Market Vignettes

Weight Log:

Shortly after 6 am on Saturday for the last few years, I have ceased sleeping to get myself to the Lethbridge Farmers Market. Those who know will realize that this is no small feat. I love my job. I mostly love meeting so many different types of people. The farmer’s market seems to be an interesting place to investigate ideas about food and consumption. This morning I was preoccupied by a fairly singular focus – I wanted to buy an eggplant. Even if I had consulted the venerable vegetable availability chart, I would not have been forewarned that there were not going to be any eggplant available. Just last week there had been two vendors who had carried the beautiful little beasties. I got this wicked Eggplant Curry recipe from a Guyanese Canadian vendor who operates a world renowned hot sauce company producing one of my favourite condiments Basil's Fire and Brimstone. I usually get a few moments just before the market opens to wander around to the other vendors tables and check things out. This morning my ‘pre-game’ stroll left me empty handed. I really wanted an eggplant so that I could make that curry tonight. That’s when I bumped into a honey vendor whose honey we use in some of our products. We got to talking about food and this sociology course I was taking.

“I’ve stopped shopping at Wal-mart.” she confessed after we had talked for a while. Having already complained to her about the lack of egg-plant I quipped, “Yup, I try to avoid going there as much as I can but you know that if I go there this afternoon they are gonna have egg-plant.” Sure enough later this afternoon I did some grocery shopping for my family at Superstore (a no less attractive grocery giant) and they had eggplant! I didn’t pick any up mostly because they were not that nice and a little too large for just me and Char to share since the boys won’t eat it. It got me thinking about stuff again…

I am proud to work for Sunrise Berry Farms and get to sell their pies to eager customers. My bosses are some of the hardest working individuals I know and they have worked hard to produce products that exceed all the standards of value, quality and amazing taste. Sometimes I get to help work on some advertising for the company which is just way more fun for me. One of the things we often say about our products is that our pies may not be the cheapest but we are convinced they are the best you have ever tasted. I often tell the my customers that I have a money back guarantee – if they eat the whole pie and find it unsatisfactory – they should bring it back for a full refund. We’ve had no refunds. One of the curious things that happens from time to time is that people will be drawn to our attractive booth and see the even more attractive pies for sale. But when they ask about the price of the pies they either turn away or even more interestingly make a distinct frown – put the pie back on the shelf and walk away. I always wonder about these people. Frankly there are many people out there who are more than willing to pony up their cash for some Saskatoon heaven. But when I first started this phenomenon kinda bothered me – in fact I have to admit that I was inclined to offer these people a deal just to try to convince of how good this pie really is.

This morning, it happened again. After the frown-y faced lady walked away, I wondered what might have caused her to walk away. Why did the price of the pie seem to make such a difference to her? Maybe she is a lady who usually makes her own pies but this one time was considering buying one – but when she realized that she could make one for much less she thought better of her indulgence. Perhaps she usually buys pies for deserts in her family but she usually gets them at a department store where she can get them for a much cheaper price and expecting the same sort of price range she was caught off guard by the price of this pie. Or perhaps there was something else going on that couldn’t be so easily imagined.

Why do people go to farmer’s markets? It can’t be for selection since clearly the department store chains have better selection. It can’t be for price since again department stores can be substantially cheaper. It can’t be for convenience – again there are way more accessible options for getting your produce and other such things. These would be the way that a market economy approach might try to evaluate their choices. I wonder if the reason that people come to farmers markets to buy stuff (esp. food) is because they can construct themselves in a particular way as a part of society. They can use the food they buy at the market to accomplish some function of their social situation. Maybe what is going on is that individuals are able to translate the products they buy into a form of cultural capital with their friends. This might be to reinforce a notion about their ability to buy good quality products for at a more expensive rate as evidence of their social status. They might also be able to reinforce the idea of their commitment to personal health – since clearly these products are better for you. (Almost every food booth at the market is either organic this or non-hormone that) They can do this without even sharing the food they purchase with their friends. Just being able to be known to be at the market sets them apart. Growing their own gardens could accomplish some of the same things – but for these people it is important to have the farmer take at least a little bit of the farm out of the product (civilize it). I talked to the butcher in the booth beside me and he says nobody ever comes out to his farm to pick up products from there. Maybe people can get the same product that they would normally buy at any other location – but because this is the farmers market they can accomplish something socially that they could not otherwise.

This puts an interesting spin on the idea of price. Going back to that frown-y lady…can we say that her response is a form of resistance to the aesthetics that the farmer’s market can produce? Or is she like so many other people who (even though they often know better) persistently ask me for a deal on the pies? Is it really a deal they want or do they want this potential negotiation in price to also somehow construct their identity? Is a deal a way for them to demonstrate their superior status over the vendor and then also in other social space a competent customer. Imagine this…

“Sally, do you know those pies I always bring to bridge? Well, this week I told that cookie to give me a deal cause I was gonna order a bunch of them and do you know what he took a whole dollar off the price. You know Sally you just have to know how to talk to those guys…”

Of course I am not trying to leave a negative impression of these people even though you might suspect a more than sceptical tone. I think it is fascinating that people might be using this venue as a significant part of their social identity. Its almost like the market is a sort of mirror within which they can see themselves…And I should be quick to point out as you will already be suspecting that I find myself caught up in that same trap – after all here I am getting rather perturbed at not finding an eggplant at the end of October in a Southern Alberta farmer’s market.

One more thing if you would like to construct yourself as fabulously decadent individual I would love to recommend you visit our store and pick up one of the best pies in the world. In fact why don’t you pick up a frozen un-baked pie that you can bake yourself invite your friends over and tell them you baked it yourself? – I don’t mind if you lie about it even though I was a former minister – I’ll this one go this time…

Fat is the new thin

My mom brought up a really good point in response to one of my other postings (via facebook). She remarked that perhaps one of the reasons why we consider some food as healthy and others as un-healthy may actually have something to do with the way food has been thought of historically. Which made me think of…

Back when worked as a youth pastor I remember several older people getting quite upset when they discovered that I used food as props for games that I would play with the kids. That was when Fear Factor and other such shows had just emerged and youth ministry was riffing on that theme – incorporating gross food challenges –etc. I remember this one very sincere older woman giving me quite the lecture about how what I was doing could be considered as wasting food. This was perfect unacceptable for her since she reminded me that there were many people around the world who were lacking food and that from her perspective food was too precious a commodity to waste. I can remember scoffing under my breath at her old-fashioned and narrow minded view point. There was no opportunity to talk to her about the kids of food we used – that I was pretty sure were really not that nutritious. But for her this was a big deal. There was an aura around food – it was revered almost. It was like the way I used food was contravening not just ethics of world hunger crisis but also that there was something intrinsically ‘holy’ about food. It occurs to me in retrospect that I had actually sinned in the way I had behaved. Her regard for food was obviously something deeply entrenched into the essence of her morality – what she thought was appropriate.

That brings me back to last night’s class. Dr. Ramp pointed out that somewhere around the 15th century a significant change occurred in people’s consumption of food. That was because society moved from a position of regular and imminent famine to a situation where famine in the western world was large not an issue. It was possible before this to demonstrate your power and prestige by throwing lavish feast were the object would be to gorge yourself as evidence of your great wealth. Actually Thorstein Veblen sort of talks about that when he talks about conspicuous consumption. (earlier post describing Veblen’s ideas) But Veblen basically goes on to suggest that conspicuous consumption may change in form (i.e. what is consumed to display your elite status) but it still remains a persistent characteristic of the way society seems to work.

So then the question must be asked: Could there be a way that food is used today that might be able to convey status? Obviously, with the $35 bottle of wine (in the earlier post) as opposed to the the $10 bottle one could display status. But that seems like a fairly insignificant distinction because unless the people you serve the expensive wine to can really appreciate the better stuff they might not have any clue that you spent more money on it. Or worse yet they might see your spending as foolish and your social status would therefore decrease. Its just too fragile a way to make that distinction. But what if you proclaim your status in more reliable ways, more conspicuous ways?

Given that food is relatively abundant (I mean in western cultures) and we are able to purchase almost any variety and quality of food we want at our local grocery store, how can we demonstrate our superior class? How about through thinner bodies? What if the size of your body ( how fat or thin it is) can somehow demonstrate your class? If feasts were the way in ancient days today that kind of gorging is seen as despicable (watch some of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution click on this link to see the video and fast forward to 6:00). It is possible then to have certain foods come to stand for ways of eating that are considered to be horrible and reproduce the idea of a lower class ‘the term white trash’ comes to mind. So the difference between chicken nuggets and chicken noodle soup may be about how these foods are imagined to pertain to one’s ability to gorge oneself and thereby lower their status. Since chicken nuggets are quick and the soup takes a while to produce there can be some easy distinctions made. So its almost like we are proving and disproving Veblen’s theory all at once. Can we say that the way to show your higher status is by demonstrating your willingness to avoid the fast foods and engage with the slow foods? Is it possible to say that our status can hang on our ability to reduce our intake of food? Is it possible that a thin body image might be the evidence of one’s ability to achieve higher status – through restraint? Does restraint become conspicuous? Is it any wonder that fat has come to mean all things negative? I mean a fat person then must be someone who can’t restrain him'/herself, right?

But then what about my friend who eats so much food everyday that almost my entire family could eat from what he digests daily – and he is still thin as a rail?