Why the Occupy Movement never got its official cookbook
THE Occupy movement wanted to change the world. It had a name. It had maths (99% of us agree; although you might not have answered the survey). It had the food.
Cook and Occupy sympathiser Devra Gartenstein spotted a market for an official cookbook. The book – Cooking and recipe ideas for the 99%, by the 99% – would be a hit. Only, it never happened.
The Seattle Times notes:
It was difficult to figure out whether the book should be inexpensive or a coffee table novelty, how to split profits and whether there should be profits, and how it should be organized.
The future under the 99% Revolutionary Party might be a bun fight.
She adds:
“The Occupy Cookbook project ran into contradictions at every turn in part because the acts of preparing and serving food are so complicated, bringing so much joy and also carrying so much baggage. Cooking can be an art or a pleasure; it can also be sheer drudgery, a burden and an obligation. We all deserve to be fed but, in order for this to happen, someone has to be enlisted to feed us.”
To say nothing of the title of her blog: Pork and Gin. What percentage of the world is barred from eating pig and supping booze?
One her blog, Gartenstein notes:
I was hesitant to broach the subject of money. At first he said that he didn’t want anyone profiting from the project, then he conceded that he really would like to earn a bit of money because he was doing most of the work and still had to pay his own rent. I proposed an arrangement where eighty percent of the profit would go to the organization, ten percent would go to him, and ten percent would go to me. I was nervous about using the word “profit”.
But before you sneer, Gartenstein adds some perspective:
It’s tempting to draw conclusions about the entire movement based on my experience with a single individual, but I’d rather go in a different direction. I heard once that during the early, heady days of the French Revolution, the revolutionary state wanted citizens to dine together in the streets, but first they had to grapple with the question of who would actually serve the food in this egalitarian setting.
OK. You can sneer now…
Image: Occupy London protestors prepare lunch in the kitchen tent at the camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011.
Posted: 4th, July 2012 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
