On The 4th Floor Kitchen

To create a sourdough starter simply mix good quality wheat flour with half its weight in water, then let it sit for a few days. It will come alive through the power of tiny microbes and yeasts floating independently around you right now, not doing much of anything. If you create an attractive environment of starch and water these microbes will come together and help bakers transform bland cereal grains into sweet, fluffy bread. They are easily coaxed from their lonely existence into a partnership with the baker, transforming wheat into the staff of life.

photo credit to Hannah McGowan

This, a friend of mine from Zurich, oversees this transformation regularly. He and his roommate, Sebastian, started a small pop-up restaurant in their apartment called The 4th Floor Kitchen. Sebastian uses a small meat smoker on his balcony to make home-cured and home-smoked bacon, and, for the purpose of the pop-up restaurant, pastrami. This makes the bread, and together they create sandwiches.

To prepare for the opening This grew his sourdough starter into liters of leaven by feeding it lots of fresh flour and water. When ready he incorporated this leaven into dough by kneading it. Kneading does some amazing things. By repeatedly folding the dough over itself the baker creates tiny air bubbles that will later be expanded by the yeast. Additionally, the process of pushing and pulling the dough helps the glutenin proteins inside the flour’s gluten arrange themselves in long strands. Glutenin, like all proteins, is made of many interconnected amino acids, and each glutenin ends with an amino acid containing sulfur. These sulfur molecules can form sulfur bonds with each other to form long strands; kneading the dough helps them find each other. This gives bread dough its elasticity, and allows those beautiful pockets of air to expand inside the bread.

Saturday morning, the day The 4th Floor Kitchen opens, This bakes the bread, and those air bubbles become even more interesting. As the temperature inside the bread raises, the yeast increase production of Carbon Dioxide and expand the air bubbles more rapidly. Simultaneously, the starch within the dough will begin to take on water and become rigid, temporarily halting the further expansion of those bubbles. The yeast continue to produce Carbon Dioxide, but unable to push the starch walls further, they are forced to break through the barriers and form intricate and tightly connected labyrinths within the bread. 

I have spent most Saturday afternoons over the past seven years eating left-overs or simple sandwiches alone. The 4th Floor Kitchen, however, encouraged an environment of interested people to abandon their isolation and share a table with friends, family, friends of friends, or complete strangers. As the laughter and conversation expanded, personal walls were broken down and intricate networks of humanity formed. The baker simply created the circumstances in which philia thrives, and the independent participants digested the food and company together to create an empathic community of gastronomes with just a little bit of kneading. It should come as no surprise that the English word Company (and companion/ship) derives from the Latin Companio, “one who shares bread”.  Bakers, at their best, oversee this transformation as well.

It’s a source of constant amazement for me that the sun, while forging elements within its core and directing planets within its orbit, somehow finds the time and energy to sprout a grain of wheat and endow it with life sustaining energy. It is no less astonishing that bread, while entering the torus of the human body and, through the complex process of digestion, transforms into the cells contained in the human form, somehow finds the energy to produce laughter and camaraderie, endowing those who enjoy it with life sustaining companionship.

Damnit, food is amazing. 

On Champagne and Gothic Cathedrals

You’ve probably heard that Champagne can only be called Champagne if it’s from Champagne, France. Even if a drink is made the same exact way, even if it’s only a couple kilometers down the road, it can never be called Champagne if it’s not from Champagne. This is because Champagne is a PDO product (Protected Designation of Origin), and such products have the reputation for superior quality. Is it possible for California or Italy to make a better tasting drink? Maybe… I guess so? But knowing where the production takes place changes my expectation. I believe it will be better, and that expectation depends, I think, on the knowledge that Champagne (the drink) has a special relationship with the culture of Champagne (the area), their history, and their land. If I could visit, I would experience this.

But I’m a horrible traveler. Friends will tell you stories of me throwing my backpack across a train station in Paris because a last minute bathroom stop preventing me from arriving ten minutes early. Others will tell you that I once refused to press the gas or break pedals when driving on a hilly road in New Mexico because I feared I would run out of gas. Yet, I travel anyway. I take on the financial burden and considerable emotional distress to see bits of the world I’ve never seen before. It seems to me that this illogical behavior, and my expectations regarding PDO food products have a similar causality: the human empathic drive. Both connect me to people.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Medieval pilgrims were early tourists with the goal of visiting holy sites and relics. By traveling they confirmed their membership in a larger community. Prayer inside a rural parish church is powerful, but made more powerful when recognized as an entry point for millennia long traditions with billions of past participants. It’s a way to connect to a shared past, and to a community of people who share our beliefs. I experience this phenomenon whenever I attend a concert. Privately I listen to Rod Stewart, then, together with thousands of others who have similarly meditated on his music, we complete lines to “Maggie May” at Jones Beach Theater (don’t judge). Even if I never meet the person sitting ten rows ahead of me, we share a common experience. This connection forwards a belief that, even when alone, we are part of a community.

Through the act of travel those Medieval Pilgrims extended their empathy in the direction of shared faith. Now, with unprecedented modes of communication connecting the world, I find myself struggling to extend my community further than those pilgrims; I want to be connected globally. Travel today, even to a Gothic Cathedral, rarely depends on a belief in purgatory. For me, visiting a Gothic Cathedral illuminates the power of human collaboration, and connects me to people, past and present, who experienced this planet.

With this relatively new perspective on travel, food tourism, and words like Terroir, have become increasingly important. Terroir is the French word for “land”, but imbued with more meaning. Like the English word “home”, Terroir has a spiritual meaning. Some translate it as “a sense of place”. It’s used in gastronomical circles to describe the affect geography, geology, and climate has on fermented grapes, or cheese, or any number of artisanal food products. People from all over the world buy Parmesan cheese from Parma, or Bordeaux from Bordeaux, or Champagne from Champagne because of Terroir. Even if we do not know the producer personally, we know where we can find him or her (in a general way). I have no idea where my microwavable TV dinner comes from (factory in Newark?), but when I drink a Barolo wine I know exactly what land, and what culture, produced my drink. When we disconnect ourselves from agriculture, “the result is a kind of solitude, unprecedented in human experience” as Wendel Berry wrote. If I can connect my food to a place and a community, I fulfill the basic human desire to belong. It’s the closest thing to travel I can experience from my dinner table. The perception of higher quality originates in our need to feel connected.

Gothic Cathedrals and culinary dishes both show us the power of human collaboration and its enduring qualities. I live near the Barolo wine region. I moved here, with considerable stress, a couple of months ago. In my new home (what a word!) there is a traditional meal called Bagna Cauda; a “warm bath” containing olive oil, anchovies, and garlic used to dip raw vegetables. It’s considered local cuisine, but olives have never grown here, nor anchovies ever fished here. The presence of those ingredients in this town reflects an ancient relationship with the nearby area of Liguria. The dish has endured history by representing more than interesting flavors; it shows us the connection between different areas and cultures. Additionally, no one eats Bagna Cauda alone; it’s a dish to share. The ingredients and the experience both further human connectivity.

Our human population has grown exponentially and the earth’s surface area remained stable, consequently, we have organized ourselves into increasingly complex groups. Understanding how connected we all are, we struggle to extend our empathy to all of humanity and even beyond: to the flora and fauna of regions abroad, and even to the soil, recognizing the Earth as our shared home.

So, we attribute special qualities to products like Champagne, and we pack our bags again and again to connect, as best we can, to the producers, the land, and the biosphere. 

On The Importance of Tradition

Image by Olivia Bodzin

I once lived with a man who prayed five times a day, fasted for Ramadan, and abstained from drinking alcohol. During a late night conversation this man unexpectedly voiced the opinion that he, like Karl Marx, thought religion to be an “opiate for the masses”; something used to keep people subordinate to some hierarchical structure. Confused, I asked him to explain, and learned that he followed the traditions of Islam in order to maintain a focus on his study of mathematics. The Quran states that one should never enter prayer drunken; he did not drink because he never wanted to enter his mathematics intoxicated. Equations written on our wall in highlighter ink during the middle of the night spoke to his dedication, and explained why he even abstained from a nightcap. Additionally, if his mind became unfocused during the day, the call to prayer would bring him back.

I remain fascinated by this discussion. This man was able to take an ancient tradition loaded with meaning and contributions from innumerable sources and invest a personal vision into its storied past.

Of course I had run into skeumorphic design before. Every time a camera phone takes a picture with the noise of an imaginary shutter exposing film to light I become aware of humanities need to mix the familiar with the innovative. The design of new technology often attempts to rescue the very thing it makes obsolete. Guttenberg’s typeface sought to mimic handwriting, and a note taking application on my IPhone looks like a yellow notebook pad. In college I had a digital music player on my PC that looked like a cassette tape.  In fact, I call the screen this music player appeared on my “desktop”.  Even the language links me to the familiar before propelling me to the innovative.

I can’t help but feel I experienced something more profound in that late night conversation, though. I don’t believe anyone recognizes the importance of a word like “desktop”, or the comfort of a yellow notebook pad, until it becomes obsolete, yet somehow irrepressible. They become comforting once they become useless—linking us to a past we’ve killed with better technology, yet continue to mourn. Religion, however, is not that. Regardless of affiliation, no one would deny the role religion has played historically in creating communities and providing comfort. The third pillar of Islam, Zakat requires annual giving to help comfort those within the community. To take traditions so ubiquitous-- traditions that have affected so many people-- and find personal meaning in them, as my interlocutor had, made me both aware that this may be the purpose of those traditions, and surprised by his clear recognition of that fact.

It seems like an impossible task; to take something commented on by so many people—something so divisive—and see through to its essential qualities and usefulness. For him the word “religion” (Note: I’m not saying faith) is invested with the same stigmas as it is for many, “an opiate for the masses”. Yet he saw through the meanings we invest in words to some worthwhile principle he applied to life. He dressed his innovations in the robes of an ancient tradition.

He entered the ceremonies with personal faith in mathematics along side the God of Muhammad, but, in some ways, is this not the original purpose of the ceremonies? To have a personal connection to a community of people-- to focus on the unique elements of ones humanity that at once bring him together with others while also allowing him to flourish on his own? He may have rediscovered the elements of religion that have allowed it to endure since the earliest forms of civilization. His devotion to mathematics connected him to his colleagues, to his students, and to innumerable unnamed members of the broader mathematical field, while also promoting his unique individual talent. He redefined the traditions for himself, and in so doing tapped into something inveterately human—the need for connectivity, and the need to explore ones individuality simultaneously.

image by Olivia Bodzin

Is that any different than a ruled yellow notebook pixilated on my iPad? From a certain perspective this digital pad is meant to remind me of my inclusion among those who once hand-wrote notes rather than tapped a touch screen, while giving me a forum to venerate and memorialize my individual thoughts-- if only for myself. The history of a yellow notepad does not match the history of faith based ceremony, however, and is not laden with interpretations and opposing viewpoints. No wars have ever been fought over college ruled paper. The ceremonies of Religion, so often met with unnecessary derision, or misunderstanding, are human at their core. I cannot say this about a yellow notepad.

Perhaps this conversation so affected me because it forced recognition of those parts of my humanity I ignore when entering ceremonies without the respect they deserve. I had cheated myself when watching eighth graders imitate Whirling Dervishes without the requisite mourning of a deceased friend or mentor; or watched fireworks on the fourth of July without considering bombs illuminating the night sky in war time invoking both fear and hope; or sitting down to a holiday season feast without recognizing the hard-work of an autumn harvest.

Surely, if we find it impossible to abandon a yellow notepad, then we owe something profound to the ceremonies that make us human, and connect us to each other while celebrating our individual pursuits. 

A Recent Journalism Project

To an uneducated observer the traditional dance of the Amhara tribe in Ethiopia appears to be a violent and repeated dislocation of the collarbone. If the “Shoulder Dance”, as it is often called by Westerners, were not in perfect rhythm with the music, it would resemble a frantic cartoon character given too much caffeine. This resemblance is appropriate given the origin of the coffee bean to Ethiopia.

Coffee is as much a part of Ethiopian identity as their religion, and has its own ceremonies and traditions. In late February of this year, a few miles outside of Gondar, members of the Amhara tribe invited me to participate in a Coffee Ceremony. This ceremony began with the roasting of beans along with Frankincense over a small coal stove by a young woman in a white dress with bright green embroidery. She would be center of my attention throughout my meal.

Once the beans turned a reflective black color the woman walked slowly, carrying her work with her, and with an elegant twirl of her wrist, allowed each of us to inhale the smoke. After taking a deep breath my eyes met hers through the twirls of smoke and I noticed her genuine excitement to see my reaction. I realized then that all the Ethiopians present watched my reaction with anticipation. Their pride regarding this product, this smell, and this ceremony appeared in every expression. They knew that even though I had experienced iPads, 3D movies, and Disney World, I had never experienced a smell quite like this.

Though I had been enjoying my meal, fried beef strips with injira, at this point my senses were dominated by sites and smell contained within the Coffee Ceremony. Once every member of the group enjoyed a personal experience with the coffee beans mixed with frankincense, she began to grind the beans with a large pistol and mortar. After a few laborious minutes the coffee formed a coarse powder that she emptied into a black clay pot. After some time, she filtering it through horse hair and finally tipped the clay pot toward its spout to release a dark brown stream of liquid into small cups with a continuous flow that did not halt between cups. In a singular steady pour she filled about twenty ceramic cups, and these were delivered to an expectant crowd.

Though fully entranced, I, along with other members of my group, had some reservations about actually drinking the stuff. “What will this do to my stomach?” became a question that, if not spoken aloud, appeared in the eyes of every westerner in the room.

I am not a coffee drinker. In fact, I tend to avoid all drinks served warm or hot, and even avoid coffee flavored ice-cream. I had not had Ethiopian Coffee though, and I certainly never ritualized my previous attempts.  So, after enjoying the aroma for a minute longer I took a sip. It became immediately clear that my fears were unfounded. The bitter acidity I attributed to coffee failed to reveal itself during any point of my experience. The flavor was dense, but the liquid itself appeared light in my mouth. The nervous feeling present in my stomach moments earlier became soothed by the object that had borne it.

This drink could not be taken in a to-go cup. Coffee is not something to be enjoyed in solitude or on your way to something else in Ethiopia.  The community and the experience become part of the drink. The flavor of this coffee could not be reduced to simply ‘taste’ or ‘smell’ because it took over my entire consciousness. It tasted like the village, containing its camaraderie, traditions, and pride.

Pride is a word mentioned often by the Ethiopians I met. They are the only African nation to avoid colonization by European powers and they have a Judeo-Christian heritage dating back to the 10th century BCE; both sources of great pride. Ethiopia has one of the lowest GDP’s per capita in the world, yet they know they’ve been able to preserve their heritage in a way many cultures have not. Coffee in Ethiopia, and pageantry surrounding it, unambiguously illustrates for an outsider what we have lost.

My sense of taste and smell had kept me so busy I failed to recognize when a man began playing a single-stringed instrument called a Mosenqo. After my third cup of coffee I noticed my hosts rising to dance. I, joining them, began to move like a cartoon character given too much caffeine, though with less grace.

Craft Beer and Planetization

"Although our individualistic instincts may rebel against this drive toward the collective, they do so in vain and wrongly. In vain because no power in the world can enable us to escape from what is in itself the power of the world, and wrongly because the real nature of this impulse that is sweeping us toward a state of super-organization is such as to make us more completely personalized and human"

 –Teilhard de Chardin “A Great Event Foreshadowed” 1945

In 1979 there were only forty-four breweries in the United States. The number had consistently been shrinking throughout the century and many expected it would shrink to five. Since then, however, a so-called Renaissance of American Craft Beer has taken place. As of this past March there are 2,360 craft breweries alone (this number does not include the large industrial producers).  This inspired the founder of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, to claim he has not seen a purer expression of the goals of his movement. This is not the first time beer has lead the way in food production; many believe the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago began with cereal grains for beer production. Through this more recent revoultion Craft beer illuminates the future, not just for food production, but global living.

When a big company like Budweiser produces a beer, they want to sell as much as possible; consequently, they remove any flavors that may be disagreeable to anyone, and in so doing remove all flavor. Local communities often provide the primary support for Craft Beer, consequently the taste of these beers becomes as diverse as the regional cuisines (and these days, even more diverse). The owner Lawson’s Famous Liquids, for example, does not sell his beer outside of Vermont. It’s a local beer.

This kind of production influences a different kind of market place. The breweries do not see themselves in competition with the others; in many cases they actually support each other. The artisanal and scientific brewers at Crooked Stave, for example, used the facilities at Prost to produce their beers until recently. The two breweries are potential competitors, both trying to sell to those interested in craft beer, but they worked with each other to their mutual benefit.

We’re also lucky enough to experience collaborations between brewers. Avery Brewery in Colorado and Russian River Brewery in California collaborated on their Belgian style beer “Collaboration not Litigation Ale” when they discovered each produced a beer called “Salvation”. Rather than go to court, they worked together. There are also international collaborations like Devils Backbone in Virginia working with Thunder Road in Melbourne, Australia. In this way the industry works with a horizontal power structure. They each pursue individual flavors while networked within a uniform and communal philosophy.

The changes in the brewing industry can be understood within the context of other recent changes in culture. Just forty years ago anyone who wanted to use a computer needed to travel to one. A few individual massive computers housed all of the worlds computing power. In the 1980’s the personal computer disrupted that paradigm. Instead of having a few isolated computing centers, we each became a distributive center. Similarly, not too long ago, a few newspapers monopolized our access to information. Now everyone with a smart phone and a twitter app has the ability to broadcast to millions instantly. Encyclopedia Britannica and the music industry failed to recognize these trends. They believed a few could provide information for the many until they encountered Wikipedia and Napster. The Craft Beer Industry is similarly disruptive. We used to get our beer from forty-four distributing centers, now we have close to 3000.  Power is distributed horizontally, not concentrated in a few centers.

Trends like those lead Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, to claim we have entered the Third Industrial Revolution. These revolutions are marked by radical changes in energy, communication, and transportation. As he consults companies and cities around the world, he urges them to invest in buildings able to create renewable photovoltaic energy. The Bouygues Batiment Ile-de-France, for example, produces more energy than it needs and enough excess to power 4,600 homes. Rather than a few power centers that distribute energy to a grid, these buildings could each collect and distribute energy. Craft beer seems to be showing us the possibility of this type of structure outside web-based platforms.

While Craft Breweries are connected to their local communities, they also promote the enjoyment of diversity, global collaboration, and provide yet another example of how many small-scale distributive centers can overcome Goliaths like Coors. As a species we pursued beer around 8,000 BCE and it helped us form larger communities and a partnership with the land; now, with optimism, it seems we can pursue beer once again to extend our empathy, this time globally, and recognize cooperation does not make us less individual and less human, but more so.