Writer John Schwenkler, who fairly accurately describes Alice Waters as “not, as they say, one of us,” nevertheless suggests that educating children with Slow Food values is something that “ought to resonate beyond the confines of the doctrinaire Left.” From a social perspective, he evokes the cult of the family dinner; from an economic perspective, he notes that subsidies and price controls skew in favor corporate agribusiness rather than small enterprise. “Hence even the smallest acts of resistance to the hegemony of the present system…will nurture the ability to govern—or resist being governed.” Schwenkler praises urban farms and CSAs for allowing farmers to receive a far greater share of the profits than when they go through “corporate middlemen.”

Projects like community gardens, church basement cooking classes, and local markets, believes Schwenkler, are “not merely aesthetic or gustatory concerns,” nor is feeding one’s family good food a private or familial one. “Eating is part of our politics, too,” he writes, citing Wendell Berry (a gifted, convincing, excruciatingly conservative writer himself). 

In the end, many of the “conservative” arguments Schwenkler makes in favor of eating locally, seasonally, and well are the same reasons liberals, or for that matter, supporters of these ideas in general, find compelling: supporting the local economy, keeping culture alive, familial and friendship bonds strong, and yielding better flavor.

“Renewing the culinary culture, and restoring the kinds of values that are necessary for the proper functioning of a healthy republic, is not the sort of thing that can be left to activists, environmentalists, and government bureaucrat,” Schwenkler trumpets at the end of his piece.  “This is a conservative cause if ever there was one.” 

Come now, John Schwenkler.  Isn’t it larger than that?