Resolution time, right? Well, one Salon writer, Francis Lam, has vowed “no more cheap chicken.” It seems like a simple proposition, but quickly gets complicated when Lam thinks about giving up some storied food traditions, like Charles Gabriel’s fried chicken.
So this, then, is my omnivore’s dilemma: Which is more important to me? To stop having my money support chicken that is mass-produced at unbelievable scale, poisoning the earth and water for hundreds of miles, that is treated brutally, that goes through a disassembly line so fast and furious that it injures 1 out of every 3 poorly paid workers who works on it? Or to keep supporting Mr. Charles, to share in his chicken, to know what his work means to him? To have that chance to meet the many Charles Gabriels, the taco truck cooks and the noodle shop owners and all the other working-class cooks whose cuisines I adore and whose stories I want to hear and help tell?
Lam will spend time in the coming months cataloging his compromise at Salon—and examining the idea of “value” when it comes to what we eat.
