CULTURE
The World in My Fridge
A few weeks ago I vowed, with habitual new year’s resolve, to shed a
few holiday pounds on The South Beach Diet. Too cheap to pay for the bestselling
book, I scored a copy from the public library. At first glance the menus appeared
tasty but a little disconcerting. Edamame salad. Grilled mahi-mahi.
Fresh steamed asparagus and Laughing Cow Cheese (the light version). Could
I find such exotic ingredients at my local supermarket -- in January?
I found the menus and more. The mahi-mahi, a product of Singapore, lay glistening in the fish freezer. Crisp, bright asparagus from Peru was stacked in neat bundles near the broccoli. I couldn’t find the edamame, but quickly located both light and regular Laughing Cow Cheese in the dairy case. The package proclaimed it “A Favorite of France,” but the fine print revealed its manufacture in Wisconsin.
Amazing, I thought, it’s all here. Delivered just in time from all parts of the global supply chain. Checking to see where things come from has become a hobby of mine. It began when I realized that the shiny red tomatoes in the supermarket weren’t from Holland, Michigan, but Holland, Holland, in The Netherlands.
I read labels obsessively now, pausing over the words “Made in (China, Mauritius, Guatemala)” with worry and a little awe. Under what conditions are my lovely new acquisitions being produced? How the heck did they here? How low can the already low prices go? And will anything be made in the U.S.A. by the time my kids are old enough to look for a job making it?
The Local Market
When the guilt over buying foreign gets to be too much, I console myself with a visit to the South Bend Farmer’s Market, a 75-year-old institution in the heart of my Indiana neighborhood. The market offers local farmers and craftspeople a friendly indoor venue to sell their wares year round.
On Saturdays it is packed with shoppers who prefer small-is-beautiful to the superstores. I stroll the aisles happily, taking note of the many homegrown delights available for purchase.
There are bottles of golden maple syrup from Irvin Lemler’s farm in Bourbon, Indiana. Jams and jellies made at Parcell’s Pantry in Wakarusa. Bright afghans and toilet paper covers knit by a buxom mother-daughter duo from South Bend, not to mention 18 varieties of apples from Michigan and Molly’s homemade dog treats from Shipshewana. “Mine are made in USA,” Molly tells me proudly.
As far as I can see there is only a little trouble in paradise. A lady who refused to give her name is selling knock-off Louis Vuitton bags from God knows where, and Mary of Mary’s Country Baskets confesses that the reeds she uses to weave her creations come from China.
Going Global
Since there are no flowers at the Farmer’s Market, my next stop is Patricia Ann’s Florist on the west side of town. Back in the days when South Bend manufactured Studebaker cars, this neighborhood was a thriving commercial center. Now the windows of many west side businesses are covered with boards or steel bars.
Just past the pawnshop, the Palacio Tropical bar and Muszynski’s Tax Service, the flower shop is teeming with life. I ask the proprietress where the roses came from. “Oh, Ecuador or somewhere in South America,” she says. “We can get anything you want any day of the week.”
If the west side of South Bend has gone global, can the rest of America be far behind? South American roses might either help or harm the workers who picked and packed them, but they are keeping a small business afloat in a struggling neighborhood.
At the same time, foreign hothouses are snagging jobs that domestic producers might have grown for workers in the United States. Ay Caramba, is the bottom line good or bad? I don’t know, but it’s somehow hard to believe the low wages paid overseas don’t spell trouble for North American workers.
Taking Stock
When I got home I decided to take everything out of my refrigerator and line it up on the kitchen table. I wanted to read all the labels and see just how many countries were honing in on our action, to figure out where we were losing ground and how we might gain it back -– at least foodwise.
The findings weren’t surprising at first glance. The Pinot Grigio was from Italy and the Greek olives were from Greece. The Danish blue cheese came directly from Denmark, but a Wisconsin conglomerate controlled the cheddar. The Hidden Valley Ranch dressing just said “Made in U.S.A.” I assume they need to keep the specific location of the valley, well, hidden.
Then things started to get interesting. Both the Patak’s Garlic-Ginger Sauce and the Mongolian Fire Oil had been brewed in Austin, Minnesota. The fresh fruits and veggies came from all over. I remembered how Adam, the supermarket produce guy, explained to me that his pineapples came from Costa Rica, his Ugli fruit from Jamaica and his papayas from Brazil. “People want everything and they’ll pay for it,” he said.
Doing inventory in the fridge left me curious about something else. How many different countries did the clothes in my closet come from? I like to think that my consumption habits are below average since I drive an older car and still wear a sweater I bought at the Gap in 1985. Even so, I was guessing that a random tally would render some pretty impressive numbers.
The numbers didn’t lie – in fact, they told the whole story. Just the shoes strewn around the floor came from four different countries, with China and Brazil taking top honors. The pants and shirts were produced in 13 nations with China again out in front.
But it was the pajamas and underwear that revealed my closet’s true coordinates as sweatshop central. The workers of no less than 16 countries have manufactured my intimate apparel, with plucky Sri Lanka and Honduras edging out China in the brassiere category.
The World
So what does it all add up to? What’s the average person to do about globalization? No matter where you live you can oppose the flood of foreign goods and capital into your home country, like the Europeans who throw rocks at McDonald’s. You can push politicians to implement trade policies that might stop the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas. Or you can embrace the fact that China is taking over the world, like the spunky little daughter my friends adopted from that country. Every time this kid finds a “Made in China” label on a household item, she pumps her tiny fists in the air with glee. Believe me, she’s finding more to cheer about every day.
Americans help sow the seeds of our own destruction every time we bring home a bag of junk from Wal-Mart. I know this, but like most Americans I am ambivalent when it comes to prices. Sure, it would be great if higher prices for imports translated into higher living standards for people “over there” or created more jobs for workers over here.
That said, I love my cheap crap as much as the next gal. If and when the price of an iPod falls below $250, I will go out and buy one -- even if it’s made by Sudanese kindergartners who are fed crack.
Thinking it over, I keep coming back to what the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez said a few years ago at a conference on the Catholic Church’s response to poverty. “Being against globalization is like being against electricity,” he told the audience.
What he meant was that knee-jerk resistance to rapid, relentless change is both pointless and against our best interests. At the same time, the terms and results of globalization are worth paying attention to – including who has access to the best it brings and what happens to the earth in the process.
Years ago a lefty bumper sticker seemed to have a simple recipe for navigating the times. It said, “Think Globally, Act Locally.” Something about that advice seems quaint and so last century, because the line between what’s global and what’s local gets blurrier every day.
I live in what is called the heartland – but where does the heartland begin and end when my neighbor’s American flag is made in Taiwan? When the dulcet-voiced merchant who helps me Christmas shop does so from an Amazon call center in New Delhi? When the flowers sold on the west side come from Ecuador, and when nine foreign companies are bidding on the right to operate the Indiana Toll Road?
I’ll probably never be able to answer those questions from my kitchen table even though I’ve got most of Padre Gutiérrez’s books on a nearby shelf. And lately, there are just too many distractions to stay focused. For one, The South Beach Diet was on sale so I ponied up for my own copy today at the local discount superstore.
Of course, the best way to lose weight would be
to hang out in Sri Lanka for a few weeks and start working 12-hour shifts
in the bra factory. I could subsist on tea and vegetable curry and catch my
own mahi-mahi on the beach. Let’s face it, though – that would
be tough. I’d really miss my regular routines and besides, tonight’s
South Beach menu looks pretty good. The edamame and wild Vietnamese tuna are
waiting in the freezer and the BBC news is on the telly. And I, for one, have
never been against electricity.