[lbo-talk] the politics of food

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Thu Nov 12 10:17:38 PST 2009


On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the question we've been avoiding is: what does the revolutionary
> vanguard eat? A hearty lumberjack breakfast? A half-bowl of rice daily? The
> still-beating hearts of Fortune 500 CEOs? And how often do they drink soda?
> This is surely among the most pressing areas of research in revolutionary
> dialectical science.

Yes. I demand quantification of my diet! I just made refried beans for an egg-bean-cheese breakfast taco. What does that say about my politics? I made it myself: liberal or conservative? Refrieds are Mexican-peasant food: conservative because they are a dish of real folx, liberal because they are exotic, or revolutionary because I'm slumming it with the proletariat? Further complicated by the fact that they were black beans, a step up on the culinary chain, and I used olive oil, not bacon fat, to cook them; definitely an effete liberal. But I ate them with low-scale tortillas and salsa, so that makes me more ordinary, so conservative. On the other hand, the breakfast taco is the national dish of Austin, a bastion of liberalism. I'm so confused.



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