VITAMIN BREAD BOOT CAMP - White Bread: A Social History of the Store Bought Loaf - page 52

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VITAMIN BREAD BOOT CAMP
Dreams of Strength and Defense
Nations that have bread are the nations that stand against the villainy of despots, tyrants, and fools.
… Let's not forget that the real sinews of war are wrought by bread that builds muscle and brawn . .
. bread shortens the war and lengthens the peace. If any man doubts the truth of this story, then he'd
better get ready to be shot as a patriot or shackled as a slave .
—Spaulding Bakeries advertisement, Chicago, 1944
NATIONAL SECURITY FOOD
During Walla Walla's long, high desert summers, residents and wine tourists flock to a repurposed bus
depot just off Main Street for the weekly farmers' market. To avoid the blazing afternoon sun, my fam-
ily usually goes early in the morning, but we almost always end up getting caught in the heat. You can't
shop quickly here. A dozen encounters with friends and acquaintances inevitably foil any attempt to
just duck in briefly and pick up a few items. One conversation turns into another. I see former students
selling produce. My kids run off with classmates. My wife, Kate, bumps into someone she's been mean-
ing to call and begins to make plans to hang out later. A colleague introduces her parents visiting from
out of town. Soon two hours have passed, and I still haven't gotten to the fruit stands. Visiting the Walla
Walla farmers' market feels like an alternative food movement fantasy come to life. It's a wonderful
picture: tight-knit social bonds and community ties forged over local produce.
One thing doesn't quite fit the alternative food movement stereotype, though: take a quick stroll
around the parking area and it wouldn't be unusual to find NRA decals outnumbering Sierra Club stick-
ers. Tea Party slogans may well grace more bumpers than Obama or Greenpeace. We tend to think of the
alternative food movement as a liberal, Birkenstock-wearing lifestyle club, but that image doesn't quite
pan out here. One of the local food vendors is our Republican state representative.
If you look hard enough, the liberal stereotype doesn't always hold up outside Walla Walla, either. As
Rob Dreher writes in his topic Crunchy Cons , legions of “Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic
gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, [and] right-wing nature lovers”
have long been drawn to the alternative food movement. Right-wing talk radio personalities might rail
against liberal locavores and out-of-touch Whole Foods shoppers but, as Dreher notes, conservatives
who look carefully find that the alternative food movement expresses many of their values. 1 Participants
on the left and right both sense something authentically “American” in the romance of Jeffersonian
agrarianism—the idea that small communities of independent private-property-owning farmers form the
backbone of democracy. The alternative food movement, like many conservatives, emphasizes the vir-
tues of decentralization, self-sufficiency, and local independence. Images of community, family, and