Time to Stop Falling Short
I moved to Boston in 2003 to work as a chef for an international contract food service provider. Mostly I ran small cafés, or catered events – from huge to intimate in scale. I saw a lot of food, a lot of facilities, and fed a lot of people, and I realized that we don’t think about how big the business of feeding people really is.
So, when I took a position as Director of Food Service for a university, in which I was responsible for feeding 2200 students each day, the power I had hit me. I could bring the joy of local Massachusetts apples to the dining hall in fall, squashes in winter, and peaches and berries into summer. Introducing more whole grains could affect the future cancer risk rates for thousands of people; and more generally, my choices could impact on the eating habits developed by these students.
In the three years I spent at Boston University I obviously had my own agenda beyond the base expectations of the Dining Services. I wanted seasonal, local, sustainable and healthful food. My own college culinary experiences in New York were unique, with chefs using produce from local farms and even student run farms in the university’s dining program.
However, I was blocked by the catering company’s corporate policy and lack of interest and found a similar lack of enthusiasm among the university community. And when the dining services started to roll out a sustainability program, students showed little interest in the items being marketed. Without a grassroots push coming from students, it seemed that the kind of on-campus restaurants I envisioned would never materialize.
I stopped working with the university Dinner Services in 2007 to undertake an MBA and work part-time as a culinary teacher and freelance chef. In my studies of International Business and Supply Chain, I investigated possibilities of developing systems that are as ‘short and local’ as possible in providing for our everyday diets, and the implications for our health, the environment, and our local economies.
In that same year, Slow Food USA launched Slow Food On Campus, an initiative to start-up Slow Food convivia on college and university campuses. Boston University was quick to form a convivium and in 2008 the school’s dining services created a new position—sustainability coordinator of dining services. In October 2008 I traveled with many youth delegates from the US to Terra Madre. Things were starting to happen.
In February 2009 more than 60 schools from across the northeast sent students to learn, network and strategize at The Real Food Summit in Amherst. Students brainstormed ways to get fresh food into dining halls, more campus gardens, or more critical food-related curricula, making our schools invest in healthy, community-based, fair, and environmentally sound food for all.
We must stop falling short and start putting long-term passions into action, thinking carefully before we act. When I finish my studies this May, I will return to work from inside the system once again. Will I find university students are still not interested, and meet disinterest from corporate groups and college boards, or shall we break through and begin this culinary revolution? Friends, farmers, chefs, fellow foodies…let’s slow this food system down and make it real again, raw, powerful, and ready to fire a new sustainable food and market economy.
Riva Stevens
Terra Madre 2008 Youth Delegate
chef2riva@yahoo.com
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