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Vote with your fork. We followed up
our mention of Michael Pollan in
a past blog about his book
In Defense of Food (and of course there was the review of
Omnivores Dilemma in
Issue3) by going to
see him in person. He was speaking at two sessions at
the recent Sydney Writers
Festival. There were a car load of Pollan groupies - Jan and I and Joyce and Michael from Allsun
Farm (see their story here),
and we left in the dark and headed up to Sydney.
Because he's now one of my food heroes, I was a bit
disappointed that he was avoiding being too controversial in
his media appearances in Australia. He's obviously loved by
the ABC and was interviewed on
radio and
TV. In his one-on-one Festival session with
Caroline Baum, Pollan was less guarded, even dropping some
expletives into the conversation as he talked passionately
about the things that matter to him. Maybe it's just that he
reinforces my prejudices so eloquently but the general
audience mood was of fellow change the world travelers.
By contrast the later Writers’ Festival panel discussion
called Cafe Scientific: The Future of Food again
being recorded for the ABC, was disappointing and saw him
hold back from challenging his other panelists, Mark Adams,
Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural
Resources at the University of Sydney and Ingrid Appelqvist
who is team leader for CSIRO’s ‘designed’ food research
program. You could tell he was being polite.
I've written a short piece on Pollan for Lindsay Bock editor
of Acres
Australia magazine, and when it appears I'll get
permission to put it up here.
Fred Harden 6 June2008
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