OMG GMO! or requiem for corn.

Just this last week, Mexican Government approved 15 out of 35 permits that will enable GMO corn planting. The beneficiaries of such permits are Monsanto and Dow AgroScience. This news has been received in a couple different ways. On one hand Greenpeace has strongly objected to this, arguing that SAGARPA (Secretary of Agriculture) is ignoring international agreements and advice from experts in the field. On the other hand, mainstream press personalities have expressed their approval of the motion. Their argument: that this will improve the yield of our fields, enabling a sort of "Argicultural Revolution".

I for one, find the move appalling. I believe that the press is missing on some big issues such as quality of the produced food, and where the revenue from that nasty corn is going. It's definitely not going into the poor journeyman's pocket. And that is where all the problem spawns. For a good deal of our history, we have had a history of exploiting the people tending to our fields. And it has been the greed of the people buying dirt cheap products from them that has led to the ruined state our fields are in. Take Vanilla, for example. Veracruz is the home of Vanilla, and for decades, Papantla vanilla was regarded as the best available. Seeing that their product was in demand, sellers (not the growers) entice extract producers to start messing with the product. Buyers notice and demand for our vanilla spirals down, resulting in being perhaps third-string option. Gladly, as with Coffee, responsible growing and movements like Fair Trade have started their rescue of Vanilla.

With corn, however, the outlook is definitely stark. I had the chance of meeting Diana Kennedy, recently. She asks: how can a country as rich as ours embrace a crap product like Maseca? We've just embraced worse. Lots of mexicans don't know what nixtamal tastes like. Now, I am reminded of David Patterson when I feel we're en route to forget corn.

The only word I can think of to describe what's going on right now is shameful. Eight years ago, when I was in France, you could see the strength of the anti-GMO shift. Producers were proudly boasting: Non-GMO in their labels. We seem to be bidding them welcome.

Need more? How about watching Michael Ruhlman and Dan Barber at Chautauqua. Mr. Ruhlman goes, as Mr. Patterson earlier, into detail about why the corn produced by the mass industries is wrong, even explaining how it affects the rest of the food chain. Chances are, you already read Michael Ruhlman's Blog but as I said earlier: if you don't, start doing so.

Finally, a big Thank You to Donna Turner Ruhlman for kindly letting me use her "Ear of Corn" picture. See more of her amazing work at Ruhlmanphotography.com.

From the oven.

I had a chance to see the Horno 3 museum show yesterday, and it left my head filled with thoughts.

First up, I was amazed by the complexity of the steel oven operation. I guess that's something one should try to see at least once. It's a bit of a shame that the place closed down, but it's a blessing, for the local government has really outdone itself with the museum. It has given us a chance to experience a piece of Monterrey history.

The oven operated at about 1100ºC, and people there would stand just a couple feet away while going about their business. It left me thinking because we are in a business that has inherent risks such as fire, heat and sharp objects. But seeing yesterday's show left me thinking that we're a bunch of sissies if we complain about the rough conditions we work in. After all, these guys were probably risking their lives at something like minimum wage.

The show includes a lot of testimonials from former oven workers. The very first thing one hears is a poem written by a shift supervisor from the late sixties. Hearing the poem made me realize the awful state our current education system is in. Here you have a shift supervisor deftly weaving phrases into a poem that many modern-day graduate school people would have a hard time not only writing, but understanding. Secretary of Education, you've got a TON of work to do.

The testimonials also serve as evidence of something. These people LOVED their job. It's very frustrating as a teacher to see so many people try to get into our business because they've been blinded by the media or because they dream of fame. But there's very little passion. They're uninterested and apathetic. Most of them leave the kitchen and stop thinking about it. I've seen the same in many High Schools and Universities around town. Kids don't seem to care about much these days.

It's about the chef... dummies.

I may be going out on a limb here, but I think that amongst the many flaws in the "gastronomic culture" that people around here like to boast, the worst one is the lack of respect for chefs. Whenever I read the ghastly reviews in the one paper that cares enough about this, it's almost tragic to see that it's mostly the owner who takes the credit. People assume that if the owner from succesful restaurant A is opening B, it'll be just as good.

Of course, that a lot of the food that finally gets put on plates is either decided by owners or some consulting chef they hired for a while. And the "chef" is just some guy hired to execute said recipes. While this is logical where the figure of the Chef-owner exists, there is still no recognition for the guy on the line.

Jean-Francois Piege, is one of the examples of what a Chef de cuisine becomes in a cultured environment. He was, after all, just the chef under one of the culinary gods of our era: Alain Ducasse. For a while there, I thought he was one of the best in Paris. One day, he surprises us all by leaving ADPA to take the kitchens of the Crillon, where he's striving to reach the third macaron.

In our town, there's no way in hell that Chef John Doe, who simply mans the stoves at Restaurant X, will ever get lured out of his succesful cuisine to take charge of a new place. Experience running a restaurant will just make you an able cook to run another kitchen somewhere else in the eyes of employers. Why hire a chef, why pay big (not really) money to someone for a job that's not even necessary.

Food here isn't about the epicurean, organoleptic or intellectual experience. It's about the social part of the meal, about being seen in the trendy spot in town. So why even give a damn about what I'm eating, how I'm eating it and much less, about who created and prepped? There is no place for the culinary artist here, even in the better restaurants. I have to get out of here