Podcast #79: Alice Waters on the Pleasures of the Palate

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Self-described "restaurantrice, forager, teacher, mother, romantic, purist, rebel" Alice Waters has been one of the most instrumental figures in drawing attention to the Slow Food movement. An advocate of considered eating, she is the owner of the restaurant Chez Panisse and the author of several books, including The Edible Schoolyard and The Art of Simple Food. This week on The New York Public Library Podcast, we're happy to present Alice Waters discussing the pleasures of good food and wine.

According to Waters, the pleasures of the palate aren't just enjoyment for enjoyment's sake; they offer a gateway to creative thinking and evolution:

"I had the pleasure of cooking at Jefferson’s house last year or it was the year before last, but the greatest part about it was that I got to go out into the garden and to pick the lettuces that actually were the varietals that he had planted there, and I washed them and it was just a beautiful, beautiful moment. But I think pleasure is what brings you, you know, it really brings you into ideas, and I think it’s really been important to me that the food at the restaurant be something that tasted really good, and I think it’s the reason people have been coming back, and I’m always looking and asking people what they thought and could we make it this way or could we make it better, and it’s just a work in progress, always, it’s—and people who work in the kitchen, they have to be, you know, really able to take criticism, they can’t be feeling like what we’re saying is about them, it’s only about sort of the process of really learning more and getting better at what you’re doing."

Although primarily known for her work with food, Waters also considers her wine selection carefully. She credits the quality of the wines she loves to the farmers producing the varietals:

"I think it is just like it is for food, that you realize that what variety, what varietal is planted where is terribly important, that how that vine is taken care of and at the right moment is picked and brought to be made into wine and that part of the whole process is probably 85 percent of the making of wine. And I feel that about food, that it has to be the right seed, and the farmer has to take care of it in the right away, and he knows exactly when to pick it or she does and they bring them to the restaurant and if it that’s all done beautifully then it’s so easy to cook. I mean, it’s really 85 percent of it, and when you’re engaged in the process you can help him, you’re learning how to discern the subtleties of farming by tasting and feedback and it’s—you become partners in this and so you couldn’t image the restaurant without Bob Cannard, who’s the farmer. We dedicated the book to him, because he’s so extraordinary."

Variety is hugely important to Waters, and she hopes to see greater agricultural variety in the United States. She pinpointed Iowa as a representative example of homogeneity in American farming:

"Iowa used to be a horticultural state. I mean, we can grow something besides corn there. You know, and it’s that we have not chosen to do that, but we can do that again, and we need to pay the farmers the real price for their food, and we need to support the small farmers who really are taking care of the land. And for me there’s not—it’s just a matter of doing it. We have to do it... you don’t convince the big business, you just have—you buy with intention, you buy from the right people who are doing the right thing. "

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