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Alice Waters
Founder, Chez Panisse and The Edible Schoolyard
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q. Silicon Valley life moves at warp speed. Are there shortcuts to preparing healthful, delicious food?
A. Yes, if you buy food at the farmer's market that is ripe and delicious tasting and alive, you don't need to do very much to it. You slice that tomato and pour a little delicious olive oil on it and that's just about all you need to do. It's difficult when you have to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, when you have to doctor up vegetables with salt and sugar to give them flavor.
Q. What inspired you to open Chez Panisse, and where does the name come from?
A. The name comes from a character from the films of Marcel Pagnol. He made many, many films in the 1930s and early 1940s in the South of France. Right before the restaurant began, I fell in love with these films. So much so, that I not only named my restaurant after a character.
He was the one who had the possibility of making a little money. But I also named my daughter Fanny, who is one of the characters out of those films. They're very heartfelt stories of real life at that time in the South of France.
Someone asked what inspired the restaurant, and it was really a trip to France in the 1960s. I went as a junior in college, and it really was a sensual awakening for me. I had no idea. I guess I ate very simply before.
My mother was interested in good health. But I never understood the whole beauty: this sort of way that food brought people together and connected in all parts of the day - people's lives, one to another.
And it wasn't until that time, that experience, that year in France. And when I came back, I wanted to live like that. So I started the restaurant naively and in that spirit 30 years ago this year.
Q. The other question was about which chefs you admire, and if you could explain why.
A. Well, I admire chefs who take food seriously and understand that while this is a creative art, it is about nourishment. You're feeding other people. You're trying to give them something that's really good for them.
And I am looking for restaurants and people who see the relationship between what's growing, agriculture, food, and culture and bring that together into a whole experience.
Q. So you won't name anyone specifically though?
A. No, I'm not going to name anybody specifically. I can name people who have been my mentors in the past. The first cookbook I ever read was one by Elizabeth David. She died a few years ago, but she wrote in England, beautifully, about the marketplaces and her life, mostly in France. And she really was a very big influence on me at the beginning and still is.
But I like restaurants where the chef is there; the person who runs the restaurant is taking responsibility for the restaurant and for good times. So I'm very often at places where I know somebody, and I like small places in that sense. I think it's very difficult to run a very big restaurant.
Q. Why do you think people don't embrace organic cooking more? Is it ignorance or is it another reason?
A. I do think it's about education. I think that people don't understand where our food comes from. And if they did understand, they would make a big point of going to the farmers market, knowing the person who grew their food and how they went about doing that.
Anybody who has read this new book that's on the bestseller list called Fast Food Nation will very quickly make some different choices about what they're eating because it is a shocking exposé about how food--particularly fast food--is produced.
But I think it's pretty shocking to find out about foods that are considered natural and without preservatives and that whole movement. I am really interested in people who care about me and my nourishment. I want to know the farmer and the more mad cow that's out there, the more we're going to want to know who produces our food, and we're going to want to take care of the land because that's where our food comes from.
Q. Alice, can you speak a little bit about the Slow Food movement and explain what they stand for and what their status is these days?
A. I'm on the board of Slow Food in this country. And I got involved with this movement which began in Italy probably about 15 years ago when Carlo Petrini was opposing a McDonalds in downtown Rome and he just said "We're not going to have it here." And he started this little revolution with the same ideas that we have at Chez Panisse.
This is all about an interest in artisanal, handmade products, interested in sustainability and biodiversity and an interest in a slow life - a life that gives you time to communicate with people around the table. It gives meaning to your life, to slow down. He has a little snail as the emblem of this movement.
What's really great about it is that it's so good-spirited and connected to all aspects of culture. It's about art. It's about all aspects of our lives and it's not just an eating and drinking organization, which many, many are.
But this is about beauty. This is about a kind of joie de vivre. And I appreciate that spirit being infused into the whole understanding of eating. It's about pleasure.
Q. Speaking of McDonalds, we all know how it's changed the eating habits of Americans. Are you dismayed at all about what it's doing in Europe and other parts of the world?
A. Well, I'm not surprised. Having read Fast Food Nation, I have another understanding which I really didn't have before. I had thought it was really just simply about unhealthy food and about a sort of a whole wave that has taken over the physical landscape and coming into the schools and all of those things.
But I didn't realize that it was such a conspiracy. That there are in fact satellites out there that are tracking the urban sprawl. And there's collaboration with the fast food companies connecting with governments. They figure out where the roads are going, and then they buy the property next to the exits from the freeways.
And then they find out where the schools are going and they put the restaurants next to the schools because they want the children to come in there at an early age and become their lifetime patrons. They want to hire kids that can't work full-time so they don't have to pay minimum wages.
That there is a lobbying going on so they get kickbacks for hiring handicaps and it goes on and on and on. And they're buying up land in New Zealand and putting it in certain places in Europe and China where they know that people don't have the money and are hoping to learn something of American culture and are very vulnerable and susceptible.
It's something that we really have to pay attention to. Slow Food is one of the great organizations in Europe now that's going in opposition to all of this. But there is a whole lot changing in France in 35 years. And it makes me so sad to go back and every time to see more and more fast food places and malls.
They've changed the markets in the South of France. They're bringing things in from all around the world. There used to be local, little places and now it's an international market distributing all over France. So I think it's very, very serious. And we really need to pay attention to what's happening because all of the land is being bought up.
Q. There's been a lot of controversy lately about genetically modified foods. And we're all against this and we wonder if it's good for us at all. But is there also the possibility though that this could be something very good that could help feed starving populations around the world?
A. I think there probably is that possibility. One doesn't know. We don't know enough about this right now. And we have to stop and find out about it. From what I know just as a restaurateur, is that I don't want to buy foods that are genetically modified.
I think we can feed the world by teaching people how to farm productively and organically and give them the tools that they need to grow in their own communities. This myth that somehow people need all of this incredible, scientific complexity to produce synthetic kinds of pseudo-food, it's not real food.
And it separates people from their culture and from their land, and I would rather see our expertise come in and help people to grow sustainably in their own countries.
Q. You wrote several letters to President Clinton about the need to promote sustainable agriculture. Did you see any improvements and are you planning to do the same with President Bush?
A. Well very sadly, I don't think that President Clinton understood precisely the message that I've tried to communicate to you today. And that is that food is a powerful way to not only get people's attention, but to bring them together.
I know that he believes in bringing people together, but I think instead of seeing that many of the problems that we have in this country are happening because we're not paying attention. You know, when one in three kids is obese in school, young kids, and we end up with so many health problems in this country that we're trying to put Band-Aids on when, in fact, the real problem is about educating kids about what they're eating at the very beginning.
It is unfortunate that there hasn't been a president or a leader who gets this and can help us make these changes. I am planning to write this president as well, although I think he is way less interested in environmental issues. And I haven't seen him eat properly yet - a Coke on the counter. So I'm suspicious.
Q. What would you say that each of us can do on a daily basis to connect with the earth and more with each other more?
A. Certainly, spend time at the table and think about every choice you make about the food that goes on the table. Where does it come from? Who made this? What's in it? And that's the best place to make the change and you'll find that it's not complicated to grow food in your backyard and go and pick it. That is a wonderful thing to do and to be part of community gardens.
It's more complicated to go to stores where there are all these choices to make and people claiming on the back of the packages about what's in them and to evaluate that. It's just much easier to find the people who really care about this to begin with and by giving your money directly to the people in the farmer's market.
Q. Well, I think we have a lot of garlic lovers in the audience tonight because one question here was if you could talk a little bit about the benefits of eating and cooking with garlic.
A. There's a Chinese saying that goes "Garlic is as good as ten mothers." I believe that. We have a garlic festival at Chez Panisse in July every year around the Garlic Harvest in California. We try to serve all the dishes with lots of garlic in them. But what's happening now--as the festival's been going probably 20 or 25 years--is that people don't want it to be different from the cooking that we do normally.
They think that it's not enough. They're ready to eat, you know, whole heads. I certainly believe in a lot of the medicinal, curative aspects of garlic. I certainly believe in it as the spice of life. It's very, very important in our cooking. We know a lot about it. We follow its season from July all the way through. We serve that very little spring garlic about this time of the year before the crop comes in. There's the little young garlic which is so pure and delicious. But it's a very big part of our cooking.
Q. Given what's been going on with foot-and-mouth disease and mad cow disease, would it be wiser and more environmentally correct of us to just give up beef?
A. Perhaps, yes. But I like to think of beef--and of meat in general--the way that the Mediterranean people have done in the past and that is to think of it more as a condiment or as a flavoring for something else, instead of this big 12-ounce steak.
Think about it as part of a soup or broth and that way to cut down the portions that we eat. Again, it's very important what those animals are being fed, as we're discovering. And all over Europe, they're giving up beef and having problems with pork.
So again, I'm ready to get back to where everybody has a cow for the milk in the backyard, a couple of chickens and a pig. And as a community, you slaughter that one pig a year and make all your sausages and a couple of prosciutto and it's enough for the flavoring of the meals for the whole year. You like that idea? We just need a little more open space.
Q. We have a gentleman in the audience named George who needs your help here. His wife of 40 years refuses to cook for him anymore and he himself is not a very good cook yet. So he would like to ask you where he could learn to be a better cook?
A. Well, I think first you begin to become a better shopper. I really like the cooks from the restaurant [Chez Panisse] to like to work out in the garden. I am very impressed when somebody brings me a resume that says that they've had so many years working on a farm one place or another or they grew up on a farm. This makes me know that they understand a lot about when to pick things, when they're ripe, when they're in season.
This is very important, to eat food that's in season. Because your palette gets dulled when you eat the same thing all year round so when the good thing comes, you don't even quite taste it - when you eat sort of mediocre tomatoes all year long. We just don't have tomatoes at the restaurant except in July, August and September. That is it. And we probably shouldn't even have them until September because that's when they're really good in California - in September and the beginning of October.
Now see I always wanted to give the president a peach from a Fay Alberta Tree that we know about. And I just thought, "If he could get hooked on this…" I was going to have the one peach dinner. And every course would be this delicious--just sliced--because once your kind of hooked, you go back again and you want that again. You don't know why you want it.
But another way is to begin with bread, fresh bread. I always say when you want to change a community, you start a really good bakery and you pipe those smells out. We do that sometimes at the restaurant. We just open all the doors and windows and burn a little rosemary.
But this brings people sort of subconsciously into the experience, the sensuality of eating. It is tasting good things. And you can always apprentice yourself. In a good restaurant, they like you to come and peel fava beans and peas and you get to eat there at the same time and help out. But that's another good way.
And I think traveling is a good way. Eating in different kinds of restaurants, experiencing different cultures. It sort of stimulates your appetite and inspires you. I am inspired every time I go to the farmer's market. I look at this food and I just want to cook it and I want to eat it.
Q. Speaking of your book, Fanny at Chez Panisse, that and of course The Edible Schoolyard have inspired many parents on ways to feed their children. But do you have any suggestions on how to feed those finicky kids?
A. Again, it's getting them involved in the process of harvesting and cooking because when they do it themselves--when they grow it, when they pick it, when they cook it and when they serve it--they want to eat it. And it's a 50/50 whether they'll eat it or not--even if it's good--whether they'll eat it if they haven't been involved in some way.
So I think that that's the number one thing: to really connect them in this working way with the preparation of the food. I also think it's very important to begin with clear tastes and I mean clear, pure tastes - like those little tiny peas that are out now, those spring peas, the sweet ones. My daughter just loved eating those raw.
But finding things that are a little bit easy and separating those tastes out. Later on you can put them together to more complicated dishes. But just having the very pure tastes and allowing them to mix and match a little bit.
I always serve the romaine leaves of lettuce onto one side and then a little sauce to dip and then she can dip in there. She likes to make that kind of decision for herself and how much or not at all.
Q. How large is The Edible Schoolyard garden, and does your foundation offer support for other schools wanting to do such a project?
A. The Edible Schoolyard is just this one project at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. But there are many schools in Berkeley that are inspired by what's going on there. In fact, the Center for Ecoliteracy, which is an organization that has helped to fund The Edible Schoolyard, is coordinating a network of people to make it happen throughout the whole school system. And the Board of Education voted unanimously to make this happen in the Berkeley school system.
Our foundation was started at our 25th anniversary, and it does give money to projects that connect all these aspects of stewardship of the land, cooking and eating together, particularly for children. We do give small grants to other projects that are mostly local projects, and most of the money goes to the Edible Schoolyard project.
The piece of property that we have was a school built in 1921 on 17 acres of land. Lots of that is a track and a swimming pool, but there is a space. The actual garden is about a half acre - maybe a little bit larger than that.
But there are so many possibilities for other schools. They could connect with community gardens. They could connect with local farms around. I just think it's important that there is something growing.
Q. We've read about how Thomas Keller, the chef of the famed French Laundry, has this actual craving for Reese's peanut butter cups and for Baskin-Robbins ice cream. And we've read about other chefs who crave Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Is there something that's not quite so good for you that Alice Waters ever craves?
A. You don't expect me to tell you that. Well, I do have a craving for potato chips. But I want those real potato chips and those real french fries - those organic french fries. But I do have a salty palate.
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