FERN’s Friday Feed: Preserved egg and chicken porridge? I’m lovin’ it!
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
U.S. fast food conquered the world; now it’s gone local
The Dial
“When the first McDonald’s crossed international borders (to Richmond, Canada in 1967), the U.S. was the world’s reigning superpower,” writes Clarissa Wei. “Today, America is no longer the only economic or military giant in the room; China is right on its heels. Still, appetite for American fast food has not diminished … But if ‘Americana’ is the marketing hook, what keeps people coming back to these places is the food. And the food is no longer all that American. In China, McDonald’s breakfast menu includes chopped up century egg mixed into a thick chicken porridge. In Saudi Arabia, customers wait patiently until sundown for the Ramadan special: a McArabia Chicken pita sandwich with a soft serve ice cream. In Argentina, a McDonald’s dessert can be alfajores, sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche caramel sauce. In France, there is the McBaguette — a baguette stuffed with two burger patties, two slices of Emmental cheese, lettuce and French mustard.”
Lawmakers ignore abuses in India’s sugar industry because they run it
The New York Times
“Why did lawmakers in the Indian state of Maharashtra ignore a 2019 report by one of their colleagues that documented abusive practices on sugar plantations that included child labor and female workers getting unnecessary hysterectomies at alarmingly high rates? Because,” write Megha Rajagopalan and Qadri Inzamam, “Sugar is among the state’s most important industries, one that sells to big brand buyers such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and is heavily controlled by the political elite. Most of the state’s sugar mills are led by sitting lawmakers or political figures … That includes at least 21 state lawmakers, four members of the national Parliament, five government ministers and nearly 50 former officials. That means, in many cases, that the very people who could protect workers are also profiting from their exploitation.”
Julia Childs’ lifelong love affair with kitchen tools
Smithsonian Magazine
“She was keen to try new devices for her own enlightenment but also felt a responsibility to her television viewers and live cooking demo audiences to ‘try out everything new so that I can have a valid opinion of its worth,’” writes Paula J. Johnson. “Julia steadfastly refused to represent any particular brand of cookware, but she gave credit when credit was due, lauding types of equipment—like the sturdy stand mixer and food processor—that revolutionized kitchen work. Over four decades, her … kitchen absorbed an astonishing number of tools, equipment, gadgets and artwork … Julia’s home kitchen speaks to and reflects some of the major transformations in food that characterize the second half of the 20th century in the United States.”
How China’s rural influencers are redefining country life
The Conversation
“In the quiet backwaters of Yunnan, Dong Meihua — though her followers know her by the public alias Dianxi Xiaoge — has done something remarkable: She’s taken the pastoral simplicity of rural China and made it irresistible to millions. In her hands,” writes Mitchell Gallagher, “a village kitchen becomes a stage, and the rhythms of farm life become a story as compelling as any novel. She is one of many rural influencers returning to their roots. In a digital revolution turning established narratives on their head, China’s countryside is emerging as an unlikely epicenter of viral content. Xiaoge is one of thousands of influencers redefining through social media how the countryside is perceived.”
The costs of re-engineering the Middle East’s fable rivers
Yale Environment 360
“In his documentary photography project ‘Lost Paradise,’ [Murat] Yazar presents us with the human and environmental costs of this massive reengineering of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Turkey,” writes Paul Salopek. “Yazar’s perspective is always local. He is an ethnic Kurd from Şanlıurfa, Turkey, and the son of generations of shepherds; for him the human connections to this landscape of his childhood are sacred. The construction of hundreds of dams, canals, weirs, and diversion projects big and small are changing his homeland literally beyond recognition. Turkish authorities insist that the millions of tons of poured concrete for these river developments are essential for agricultural self-sufficiency, for irrigation, and the hydropower needed to help reduce the country’s dependency on foreign energy. But Yazar captures a pastoral Mesopotamia — ‘the land between two rivers’ — being rapidly transformed by inundation, relocated villages, extensive mining projects, deteriorating water quality, and drastic climate change. The two life-giving rivers that long sustained the region’s varied cultures are being throttled.”