Editor's Note
By Marni Ginther
Last spring I spent several months living on a tiny organic farming project in Ecuador. During one of my first experiences dining out in Quito, the capital city, I ordered what I thought was the least-intimidating item on the menu: chicken soup. I lifted a spoonful of broth to my lips and shrieked. A cooked chicken head was perched on my spoon, staring back at me with hollow eyes.
This was my first of many encounters in Ecuador with what I guess you could call the more rustic side of food. Until I lived there, I never thought much about where my food came from. It never crossed my mind that the chunks of rubbery meat in my can of Campbell’s were once part of a whole chicken that actually had a head.
That’s the way we think in America—or at least those 97 percent of us who live in cities. We want our food packaged, pretty and simple. Never mind that the process behind our food is often anything but. In densely populated feedlots, we fatten cows on things nature never intended them to eat—including tallow from cattle that have been slaughtered before them. The U.S. food industry emits more than 24 million metric tons of carbon each year. But in the supermarket, everything gleams in colorful packaging under the soothing hum of fluorescent lights.
Unlike the villagers I lived with who got up before sunrise to cook a breakfast made almost entirely of ingredients they produced, most Americans have no relationship whatsoever with their food. I’m not saying we all have to move to the Andes and become farmers. But we should be aware of what we’re supporting when we buy certain foods. We should know what’s in our meals before we put it in our bodies and pay attention to who’s deciding those ingredients. And if you’ve got to do something three times a day every day, you might as well enjoy it, right? That’s what I mean by having a relationship with our food. Knowing it. Caring about it. Savoring it.
James Beard once said “food is our common ground, a universal experience.” That’s exactly what we believe at digest. You may not agree with everything in these pages, but in creating this magazine, we hoped you would take some time to reflect on that universal experience of food. So grab your favorite snack—whether that’s brie and crackers with wine, or a Coke and a bag of Cheetos—and enjoy the fruits of our labor. We promise, no scary chicken heads.
Bon appétit,
Marni Ginther
Editor-In-Chief