Arugula for everyone

Author David Kamp explains why organic food is finding its way into American homes and why the myth of the elitist eater is as tired as Ann Coulter.

By Ratha Tep

Read more: Life, Food and Travel

Sept. 19, 2006 | Thirty years ago, baby greens like frisée and radicchio were so exotic in the United States that Alice Waters had to sneak in seeds from Europe to plant the lettuces in her Berkeley, Calif., garden. But it's a testament to the way the country's tastes have changed since then that McDonald's is now one of the nation's largest food-service buyers of the greens, which it serves in a popular line of "Premium Salads."

It is that extreme evolution of the American palate that journalist David Kamp chronicles in his new book, "The United States of Arugula." A writer and editor for GQ and Vanity Fair, Kamp brings a colorful pop-culture sensibility to his portrait of the personalities and places that have helped spread the gospel of good food beyond a gourmand elite and into Middle America. "Our food innovators have gotten short shrift," he explains. "But they deserve the same examination we give to rock stars -- not in a superficial way -- but as contributors to American life." To get to the heart of America's taste transformation, Kamp zeroes in on many unheralded but pivotal beginnings -- from the ocean liner that docked at New York Harbor carrying the pioneers of classic French dining in America to the friendship between Giorgio DeLuca and his neighbor, Joel Dean, that helped usher in the status food movement. And he draws upon candid conversations with both industry insiders, like cookbook editor Judith Jones and writer Nora Ephron and newcomers like Food Network starlet Giada De Laurentiis.

But the stars of "Arugula" (the "Big Three" as Kamp dubs them) are true icons of modern American cuisine: James Beard, the outsize and prolific cookbook writer who earned the title of "dean of American cookery"; Craig Claiborne, the longtime New York Times food editor who invented the concept of the restaurant review; and Julia Child, the kooky and charismatic author of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and star of the popular PBS show "The French Chef." Kamp details each character's relatively late-in-life culinary awakening, the historical and social milieu that allowed them to rise to fame and, most significant, the role each played in transforming cooking from a homemaking duty to a cultural pastime.

Salon caught up with Kamp recently to discuss the changing definition of "American" food, the future of celebrity chefs and why having a Starbucks on every corner isn't a bad thing.

In your introduction you make the case that it's a great time to be an eater in America. Why now?

Food is that rare field of American life where progress and innovation are so palpable. A lot of people say that music and movies aren't what they used to be. They'll point to the 1960s when the Rolling Stones and the Beatles had competing singles on the charts. But that feeling of ferment and development and fertility is what's happening with food now. Every week there's a new ingredient. Everyone is excited about jamón ibérico, the Spanish ham that's about to come to the United States. I also love seeing more and more restaurants trying to do what Dan Barber does at Blue Hill in New York -- farm-to-table cooking. And I'm dazzled by how fast it's all happening.

Don't some people -- like cookbook author Marion Cunningham -- disagree, citing the proliferation of processed foods and the fact that people don't eat at home much anymore?

I just turned 40 and Cunningham is 80. She's from a different generation. She goes back to a pre-processed-food time, when farm-to-table was an unremarkable thing. So she's looking at it from an idealized view.

Cooking was more labor-intensive then. It was able to happen because women stayed at home. It's very unfair to women to continue to expect it. If that's the cost of progress, it's not a big cost to pay. Sure, there weren't Oscar Meyer Lunchables and green Heinz ketchup. And of course, now, there are too many people who eat processed foods, and obesity is a huge problem in this country. But there's so much more variety now. We can have sushi or we can have an heirloom salad. There's a growing awareness of integrity in food. If Americans cared to -- and that's the caveat -- we could be eating better food now than any generation before us.

Is it also a great time to be a cook?

I think so. I hear conflicting reports on whether home cooking is dying out or burgeoning, but with the popularity of food TV, even college and high school kids are getting into cooking. And because of the sheer volume of ingredients and the fact that there aren't any walls up between classes and ethnicity, there's no reason why an Italian person couldn't get into cooking Japanese food.

That said, family meals are happening less frequently. People don't cook every night. It can't be expected. People eat out more; they eat prepared foods. But I don't buy into the guilt trip laid out by the food nuns. We're rushed, and we're often two-career couples. We're not a languid Mediterranean culture.

Before James Beard, Julia Child and Craig Claiborne came along, you say, America had a dysfunctional relationship to good food. What do you mean by that?

I once interviewed Robert Hughes, the art critic for Time, and he said that with art, America had a real problem with the word "elite." It's seen as a dirty word, and an un-American thing, which is ridiculous. It's the same as with food. There was always good food in America -- with what smart farmers like Thomas Jefferson were growing, and all the wild game to be had.

But the idea of culinary sophistication was really regarded suspiciously before Beard, Child and Claiborne came along. Culinary sophistication used to mean that you were not truly American or that, God forbid, you were gay. And it continues to this day, as some people like Ann Coulter talk about "latte-drinking, sushi-eating liberals," like that's all an act of sedition. It's an outdated view. But it prevailed for a long time.

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