Alice Waters, the pioneering founder of Chez Panisse and creator of the groundbreaking Edible Schoolyard Project, remains a leading voice in the farm-to-table movement. Now 81, she’s just released a new book, A School Lunch Revolution. As the title implies, her latest project is no less ambitious than the culinary innovations she’s so well known for.
Waters reminds us that the future of both health and climate begins with what’s on our plates. Changing the way schools buy food and serve lunch can have a major impact on climate change, health and even learning.
“We have to support only farmers who are farming organically and regeneratively,” she says. “That’s what worked at Chez Panisse—we got to know the farmers and have always bought our food straight from them.”
Before her talk at the Rio Theatre on Oct. 20, the tireless visionary talked about her book, her mission, and why lunch might just be the most powerful meal of the day.
You’ve introduced the idea that food is political, and that every choice we make about what we eat matters. How does A School Lunch Revolution carry that message forward for a new generation?
ALICE WATERS: By doing what we did at the beginning of Chez Panisse 54 years ago. It’s connecting with the local farmers and ranchers and fishers who are doing the right thing organically and regeneratively. This addresses climate change, and it fits into the USDA reimbursement requirements too.
We experimented with lots of schools in California and around the country and we know kids like very simple foods. It’s the power of food that makes me believe that we can make this change, absolutely.
You describe lunch as a daily opportunity for connection, nourishment and education. How do you envision the ideal school lunch, not just on the plate, but in spirit?
In spirit, I like to think about the Conscious Kitchen over in Marin. … They took the gymnasium, and they brought in dining tables and chairs, and they put up pictures of food during the lunch hour.
They managed to get the help of parents who go to the farmers markets, and they completely changed school lunch. Children come in and sit down and eat the food together, and that’s a big, important point. That’s how we, dare I say, could teach democracy.
It sounds like it turned lunch from controlled chaos into a time of value, learning and connection.
Yes! A long time ago, at the beginning of the Edible Schoolyard, I thought we would be able to go all the way and build the cafeteria and do school lunch. So, I thought about it very deeply, and I had the opportunity to decide. The cafeteria showed that it fed all 800 kids seated into rooms on either side of the cafeteria, and I thought, we could be connected so we don’t just waste time eating lunch, right?
So I’ve really thought a lot about that data. It’s not just about eating delicious local, seasonal food, but it’s about sitting down and eating it together.
Absolutely! It sounds like there’s so many other opportunities for learning that could be naturally folded in.
Yes, and in the testing they’ve been doing with Jennifer Newson they had real classes of kids that were coming in and it was so interesting that you didn’t have to really do anything in the way of teaching. They just started eating and talking to each other. There was not really any resistance.
Your work often blurs the line between nourishment and activism. How do you sustain hope and motivation in the face of systems that still resist change?
Because I am sure that the power of food wins. And it’s connected to how the food grows. Local and healthy is the only kind of food I want to eat. And that’s what we’ve been doing at Chez Panisse for 54 years. So I know that when I can’t find one thing, I find another. And I know also that if farmers know that I’m buying it at the real cost they want to continue to grow it. It’s helped spark a cultural shift toward local seasonal food.
Looking back, what lessons from that movement feel the most urgent to revisit today in an era of industrialized food systems and climate change?
Well, that’s school lunch, because the next generation needs to make different decisions about the world they live in. Food is essential, and I believe that education is as essential as food in an intellectual thinking way.
So, what could be better than to get every school on this planet buying food directly? And then it would normalize it too. Just in the Bay Area you can see what farmers markets have done.
Practically every town has them and they were designed to help the farmer. We need something more and school lunch is that idea. Every day, eating food from the local people who grow it. And that’s a support system that our farmers and ranchers and fishers have never had.
It’s bringing back the way things used to be in this country.
This is why I love it is because every country on this planet has done it in the recent past or is still eating that way. Cities like Paris. I saw it in Japan, one of the more enlightened places on the earth, Scandinavia, lots of places are doing this.
In England King Charles was part of a huge foundation too and so I know that we can learn a tremendous amount if we make this a global effort. And I’m hoping that Slow Food will take it on as theirs.
What I love about your cookbook is that it’s so simple, and I think that’s what people need. There’s a mistaken idea that eating healthy is time consuming, complicated and expensive, but it does not need to be.
No it doesn’t. I mean, the difference is in the preparation. I might bite into an apple, but most kids are not willing to do that. But if you cut the apple and slice it, every one of the kids wants to try it. It’s just about the intimidation of certain things that have pushed kids away, and of course, the indoctrination of all the ads [for highly processed food].
We have a lot to deal with, but the school really wants to do this. I know that it’s possible and what I’m going to try and do next is find videos of schools that have done it.
Because we need to see that in action.
Your work, your passion and your commitment are so inspiring.
I just know that it works, I would never change the way we purchase food for Chez Panisse. We serve 500 people a day, and always know the farmers to call. It’s a total education and everyone who comes eats every bite. I wouldn’t be so bold if I didn’t know for sure. I’ve done the Edible Schoolyard for 34 years and I don’t know if you know, but it’s expanded around the world to 7,500 schools.
It’s just because it’s an idea whose time has come. It’s about learning by doing and education of the senses.
An Evening with Alice Waters begins at 7pm on Oct. 30 at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $45 (includes one book and donations to the Edible Schoolyard Project and Life Lab). bookshopsantacruz.com
‘I know that when I can’t find one thing, I find another. And I know also that if farmers know that I’m buying it at the real cost, they want to continue to grow it.’ —ALICE WATERS