Looking at old Coke cans with new hairs

As all this nattering indicates, I’ve decided all food may never be local but it is already political. Too much is happening lately that overlaps the two worlds everyone always pretended were not entwined. And two stories illustrate this well. Salmonella has now been found in pine nuts, used to make pesto. And a farm in Nevada was raided during one of its field-to-fork dinners. The company that didn’t give a crap (or, more likely, contributed crap) to the pesto will undoubtedly walk away clean; it can point more than 10 fingers to lax enforcement just as the cantaloupe killers appear to be doing. But every small farmer looking for any way to make a few more pennies has to feel a chill over bureaucratic overreach. Someone joked on Twitter that starting #Occupypasture “might lead to regrettable romanticism.” But he was on his way to real change. The fact that pastures are no longer full of manure — while estuaries and water tables are — says everything you need to know about modern agriculture. As the sign said, shit is fucked up and bullshit.