“I think you’re saying these things because you’re trying to sell your book,” he said.
“Wait, wait,” said the host, “let’s save this for the show.” A woman with turquoise-painted fingernails was using hand signals to count them down to the start of the next segment. The host took a piece of gum out of her mouth, folded it into a piece of tissue paper, and held it out for a studio attendant to grab it. A second later, a signal light went on and she was leaning toward the camera as if confiding in a friend.
“Marble Martin,” said the host, “ethno-food guru and author of the bestselling book on traditional foods Something True, says there’s no such thing as Italian coffee. But the head of Caffé Top, Renzo Barale, doesn’t like what he’s hearing. What do you say to that, Marble?”
“I’m not saying there’s no such thing as an Italian coffee culture,” said Marble. “Italy is famous for its blending of coffee beans and its brewing techniques. I, myself, adore a shot of Neapolitan espresso. I’m just saying that in many cases, we cannot ignore the agricultural and historical contributions of other countries and lay one hundred percent claim to a culinary tradition.”
“We are not trying to ignore, as you say, the contribution of other countries,” Coffee Man said. “Our highest-grade coffee is blended from beans that come from a dozen different nations and we appreciate their origins. But we are the ones who choose the beans that go into our blends, and we are the ones who invented the coffee-brewing techniques that make Italian coffee the best in the world.” Coffee Man’s sweater, Marble noticed, was the color of the Atlantic Ocean.
“What I’m saying,” Marble said, “is that some foods are born, bred, and developed within a particular geographic area or food culture. Others are imported, and yes, they find their places in new cultures over time, but they wouldn’t be there in the first place without long-distance travel, without commercial exchanges and, in many cases, a history of exploitation.”
“We do not exploit coffee growers in other countries,” Coffee Man said. “We purchase our beans through fair-trade agreements.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that your company exploits coffee growers, I was merely referring to the fact that some foods that are taken for granted in many products and recipes in Europe, for example, are produced in other countries, where in past centuries, their trade depended on forced labor or very low-cost labor. Cane sugar, for example.” Marble could see that the coffee guru was finally listening.
“Which brings me to another example. What about the classic Christmastime fruit cake? In Britain, it’s often made with cane sugar from the tropics. In the Caribbean, it’s made with raisins and currants imported from colder countries. My grandmother, who was English but spent years living in Trinidad with her missionary parents, makes a divine rum cake, Caribbean style. She calls it black cake. But is it really Caribbean? Cane sugar didn’t even originate in that part of the world. It arrived from Africa, which in turn got it from Asia. So, you tell me, whose cake is it?”
Marble chuckled at her own logic. “We cannot always say at which point one culture ends and another begins,” she said, “especially in the kitchen. My book looks at family traditions that are indigenous to one geographic area and culture or which, at the very least, have been tied to local agriculture and customs for so long that if these recipes have roots elsewhere, we would need to go back more than a thousand years to take a closer look.”
Marble reached for a copy of her new book and held it up where she knew the camera could focus on the front cover.
“So I might consider something like French honey in a French recipe, for example, or Welsh salt in a Welsh stew. To me, these are different from the rum cake I mentioned, which might use sugar and rum from Jamaica, port from Portugal, currants and raisins from North America or Europe, dates from Tunisia, and spices from Indonesia.”
“So you’re a culinary purist,” said the host.
“No, not at all,” said Marble. “The diaspora of food, just like the diaspora of people, has helped to shape many cultural traditions. But I am, indeed, fascinated by indigenous crops and highly localized culinary traditions, and that’s what I’ve written about in this book.”
“And what about your own food culture, Marble Martin?” said the host. “Which culinary culture is true to you?”
Marble sat back and smiled. “My tastes reflect who I am and, like many people, I’m an in-betweener. I was born and bred in London to a father from the north and a mother whose own mother grew up as a missionary kid in the West Indies. I grew up eating different things, and my favorite comfort food comes from the Caribbean.”