Honest food. Honestly.

[LesleyC]

to me, food honesty has to do with whether its highly processed or not - ham that is carved from a leg of gammon (however the gammon is cooked) is an honest slice of ham. A piece of square/round ham from a vac pack that is more water and other rubbish than pork is a dishonest slice of ham.

[ElaineK]

What exactly does it mean? The only thing I can think of as being 'dishonest' is, perhaps, some of that elBulli stuff. Not that it's 'molecular' (and therefore evil), but that you can pick up, I don't know, something that looks like a kalamata olive, only it tastes of strawberry. It's a trick. It is, I guess, a little dishonest. But I get the impression that Neil Perry and Rene Redzepi and all those other guys, they're not talking about one ingredient slyly pretending it's something else.

Am I correct in figuring that, when it comes to food, 'honest' means basically nothing?

I think it is about pretense. "Housemade aioli" that's really Hellman's plus garlic. "Chicken nuggets" that are primarily pink slime. Food that is claimed to be handcrafted that's simply assembled off the Sysco truck. Those aren't honest. A "grilled" chicken sandwich with grill-marks painted on with food coloring and artificial smoke added, because it's never seen a grill. I'm not sure how I feel about a grilled chicken sandwich that's par-cooked sous vide then finished on the grill, but it is miles better than a grilled chicken sandwich that was mass-produced with no direct application of heat, then microwaved before service.

For me, there's a continuum, with massive shades of grey, and it all comes down to "How closely does this resemble what I believed I was purchasing." If my poptart tastes like a poptart, I'm content with their honesty. If the fruit tart I buy at my local cafe tastes like a poptart, I'm displeased, because it didn't meet the explicit and implicit promises that they make me.

I also find it dishonest that Whole Foods won't sell me a chicken that doesn't meet certain standards, but doesn't require those same standards for the prepared chickens in their deli, despite charging a premium for the products based on customer assumptions that the same requirements apply.

[Mjx]

. . . . it all comes down to "How closely does this resemble what I believed I was purchasing." If my poptart tastes like a poptart, I'm content with their honesty. If the fruit tart I buy at my local cafe tastes like a poptart, I'm displeased, because it didn't meet the explicit and implicit promises that they make me.

I also find it dishonest that Whole Foods won't sell me a chicken that doesn't meet certain standards, but doesn't require those same standards for the prepared chickens in their deli, despite charging a premium for the products based on customer assumptions that the same requirements apply.

Bingo.

[Andreas]

First off, I think many of the chefs on TV might use the term just because someone else used it - and it sound very nice. What is interesting is that everyone will be able to relate to his food being "honest". If you read through the thread you find a bunch of different definitions (or better opinions), but on one thing everyone (except Mjx ) would agree that they like their food honest. Who in his right mind would like dishonest food?

I don't want to accuse all the chefs of just doing clever advertising, they might all have their own opinions what honest food is (just as we do), but to me it seems like a pretty clever meme.

Apart from that it is used in Austria too, just translated...

@chris: I do care where my food comes from because in many of our neighboring countries the farmers are allowed to use a lot more steroids etc. While I'm not necessarily of the opinion that every antibiotic is extremely bad, I don't really want to eat a cocktail of 20 different steroids. Since it gets increasingly common to import food and than relabel it (changing the country of origin), which is still legal in Austria, it's nice to have a complete trail. (Or buy your food directly at the farmer, which is still pretty common here)

@Kyb: reading your thread I might be inclined to say that McDonalds food is that different from a chicken. If I understood you correctly you where saying that a chicken is "more honest" because you know what it is. This is also pretty easy to find out, e.g. McDonalds themselves published the content a while ago (can't remember the stuff, it was ~4 lines long). One could also say that this would not make the food "dishonest", just the people selling it.

I'm pretty much with Mjx on that one, I don't really think that food itself can be intrinsically dishonest. All of the definitions that where provided principally defined being "honest" as something that we already have words for: over-engineered, uberspicy, traditional, etc. If we already have well understood and defined words for something, why invent a use of a different word? Sounds like advertising to me...

PS: this is one of my first posts here + English is not my native language, I hope I'm not being too offensive...

[annabelle]

Welcome! Your English is much better than my German. You are not being offensive at all.

[jrshaul]

Dishonest food? Chicken McNuggets. Krystal burgers (if you are not in the southeast this won't mean anything to you). I am convinced vegetarians can eat Krystal burgers, because I can't believe there is any meat anywhere about them. That said, I want a sackful of them about once every two years. Pop Tarts. Marshmallow Creme.

Marshmallow creme is, usually, sugar and gelatin and not much else. Ironically, it's one of the few prepared foods in the supermarket you can easily make at home.

[SobaAddict70]

And too, and I know I'm playing with fire with this one and touching on another issue altogether, what's the big deal about knowing what your food comes from? I mean, okay, with steak things like the animal's diet, etc determine the quality and flavour of the end product. I get that. But knowing exactly where it was raised? Knowing where my sweet potatoes come from? How many people who ask these questions or hear from TV chefs, et al that these are important questions know what the 'correct' answers are? Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?

Because every decision you make about the food you eat has consequences. There are environmental consequences. And health consequences. And cultural consequences.

I would think that for some people, the work of those whose job it is to grow or raise food is important enough to care about, because the issues that affect our farmers, growers and food producers will affect us all eventually.

It's "amazing" that we're even having this kind of discussion.

[Mette]

Food cannot be dishonest, only the people producing, processing, marketing, selling and/or cooking it

[annabelle]

Holding everyone to that kind of standard is going to be difficult if not impossible, Soba. If not more than a little preachy.

[gfweb]

And too, and I know I'm playing with fire with this one and touching on another issue altogether, what's the big deal about knowing what your food comes from? I mean, okay, with steak things like the animal's diet, etc determine the quality and flavour of the end product. I get that. But knowing exactly where it was raised? Knowing where my sweet potatoes come from? How many people who ask these questions or hear from TV chefs, et al that these are important questions know what the 'correct' answers are? Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?

Because every decision you make about the food you eat has consequences. There are environmental consequences. And health consequences. And cultural consequences.

I would think that for some people, the work of those whose job it is to grow or raise food is important enough to care about, because the issues that affect our farmers, growers and food producers will affect us all eventually.

It's "amazing" that we're even having this kind of discussion.

Amazing? I don't think so.

[SobaAddict70]

Holding everyone to that kind of standard is going to be difficult if not impossible, Soba. If not more than a little preachy.

So because it sounds "preachy" (interesting interpretation by the way), I shouldn't mention it?

I had a roast chicken last night for dinner. Should I not care whether it was raised humanely, what food it was fed as it was raised, whether it had a good life prior to meeting its inevitable end?

When you eat "fake" food, be it fast food or highly processed food with a list of ingredients that is not normally found in nature, you're also accepting a set of associated values: that food should be cheap; that food should be the same no matter where you live on the planet; that there are unlimited resources; that the work of those who provide your food is unimportant.

If it sounds preachy to you, perhaps that is because you don't hold it in the same sphere of importance as I do. That's fine, but let's not pretend that the underlying issues, causes and effects won't affect you. Because they will, eventually, if they haven't already.

I choose to care about where my food comes from, and so follow through with it. You can take from that whatever you wish; it's all one to me.

[SobaAddict70]

And too, and I know I'm playing with fire with this one and touching on another issue altogether, what's the big deal about knowing what your food comes from? I mean, okay, with steak things like the animal's diet, etc determine the quality and flavour of the end product. I get that. But knowing exactly where it was raised? Knowing where my sweet potatoes come from? How many people who ask these questions or hear from TV chefs, et al that these are important questions know what the 'correct' answers are? Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?

Because every decision you make about the food you eat has consequences. There are environmental consequences. And health consequences. And cultural consequences.

I would think that for some people, the work of those whose job it is to grow or raise food is important enough to care about, because the issues that affect our farmers, growers and food producers will affect us all eventually.

It's "amazing" that we're even having this kind of discussion.

Amazing? I don't think so.

"Amazing" is the phrasing I'm using in this forum in the diplomatic sense.

The exact choice of verbiage I would use is something else altogether.

[Mjx]

. . . . Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?. . . .

In theory, at least, the closer the food is produced to where it is sold, the less fuel is needed (and by extension the less pollution is produced) to transport it; at a cumulative level, this can make a difference. Also, you might argue that supporting local (or as local as possible) sustainable agriculture is simply good for the community. Clearly, if you want lemons and live in in Denmark, you're going to be importing. But importing them from Italy has advantages over importing them from China (also in terms of being better able to monitor the labour and hygiene standards in place at the point of origin).

[Shalmanese]

. . . . Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?. . . .

In theory, at least, the closer the food is produced to where it is sold, the less fuel is needed (and by extension the less pollution is produced) to transport it; at a cumulative level, this can make a difference. Also, you might argue that supporting local (or as local as possible) sustainable agriculture is simply good for the community. Clearly, if you want lemons and live in in Denmark, you're going to be importing. But importing them from Italy has advantages over importing them from China (also in terms of being better able to monitor the labour and hygiene standards in place at the point of origin).

This is largely fallacious.

[ChrisTaylor]

And too, and I know I'm playing with fire with this one and touching on another issue altogether, what's the big deal about knowing what your food comes from? I mean, okay, with steak things like the animal's diet, etc determine the quality and flavour of the end product. I get that. But knowing exactly where it was raised? Knowing where my sweet potatoes come from? How many people who ask these questions or hear from TV chefs, et al that these are important questions know what the 'correct' answers are? Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?

Because every decision you make about the food you eat has consequences. There are environmental consequences. And health consequences. And cultural consequences.

I would think that for some people, the work of those whose job it is to grow or raise food is important enough to care about, because the issues that affect our farmers, growers and food producers will affect us all eventually.

It's "amazing" that we're even having this kind of discussion.

Amazing? I don't think so.

"Amazing" is the phrasing I'm using in this forum in the diplomatic sense.

The exact choice of verbiage I would use is something else altogether.

Settle, pettle.

You misunderstand my point. It's a good thing being able to know that--through a system of labelling, regulation, informed salespeople, etc--that my chicken came from some farm that cares for animal welfare. That the chickens aren't pumped full of God-knows-what and then packed into a shed, Tetris-style, until no more chickens will fit. Literally. That's a good thing. I don't want to devalue that. I do not question the worth of that. I do not question knowing whether my steak came from a grass-fed or grain-fed steer is a good thing or not. I get that. I like that. It helps me make informed choices about the products I buy.

What I do question is--and what I am a touch cynical about--is the obsession with it. The MasterChef and Jamie Oliver thing of TV chefs telling regular punters to ask their butcher/fishmonger/grocer/etc where their everything came from. People are told to ask this question but not until I opened Hawksmoor at Home did I see a single one of these chefs follow it up with a summary what you wanted to hear more in-depth than 'oh yeah, everything is organic and free-range: even the carrots.' It's like telling someone, when they're about to buy a car, to ask lots of really technical questions about the car's performance/the construction process/etc. If you're uninformed enough to have to be told to ask such questions by an expert, there's a fair chance you're uninformed to not understand what counts as a good/bad answer.

I also question whether, for a lot of these TV chefs, if it has much to do at all with the environment/sustainability. Perry's Rockpool is a steakhouse. The star of the show is aged beef. And that's great. I love beef. But I am under no illusions that it is good for the environment. Even if your steak came from rare breed raised on a diet of organic grains and was then finished on grass, it's still really bad for the environment to eat it. It's bad for the environment--really bad--to grill great quantities of it over coal/timber in a restaurant inside Melbourne's largest gambling venue. I argue that concern for the environment/sustainable farming is, for at least some of these cooks--and I don't want to single out Neil Perry here, as I reckon he's a great businessman and writes excellent books--is nowhere near as important as profitability is. There's a lot of money in charging $60-20 for a 'honestly' grilled steak with a dab of horseradish sauce and a drizzle of olive oil. That steak, be it from a farm in Tasmania that specialises in awesome grass fed beef or some nasty industrial place that supplies the likes of McDonald's, is terrible for the environment. Terrible.

And as was mentioned up-thread, there's the whole foraging thing. Oh yeah, I know where this came from, my sous chef and I hand-picked it (mushroom/seaweed/ramp/etc) this morning. That's all well and good, but let's not pretend that's always good for the environment. It, like saying you're selling something dry-aged/honestly cooked/etc, is, I think, in most cases about marketing. It's not about informing the public at all. Except maybe in rare instances.

Forgive me for questioning a sacred cow's right to be sacred.

Edited February 28, 2012 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[Mjx]

. . . . Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?. . . .

In theory, at least, the closer the food is produced to where it is sold, the less fuel is needed (and by extension the less pollution is produced) to transport it; at a cumulative level, this can make a difference. Also, you might argue that supporting local (or as local as possible) sustainable agriculture is simply good for the community. Clearly, if you want lemons and live in in Denmark, you're going to be importing. But importing them from Italy has advantages over importing them from China (also in terms of being better able to monitor the labour and hygiene standards in place at the point of origin).

This is largely fallacious.

As I said, 'In theory'. I'd want to see hard figures from very, very credible, firsthand sources, and lots of them, before reaching any firm conclusion.

The issue of being able to have a better idea of the labour and hygiene practices involved in the production of food that comes from closer by is less theoretical; it's much easier to have an idea of what's going on in your neighbour's yard, than in the yard of someone you've never met, in the next city.

But what is troubling me increasingly is the sense that 'honest' (with regard to food) is being used to imply 'better', in any or all ways. If someone wants to say, 'X and Y practices/ingredients/sources make for the best/my preferred food', I can accept that. When someone starts babbling about food being 'honest', I just want to beat them to death with my copy of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

[Simon_S]

When I hear "honest" I don't generally associate it with provenance, or local and seasonal, or any of the other buzzwords that relate to ingredients. I think it's meant as the opposite of pretentious, and that's one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder. In truth, I think there's a wider backlash against the trappings of fine dining at the moment, be it starched linens and snooty waiters or uber-modern food as art. Honest seems short-hand for "great but not fancy, equally enjoyable to your average bloke as to the most discerning gastronome".

Basically, it's a way for chefs to appeal to those who wouldn't normally think of themselves as into fine dining. Put another way, it helps restaurants like Noma broaden their appeal, shake off any hint of pretension, and get more bums on seats. So, not honest at all really!

[gfweb]

It is all marketing jive and, as we have shown in this thread, has no clear meaning.

It is an descriptor that each has to put his own spin on because honesty/dishonesty is not a trait of inanimate objects and the real definition of honesty cannot be meaningfully applied to food.

[annabelle]

Exactly. It is marketing and meant to make the consumer feel more virtuous, more honest, indeed more caring than that guy over there.

[SobaAddict70]

And too, and I know I'm playing with fire with this one and touching on another issue altogether, what's the big deal about knowing what your food comes from? I mean, okay, with steak things like the animal's diet, etc determine the quality and flavour of the end product. I get that. But knowing exactly where it was raised? Knowing where my sweet potatoes come from? How many people who ask these questions or hear from TV chefs, et al that these are important questions know what the 'correct' answers are? Unless it's purely a matter of food miles/fresness, why should it matter whether my potatoes come from 20 kilometres down the road as opposed to 200 or 2000?

Because every decision you make about the food you eat has consequences. There are environmental consequences. And health consequences. And cultural consequences.

I would think that for some people, the work of those whose job it is to grow or raise food is important enough to care about, because the issues that affect our farmers, growers and food producers will affect us all eventually.

It's "amazing" that we're even having this kind of discussion.

Amazing? I don't think so.

"Amazing" is the phrasing I'm using in this forum in the diplomatic sense.

The exact choice of verbiage I would use is something else altogether.

Settle, pettle.

You misunderstand my point. It's a good thing being able to know that--through a system of labelling, regulation, informed salespeople, etc--that my chicken came from some farm that cares for animal welfare. That the chickens aren't pumped full of God-knows-what and then packed into a shed, Tetris-style, until no more chickens will fit. Literally. That's a good thing. I don't want to devalue that. I do not question the worth of that. I do not question knowing whether my steak came from a grass-fed or grain-fed steer is a good thing or not. I get that. I like that. It helps me make informed choices about the products I buy.

What I do question is--and what I am a touch cynical about--is the obsession with it. The MasterChef and Jamie Oliver thing of TV chefs telling regular punters to ask their butcher/fishmonger/grocer/etc where their everything came from. People are told to ask this question but not until I opened Hawksmoor at Home did I see a single one of these chefs follow it up with a summary what you wanted to hear more in-depth than 'oh yeah, everything is organic and free-range: even the carrots.' It's like telling someone, when they're about to buy a car, to ask lots of really technical questions about the car's performance/the construction process/etc. If you're uninformed enough to have to be told to ask such questions by an expert, there's a fair chance you're uninformed to not understand what counts as a good/bad answer.

I also question whether, for a lot of these TV chefs, if it has much to do at all with the environment/sustainability. Perry's Rockpool is a steakhouse. The star of the show is aged beef. And that's great. I love beef. But I am under no illusions that it is good for the environment. Even if your steak came from rare breed raised on a diet of organic grains and was then finished on grass, it's still really bad for the environment to eat it. It's bad for the environment--really bad--to grill great quantities of it over coal/timber in a restaurant inside Melbourne's largest gambling venue. I argue that concern for the environment/sustainable farming is, for at least some of these cooks--and I don't want to single out Neil Perry here, as I reckon he's a great businessman and writes excellent books--is nowhere near as important as profitability is. There's a lot of money in charging $60-20 for a 'honestly' grilled steak with a dab of horseradish sauce and a drizzle of olive oil. That steak, be it from a farm in Tasmania that specialises in awesome grass fed beef or some nasty industrial place that supplies the likes of McDonald's, is terrible for the environment. Terrible.

And as was mentioned up-thread, there's the whole foraging thing. Oh yeah, I know where this came from, my sous chef and I hand-picked it (mushroom/seaweed/ramp/etc) this morning. That's all well and good, but let's not pretend that's always good for the environment. It, like saying you're selling something dry-aged/honestly cooked/etc, is, I think, in most cases about marketing. It's not about informing the public at all. Except maybe in rare instances.

Forgive me for questioning a sacred cow's right to be sacred.

It's all part of making your audience aware. If the way JO is going about it seems "shallow" to you, perhaps that is because of the lack of depth (generally) in using television as a medium for education. As you may know, things tend to be weighed towards the lowest common denominator. There's also that "ratings" thing; can't avoid it, have to live with it. Folks -- don't know about people in Australia, but I might know a thing or two about viewing habits in the U.S. -- don't see cooking as education, more like entertainment. If the opposite were true, then I imagine you'd see more of Julia Child and less of Guy Fieri. (PS. I don't watch TV, mostly because I can't stand the inanity of 99% of programming, and the remainder isn't a sufficient reason to bother...so take my comments with a grain of salt.)

The information is out there for anyone who chooses to pursue it beyond TV's threshold. Instead of taking the view that the glass is half empty, I would think that it's an effective "hook" to get the people who might turn out to be truly interested to start learning on their own. In that sense, JO is doing an admirable job with the time and resources available to him.

[annabelle]

If you don't watch television, how can you speak to the value to the viewer, real or perceived? It's like me opining on molecular gastronomy, when I have never tried it or read a book about it.

Jamie Oliver does good work with his restaurant training programs for young tear-aways, but he is not a dietician, an argonomist or an economist. His opinions are just that: opinions.

[SobaAddict70]

If you don't watch television, how can you speak to the value to the viewer, real or perceived? It's like me opining on molecular gastronomy, when I have never tried it or read a book about it.

Jamie Oliver does good work with his restaurant training programs for young tear-aways, but he is not a dietician, an argonomist or an economist. His opinions are just that: opinions.

Yes, annabelle, if I don't eat at a restaurant, how can I opine on whether the food might be of interest to me? But that hasn't stopped people from weighing in on topics of interest to them. Hence why I included the disclaimer "to take my comments with a grain of salt", or did you choose to conveniently ignore that too?

[tikidoc]

"Even if your steak came from rare breed raised on a diet of organic grains and was then finished on grass, it's still really bad for the environment to eat it."

Actually, it can be done in a non harmful way, albeit not as cheaply as beef raised in feedlots on government subsidized Monsanto corn. Pick up a book by Joel Salatin. He explains how it can be done, as he has been doing it on his farm for years. The problem is monoculture. Farms raise one thing, be it chicken or beef or corn or soy. Factory farms produce toxic waste - the sewage than runs out of these farms are loaded with antibiotic resistant bacteria. These animals are not being fed what their guts were evolved to eat. As a result, the animals are chronically sick and must be fed antibiotics due to their poor immune systems. Livestock in the US consume several times as much antibiotics and human, and virtually all of it is as feed additives, not to treat a specific illness. As a result, we have highly resistant strains of bacteria.

Salatin raises a number of species. The cows pastures are frequently rotated. Then a couple days after the cows leave a pasture, he brings in the chickens, who eat the bugs in the poops, and produce more high quality fertilizer. They make eggs that are much healthier than the so called free range eggs in the store (and taste a lot better too). He has numerous other examples in his books. I have seen his farm and how things work there. We have a small farm and use many of his methods and they work for us. Is it a cheap way to raise food? No, but we are improving the soil on our land not using up the nutrients, and the beef and chickens we raise are healthier (both alive and as our food) than anything on a factory farm. The animals are treated humanely too.

The toll of factory farming is adding up. They produce huge amounts of pollutants. Monoculture is ruining the soil of our heartland. I was raised in central Illinois, and the last time I was home, I could not believe how much lighter in color the soil was than when I lived there. This type of farming is not sustainable long term. Feedlots produce tons of pollution. On our farm, poop fom healthy cows is a good thing, not a pollutant.

Bottom line, yes, it is important to me and my family where our food comes from. In our case, as much as possible is from our own farm and from farmers that I know personally. Buying local is good for our community. It encourages sustainable farming techniques. If you know where to look, it does not need to be expensive. It generally tastes better. if you don't think it's important, visit a factory farm. You will change your mind.

Do I eat all local foods? No, I like citrus, and can't raise it in VA. After living in Panama for a while, I developed a fondness for lots of tropical fruits. But I would venture that we eat more sustainably produced food than the vast majority of the population, we don't spend crazy amounts of money on food, and I feel better about what I eat.

I guess you could guess how I would describe "honest food" although I think the term is pretty stupid. Honesty is not an attribute that objects can possess.

Jess

Edited February 29, 2012 by tikidoc (log)

[Blues_Cookin]

Totally awesome thread, and its really cool to see how folks think and feel about food.

Personally, I think calling food "honest" is simply a marketing term like "home-made" etc. At first glance, it seems to mean something good, but on second thought it is completely undefined and is simply the attempt to give the impression of something good by proximity to a word we all universally like. Kind of like saying you served a hand-carved steak. Or Grandma's oatmeal cookies.

[tikidoc]

With all this discussion, nobody has posted a dictionary definition for the word "honest". So here we go.

1. Marked by or displaying integrity; upright.

2. Not deceptive or fraudulent; genuine.

3. Equitable; fair: honest wages for an honest day's work.

4.

a. Characterized by truth; not false.

b. Sincere; frank.

5.

a. Of good repute; respectable.

b. Without affectation; plain.

6. Virtuous; chaste.

So I think that marketing of a food can be considered honest (using definition #2), but that definition would not work for the food itself. And I suppose a very simply prepared food could be called honest using definition 5b, although it seems a stretch to me.

Seems like a stupid way to describe food, but that's just me.