same time, the industrial revolution created more and more well paid employment, so more and more people could afford to buy the newly available food.
The comparatively mild stringencies of the first world war led to a subsequent emphasis on food production at home, using American methods, which culminated during the second world war.
Over time, the proportion of the population in any given degree of privation drifted downward, mostly due to the increase of productive employment, but the prevailing standards of nutritional adequacy were becoming more and more stringent, with the progressive realization that there are dozens of essential nutrients, and an increasing will to question what constituted an adequate diet. This described a path of rising standards similar to that through which the adulteration issue had gone. On the eve of the Second World War, under the prevailing definitions of nutritional adequacy, about a third of the population were still undernourished.
At the same time that the food of the masses was getting better, that of the upper classes was being scaled back, by the progressive elimination of what might be described as conspicuous waste, that is the loading of a table with far more food than could possibly be eaten. Of course, some of the left-overs and table scraps were consumed by the servants and given to the poor, subject to various wastages in transit.
The dramatic achievement of the second world war was food rationing. While limits were set on the maximum amount of meat and similar foods which people were permitted to consume, bread and vegetables were not only unrationed but price-controlled. In some cases, foodstuffs were provided gratis as well, and there was a program of subsidized feeding, especially the 'British Restaurants' which were employed to provide lunches for workers in establishments too small to have their own canteens.
By the postwar period, the nutritional difference between the classes was finally down to a maximum of 10% or so. And there it remained until the seventies.
The second edition was put out at the time of the oil price shocks, and Burnett was temporarily taking a dour view which has not been borne out by events. Hence he contemplated a return to third world (or Early Victorian) conditions.
