Political Food - Voting with Our Forks

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Feb 26, 2016
by Louise Hallman
Political Food - Voting with Our Forks

What is the role of food and land in our heritage and our aim of a sustainable future?

Prairie Rose Seminole speaks at the fireside chat during Beyond Green

“If we are what we eat, then tonight we are all small Austrian dumplings!” The mood might have been jovial and the topic – food – familiar, but the purpose of the post-dinner fireside chat at Beyond Green: The Arts as a Catalyst for Sustainability was serious: what role can food play in improving sustainability? 

Food is indeed important. It is both a commodity and a commons; a connection between rural and urban communities; able to make us healthy and sick; and a source of conflict – but also a basis for connection. 

Everyone has their own (love?) story with food, and communities frequently connect around food. As Fellows supped on cups of Native American herbal tea, panelists from the USA, Austria and Lebanon shared their own stories of food, communities and sustainability.

Native Americans have long had a deep connection to their land and what it produces [see our interview with Prairie Rose Seminole], using herbs, roots and leaves as natural medicines. These practices are being lost as communities are uprooted and now live in “food deserts.” Many rely on food banks or gas stations for food on their reservations if they’re unable to make the several hours’ drive to the nearest well-stocked super markets. Organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of the Three Affiliated Tribes in New Town, ND are now making sure their heritage and understanding of the land is passed on to future generations, to promote self-sufficiency.

Austria’s Wastecooking has grown from one man’s dumpster-diving interest to a documentary series and even a “Free Supermarket” – stocked with still perfectly edible food discarded in dumpsters across Vienna. Although the store was shut down by the authorities, Wastecooking continues to highlight the issue of food waste (90 million tons in Europe alone) and how we can make the most of our leftovers, through more film showings and cooking demonstrations.

In Lebanon, food has provided a way for the heavily divided post-conflict society to come together. Starting with a farmers’ market in Beirut, Souk el Tayeb went on to take the (consumers’) market to the farmers with weekly food festivals in small villages, selling not only produce but also producing local speciality dishes. Later capacity building activities were organized so that the local chefs (often women) could produce these dishes for larger numbers, and most recently helping the most disadvantaged – the large but diverse refugee communities – build up their cooking skills. But Souk el Tayeb is not really about food – “it’s conflict resolution through cooking.”  (Or as their social media posts say: #makefoodnotwar!)

As Fellows were reminded: “Food is a political act – we vote with our forks!”


The Salzburg Global session Beyond Green: The Arts as a Catalyst for Sustainability is part of Salzburg Global’s long-running Culture and the Arts series. The session is supported by the Edward T. Cone Foundation, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Bush Foundation and Red Bull Amaphiko. More information on the session can be found here: www.salzburgglobal.org/go/561. You can follow all the discussions on Twitter by following the hashtag #SGSculture.