More Serious Matters: Increasing Hunger In Post-Gilded Age America And The Gleaning Of Leftover Crops

...""You try to eat as locally as possible, but then you make exceptions" for such long-distance staples as olive oil and good bubbly.

[Chef Alice] Waters also knows that in tough economic times, people struggling to pay the rent or stay employed might find organic food too costly. This is why she thinks all our homes, including the White House, should have vegetable gardens, why we should learn to can and pickle summer's bounty for year-round eating, and why we should buy whole chickens rather than pricey parts, and use even the necks, backs and bones. [Done.]

Waters -- whose dinner is at the Phillips Collection, that temple of Impressionist art near Dupont Circle -- is one of a dozen famed chefs from around the country preparing meals Monday night, though the other dinners are in Washington-area homes.

Proceeds from these feasts ($350 of each $500 ticket) will go to two city soup kitchens and to FRESHFARM Markets, which oversees eight markets in DC and Maryland; last year it gave more than eight tons of leftover crops gleaned from farm fields to anti-hunger groups."

Annie Groer "Alice Waters Goes To Washington To Cook Dinner" The Huffington Post January 14, 2009

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With thanks to Jeff and N.

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Header image:

Gleaners
Alessandro Battaglia (1890s)
Paul V. Galvin Library, Digital History Collection
Illinois Institute of Technology

Image credit: As cited. Copyright controlled. With thanks.