On the Horizon with Jesse Cool

Fittingly, the Association of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs gave her the Barbara Tropp Trailblazer Award in 2014.  Most recently, Jesse has been in the vanguard of reshaping hospital food service with the Farm Fresh program at Stanford Hospital, created to extend organic, local menu options for critically ill patients. 

After four decades at the forefront of encouraging people to eat food made from clean, organic ingredients, Jesse spoke with Edible Silicon Valley to share her views on today’s food system and what the future holds. She’d just returned from Farm Aid—the music festival founded in 1985 to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on the land—one of her bucket-list items. Not surprising, given the esteem with which she holds farmers and the environment.

Edible Silicon Valley: How was Farm Aid?

Jesse Cool: Fabulous. It’s such a great organization. Their sole purpose is to support and provide financial aid to our nation’s farmers. As Neil Young said, “Very few of these farmers are rich people and when you can, shop at farmers markets to support them.”

ESV: Food has always been central to our holidays. Is it more so now since our lives are so hectic?

JC: Holidays can be a centric time when people actually cook a little, remember family stories and recipes and come together. We need to find more ways to celebrate, to come together just to gather, cook and rejoice in our friendships and family with food and traditions.

ESV: What food trends are you excited about?

JC: In truth, I have never followed the latest food trends. Excitement comes when a farmer brings back an heirloom seed, when we see a new variety of fruit or vegetable, or grains and legumes. Being old fashioned, I continue to follow the trends of farmers, fishermen and cheesemakers.

ESV: What do you see as our most pressing food issues?

JC: Proteins. How are we dealing with overeating of proteins? What are the real ramifications of our current ability to have what we want, whenever we want it, at the price the public has learned to think is fair? There is a huge issue around the delivery of land- and sea-raised proteins that’s out of balance. The popularity of vegetarianism and veganism is, in part, an appreciation of the need to become more aware of regenerative, respectful protein production. 

Plant-based food. How do we support the small or medium farms that are growing healthy food for our organic bodies and those of our children? Again, what is lost is what is not working: mass production of the fuel that feeds our bodies. The use of artificial additions for stabilizing, uniformity and fast production is not working. It is not as off kilter as proteins, but it does have its own set of issues.

Soil. We are raping our American soil, water and air to produce cheap food. It is hurting the environment and the humans who live nearby. The old argument was to do whatever is needed to feed the growing population … Monsanto, Bayer … and now it is backfiring. Cheap food is anything but cheap, costing our personal health and the health of our planet. 

ESV: There are so many food choices now.

JC: That is part of the problem. We are spoiled and a lot of people are clueless. In other developed countries, diets are centered much more on plant-based foods. Our country needs to get kids to understand that chicken breasts don’t grow in a plastic container. People are completely disconnected from the food source. A hundred years ago, people knew where every part of the animal went, and it wasn’t just for dog food.

The bigger problem is waste. We’ve become conditioned to expect proteins to be at the center of the plate. This needs to change. It’s true that we need to eat less meat, but we also have to completely change the way we grow it, market it and purchase it. There is too much waste. The culprit is the volume of food the industry thinks they need to give us, and the choices to get to low cost. 

ESV: What’s your take on the non-meat “meat” products gaining a lot of attention lately?

JC: They have always existed, and it is good. To eat alternative nourishing sources of protein and more plant-based foods is a respectful, right way to eat less meat. I love to make my own mushroom or nut burgers. But like any other food source, I am looking for the ones that are made from real food ingredients and not chemical or processed ingredients. I eat meat, but also really enjoy tofu, seitan and other plant-based protein sources that are real and delicious and healthy. 

ESV: Do you think this “alternative meat” trend is a fad?

JC: I think it’s a message and an important one. We have drifted from the local butchers or meat producers who care for animals and raise them in ways that regenerate soil with respect for our water, air and the animals themselves, not to mention the people raising them. We tend to eat the same prime cuts and forget that not too long ago, we ate the whole animal. I was raised on roast and pickled tongue, barbecued sweetbreads, braised cheeks. My father was a butcher and we all sat at the table and sucked the best meat off any bones he put on the plate. Crispy lamb and pork fat and skin was a delicacy. 

Lots of chefs and home cooks are again buying meat and fish at the market. They are hopefully learning to return to the seasonality of meat and fish—like seafood frozen in winter or off-season and preserved properly. And we have forgotten our hunter-gatherer past. They smoked, cured and dried proteins, the whole thing, for later use.

So, as much as I think meat substitutes are valuable, those of us who are meat eaters have a new understanding of how we can produce proteins or consume them more conscientiously, respectfully and regeneratively.

ESV: Are you optimistic that things will change?

JC: I’m always optimistic. It’s exciting because we are talking about healthy food and healthy food systems. We are reaching the edge of awareness. And that is really good. We are realizing that large food production at the expense of our health and the environment does not work.

ESV: Who is going to lead this new charge?

JC: Young people. They are coming from a place of love. Kinda like the old hippies. 

It may not happen as quickly as we want, but the young are going to fix it. Reduce waste. Shift meat away from the center of the plate. Buy food from a co-op or collective. Get closer to the farmers who grow things. 

Thanks, Jesse!