Friday, July 6, 2012
Longread #108 -- The Rise and Fall of White Bread -- 7/6/2012
Today's longread, the last in this week's food theme, comes from my undergrad thesis adviser -- Whitman College politics professor Aaron Bobrow-Strain. This article is an excerpt from his recently-published book about the history of white bread in America. It is easy to think of white bread as just another product on the shelves, but Bobrow-Strain carefully analyzes the underlying social and political contexts -- touching on issues like social justice, food politics, industrial food production, and others -- in which white bread rose and fell.
"The Rise and Fall of White Bread" by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
Published at Salon.com, March 3, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/03/the_rise_and_fall_of_white_bread/singleton/
Eric
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Do i have to temper my comments on this article because you know and like this guy?
ReplyDeleteNo. He was not one to pull punches in reviewing work (one draft of my thesis was deemed "lazy and banal" I think), so as long as your points are relevant, say what you will.
ReplyDeleteEric
I am calling you lazy, banal and big headed from here on out. I don't know that it's a specific critique so much as I feel like the entire thing is grasping at straws. Its like the davinci code where if you try hard enough to find patterns and links you can make them happen. I just don't see the evidence that bread is a socially divisive or descriptive object. Maybe in the greater context of this book there is something that makes it clear but in the segment I just kept saying "this is nuts" to myself. I feel like the things he references aren't particularly strong nor compelling. There are plenty of jokes about white trash but none i've ever heard involve bread. there were plenty of identifying factors in civil rights but i can't say i've previously seen bread identified as one. The entire piece seems like it is grasping at straws.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly understand your perspective. It sometimes seems silly to trace major societal shifts to single objects like bread. At the same time, though, I think there is an argument that we can't truly understand how society operates _without_ thinking about everyday things (like "our daily bread").
ReplyDeleteThis stems from a particular way of analyzing politics as a study of power within society rather than just at the level of government. The idea is that society is produced/created not simply from a top-down exercise of power (such as the law) but also through constant relationships going on in a much more decentralized fashion. While history and traditional studies of politics tend to focus on big events -- let's say the Civil Right Act and the major protests and speeches that supported it -- that focus can obscure the role of the little things in shaping our society. [I don't think I'm doing the best job of explaining this, but I can try to think of some other examples if it would help].
One way of doing this kind of political analysis is to say "how does X everyday object obtain meaning in our society?" Tracing the history of white bread and seeing how its meaning has changed over time helps answer this question. And once we see that it is imbued with different meanings based on things like class, race, etc., we can start to see how it fits into those decentralized networks of power. This isn't to say that bread itself is the lynchpin to these social movements or social issues. But it is to say that bread is one way in which daily activities are shaped by and can also shape our society.
I know that sounds abstract, but I think it is actually a really interesting thought experiment to ask these questions about the little things in life (products, routines, etc.) and how they came to mean what they mean. They may seem like minor details relative to what we consider to be "major" historical events, but to use one of my favorite quotes -- "Once you understand the consequences of little things, you realize there are no little things."
Eric
I don't disagree with what you are saying but there are little things and there are trivial things. I'm sure other arguments could be made just as strong, if not stronger about the changes in bread. New methods creating new breads, new condiments or meats making new bread attractive, etc. I simply don't buy white bread vs other bread as a reflection or cause of a shift in society nor do I think any persuasive facts were given to change that opinion.
ReplyDelete