An Exploration of Food and Locality: Follow-Up

I am still new to this blogging thing and I am not sure whether the comments are easily visible to everybody.  There was a really good point raised in the comments that I am going to paste up here so y'all can see it, along with my response.  If you have now seen it twice, I apologize :)

The commenter said:

"Fascinating post. I wonder to what extent "terrior" can act as an inhibitor to creativity in the development of wines, foods and other products and services. Does it require that production methods, for example, must remain static."

Here is my response:

"That actually is an issue to which the book alludes. It seems to be more of a concern (though to its defendants it is probably not a concern) in places like France, where the "rules" can get fairly extensive. For example, to be eligible for an AOC designation, a winemaker must follow rules about the grape varietals that are grown, the density of growth, the geographic location of the vineyard, how the wine is produced, etc. There certainly are producers in France who use non-traditional approaches (and may produce very good results), but they do so outside the defined system. Stasis seems to be less of an issue within the U.S. because we don't have the same level of ingrained ideas about where and how certain things can be produced.

There is a very interesting second angle raised by this comment, however, which has to do with marketing. Producers have an incentive to clearly define their product and market it as unique in some way. In some cases, they are supported by governments or other organizations, but in others they may be largely self-designated. Creating the sense of distinctiveness necessarily excludes others who may be doing similar things in different places or using different methods; there is an incentive for producers to function such that they can use the marketing power of the defined "brand." Whether in France or the U.S., any producer operating outside a defined structure bears the burden of making his product known to consumers largely on his own.

I think that brings us to the key point that I took away from the book, which is that ultimately it is up to the consumer to be curious about the source of her food and look beyond the options that are most readily available. "