Summer 2007, Volume 11 Number 3

Table of Contents

WORLD POT LUCK: A BOOK REVIEW By Stephanie Kempf

What if you could sit down for a huge potluck with people from around the world, people from as far away as Greenland, Bhutan and Ecuador?  What kinds of foods would fill the global table?  How different or similar would you and your tablemates be? And if we are what we eat, what does our food—and the way we acquire and prepare it—tell us about ourselves?

These questions and many more are answered in the photos of an amazing book by photojournalist, Peter Menzel and writer, Faith D’Aluisio called, HUNGRY PLANET: WHAT THE WORLD EATS (Ten Speed Press). The authors made 30 families in 24 different countries an offer they couldn’t refuse:  they would pay the bill for a week’s worth of groceries, go with the families to purchase or hunt their food, and then photograph each family in their home surrounded by their week’s worth of food. The resulting photographs are mouthwatering, stunning, heart-breaking.  Each family’s story and photo are accompanied by a list categorized by food group, the price of a week’s worth of food, a family recipe and a side-bar that provides information on the environmental conditions and socio-economic status of that country (including the number of McDonalds). Interspersed among the photos are fascinating essays by leading thinkers such as Francine R. Kaufman’s “Diabesity” and Michael Pollan’s “Food with a Face”.

The families portrayed range from affluent ones in developed countries to some of the neediest in the most ravaged regions. Here are the two extremes: a family of six living in the Breidjing Refugee Camp in eastern Chad whose food costs $1.23 per week, and a German family of four whose weekly food budget amounts to $500.  The Aboubakars, a Darfur mother and her five children (ages 16 to two) are seated on an earth-toned rug in front of their tent surrounded by three small bags of unmilled sorghum, a corn-soy ration, white sugar, a quart of sunflower oil, four limes, some dried vegetables and beans, small amounts of dried fish and meat, a few condiments and water provided by Oxfam.  Their family’s recipe is for dried goat-meat soup requiring six ingredients measured in “handfuls” and teaspoonsful, cooked over a wood fire or hot stones. By sharp contrast, the Melander family of Bargteheide, Germany is photographed in their modern dining room surrounded by mounds of goulash beef, cold-cuts, herring fillets, pork, bacon, eggs, plastic containers full of butter, yogurt, milk and cheese, muesli, freshly baked buns, stollen and croissants from a nearby bakery,  boxes of muesli and noodles, oranges, apples from the family tree, grapes, tomatoes, green peas, onions, lettuce, leeks, mushrooms, peppers and garlic, chocolate cake, pudding, pizza, soups--both frozen and canned—several bottles of beer, wine, soda and water and cartons of juice ($70 worth).  Their cooking methods include electric stove, microwave and outdoor BBQ grill.

The rest of the families fall somewhere in between these two extremes; some, like China are on the cusp, in transition from a diet of poverty to one of affluence.  China is represented in this book by two families—one rural, one urban.  Food for the Cuis of Weitaiwu village is mostly raw and minimally processed.  It is purchased from small village vendors or plucked from the family’s hens or garden. The Dongs of Beijing, on the other hand, can spend three times what the Cuis spend and have access to food markets where they can purchase packaged meats, vegetables, fruits, French baguettes, beer, chips, Maxwell House instant coffee, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and Kentucky Fried Chicken (there are more than 100 KFCs in Beijing alone!). And lest you get the impression this sounds like the typical industrialized city, food stands here also sell skewered scorpions, crickets and deep-fried starfish.

Some surprising observations:

The Filipino family eats Cheese Whiz with their breakfast of rice and eggs.

The Italian family smokes twenty packs of cigarettes a week.

Kool-Aid and Coca-Cola are everywhere!

98% of Kuwait’s food is imported and they have higher obesity and diabetes rates than any western country.

There are forty-six McDonalds in India, and, of course, none of them serves beef.

There are 13,491 McDonalds in the USA (they purchase 1 billion pounds of beef and 1 billion pounds of potatoes annually) and 8.8% of US citizens age 20 and over suffer from diabetes.

The Madsen family of Greenland eats dead sea birds, seal, polar bear and walrus meat, plus Heinz ketchup and Pringles.

Mr. Madsen, mobile phone at his ear, guides his dog sled across the endless, frozen tundra hunting for seal with his entire family in tow.  When they return days later the children watch MTV.

Nothing brings people together like food—glorious food!  Once you’ve been “invited” into a family’s home for dinner, they are no longer strangers in a distant land.  This is the charm of the book. My favorite photos are the ones taken in rural villages like those in Bhutan, Ecuador and Guatemala where food still looks like food—vegetables with their roots, stems and leaves still attached, mounds of ripe yellow plantains, mangoes, juicy oranges, plump tomatoes, deep purple potatoes, chili peppers, green onions, burlap bags heavy with grain, fresh tortillas wrapped in linen and blocks of coarse brown sugar.   

The authors saved the US families for last and as you have probably guessed, the three of them, (from California, Texas and South Carolina) are surrounded by shrink-wrapped, heavily processed foods, chips, cereals, pastries, bologna, candy, soda and lots of take-out pizza.  It is obvious from all these photos that the more money a family spends on food the fewer fresh, raw, regional and seasonal foods they consume and the further they get from the source of their food.  They are eating more, but are they also getting more nutrients?   (Is this why the well-fed German family feels it necessary to purchase $90 worth of vitamins each week along with all their food?)

This book would make a wonderful classroom tool.  Students of all ages could keep a list of what they eat in a week and compare it with a family’s list in the book.  The photos are the perfect visual for demonstrating what happens as societies lose touch with the source of their food.  What are the nutritional, environmental, social and moral implications?  Simply asking students “Who’s healthier?” after they page through the book would make an interesting discussion.

Closing the book, I couldn’t help wonder what my family’s week’s worth of food would look like and what surprises it might reveal to the world.

Stephanie Kempf  is a teacher and writer. She is the author of  Finding Solutions To Hunger: Kids Can Make a difference. Stephanie is a member of the KIDS  Advisory Board and Chair of the Caedmon School Board of Directors. She may be contacted at stephaniekempf@mac.com

© Copyright 1999, Kids Can Make A Difference