By Luis Hernandez
Food trends, like all trends, tend to make things more desirable. Existing and/or forgotten ideas see the light again when someone with a big-enough audience brings them back with some twist or variation. I remember, when I was a child, my parents would have a piece of French bread filled with avocado, and maybe some cheese and spices. Along with their coffee, it was an everyday staple to see in the kitchen.
I can’t recall when was the first time I saw avocado toast in a restaurant, but the production they usually make for them didn’t make me think about it as something elementary. It wasn’t until I was having brunch with a friend of mine in a small diner in Seattle that I actually realized how simple it is to make it. Don’t get me wrong, though. It was delightful and nicely produced.
The moment happened after I saw the man cutting a slice of bread, spreading half an avocado onto it, and garnishing it with some spices and herbs. Voilá. Magic happened. However, when the check arrived, I remember thinking the price was high, but it was only a reflex. I’m aware that the cost of living is higher in first-world countries. When you grow up in a third-world country and move to one of those, it’s tricky to convert between currencies all the time, at least at the beginning.
The ubiquity of food -in developed countries- and the rhythm of modern life don’t help us think clearly about the real price of nourishment. For me, this trigger question about the price difference between Mexico and the US made me read more about the food industry and related distribution networks. So, I set out to find out more about these inequality issues.
Several documentaries address these issues, but the thing we need to talk about today is what we need to make our delicious toast. Many people in poor countries work for companies that export vegetables and fruits. Generally, farmers live in poverty and are underpaid by the big corporations that control the market. The quintessential example of this is the old -and ongoing- story of the banana empire that an American company built on top of human rights and the sovereignty of Central American countries*.
Food trends can be tricky for this reason. The market laws of supply and demand will affect those companies’ decisions to fulfill what the social network photos and posts of foodies demand. For instance, if a famous YouTuber came up tomorrow with the excellent idea to make -let’s say- a pineapple tart, pineapple farmers would start fearing the moment when this idea becomes a huge trend.
It’s already happened in Mexico. Remember the story about blood avocados**?
Drug cartels are seizing avocado-producing towns to extort them. Because of how popular this fruit became, a lot money started to flow to satisfy the market requirements, and those traffickers know where the money is. The trend went beyond that: people are getting avocado tattoos, they’re learning how to make guacamole, and there are even lattes served in an avocado skin.
Our consumption habits have an impact somewhere else in the world. The human population is 7.7 billion, and worldwide commerce has to be fulfilled. It’s almost impossible to avoid being part of it: we need to meet all of our needs, including food, and, if billions of people want to eat avocados, they need to be farmed somewhere and then shipped, and that comes at a price beyond the operation costs.
Our hashtags have more implications than we think. They represent a trend, and to become popular, many people need to be talking about it, and that might be destabilizing someone’s life in the remote country that produces it.
All photos: @nomad.cook
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