Laudan identifies Culinary Luddites as those who “bemoan the steel roller mill…and the electric oven, yearning for stone ground flour and open fires.” Elegantly embodied by writers like Elizabeth David or Alice Waters, Culinary Luddism seems indeed to have become “the official culinary philosophy among the educated public.”  

Neither Laudan nor I have anything but love for well-made artisan cheeses, succulent windfall fruit, or a domestic egg repository in the guise of a few plucky bantams in one’s backyard. Who the hell does? What she does take issue with, however, is the dichotomy frequently evoked that pits the traditional, ethnic, fresh, natural, slow, local, rural, artisan, old, healthy, and authentic on one side—against everything “processed, preserved, global, fast, urban, industrial, homogeneous, bland, unhealthy, and artificial” on the other.

As a culinary historian, Laudan questions the simplistic vision of the past embraced by Culinary Luddites, accusing them of believing a postmodern vision “based not on history but on a fairy tale.” Perhaps her most compelling argument in favor of Culinary Modernism (embracing technology, fast food) is how easy it is to gloss over the fact that, until industrialization, producing and preparing food absorbed the energies of most of the population, whether they liked it or not.

Until the invention of the tortilla machine in the 1950s, a Mexican woman could expect to spend a full third of her waking hours on her knees, grinding corn for the family’s tortillas. The industrialization of food that began around the 1880s meant that the poor of the industrialized world could afford to eat meat regularly, buy tea and sugar, eat canned pineapple and white bread and jam. “By my lights, it was a triumph,” declares Laudan. Culinary modernism, she believes, was “not the negation of traditional culinary philosophies, but their fulfillment, their apotheosis.” Culinary modernism gave men and women the choice to do something other with their lives than agricultural or kitchen labor.

Laudan’s statements are iconoclastic almost to the point of heresy, and she’s so blunt about them that her absolutism might turn some people off to her argument. But they deserve some thought. After all, whom do we have to thank for allowing us to savor traditional, peasant foods like virgin olive oil and Thai fish sauce? The people who make them, of course. And the modern, global economy that brings them here.

Nathalie Jordi's appetites keep her bouncing between between County Cork, New York, London and the French Alps.  When not slinging curd or interviewing farmers, she writes for Travel&Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Gastronomica, and her blog at www.autobiogeography.com.  Her dreams of a life spent baking, drinking margaritas, and sitting in the sun are gathering steam during her current stint as a waitress in New York City.