Anastacia Marx de Salcedo - Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat

D irty, hungry, uncomfortable, and scared. Most of us cant imagine what its like to eat under the circumstances that DJ and his squad did. The experiences of war, if an American constant during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, seem remote to the average person. And we certainly dont imagine that the entre the soldiers shareda several-years-old beef patty with brown sauce in a laminated plastic-and-foil pouchhas anything to do with the food that fills our refrigerators, cupboards, and shelves. But it does.

IVE ALWAYS BEEN A PASSIONATE HOME COOK, one who read recipe books in bed like novels, preferred browsing at an ethnic grocers or a farmers market to shoe shopping, and reliably created magical dinners where people lingered long into the night, talking, drinking, and nibbling until there were no leftovers. Although my own mother was indifferent to the matter, as a child I silently apprenticed myself to the three best cooks I knewmy Yankee grandmother, my Sephardic New Yorker grandfather, and my Mexican friends mothersidling into their kitchens and absorbing by osmosis their doings. At the age of seven, I proudly presented my parents with my first creation: spiced eggs scrambled with every single flavoring from the rack. By the time I was in my midtwenties, I had read everything in M. F. K. Fishers oeuvre, and, inspired bybut not followingthe thousands of recipes Id mentally collected, cosseted my college boyfriend nightly with delectable little suppers prepared just for him.

When the new millennium rolled around, Id acquired a husbandfrom Cuba, in Ecuadorand become a mother, which only strengthened my resolve to concoct everything from scratch, even pancakes, whipped cream, and mac n cheese. I spent an inordinate amount of time provisioning, trucking out to farms weekly for two separate community-supported agriculture locations, one for meat and the other for vegetables; ladling bulk items into flimsy plastic bags at my local co-op; and scouring Asian, Latin, and Middle Eastern groceries for exotic produce, spices, specialty meats, and condiments. Regardless of how much my children pleaded, I refused to stop at McDonalds on car trips. I even became a leader of Bostons Slow Food convivium, finding time to organize a cocktail party featuring local Brazilian culture, teach Boston schoolkids how to make their own vegetable burritos, and celebrate the humble bean with a hundred-plus-person potluck and a reading by a renowned food historian. It was exhausting. It was fun. And it made me feel goodproudly conscientious. As many do, I fervently believed that it was important to cook, that it brought together my family in a vital ritual, that the dishes I produced were healthier and more satisfying, and that it was part of a human heritage that embedded us in the world, both past and present.

Which is why, when it came to school, I made the extra effort to pack my daughters a nutritious, homemade meal. I could have signed them up for the school meals program, where blue-capped cafeteria ladies grimly plop onto trays a hot entre, such as the dreaded sloppy joe, insipid pizza, or turkey with gravy; a vegetable (canned peas/green beans/corn); a slightly rancid carton of milk; and Jell-O, fruit cocktail, or a mealy apple. (The menu has improved slightly in recent yearswheat instead of white buns, no dessert, and some scraggly schoolyard-grown broccoli.) But an involved parent, a mother who cares about what her children eat, makes their lunches herself. To do so, I relaxed my stance against processed foods, which, I have to confess, had long ago snuck into my home, first with my husband and eventually, under the duress of relentless lobbying, with me. Armed with child-pleasing supplies culled from the shelves of the supermarket, I set about my task. Into the nylon carrier with its cunningly zipped insulated vinyl compartments and controlled-atmosphere Tupperware, I put Goldfish, an energy bar, a juice pouch, and a sandwich. This last Id assembled with my own two hands: soft twelve-grain bread, turkey ham, and a slice of American cheese swathed in Saran wrap. A couple of baby carrots and some grapes to round things out. I put the two lunch boxes in the refrigerator, poured myself a fishbowl of Shiraz, and went to bed, confident that Id done my best by them.

Or had I?

As my children had gotten older, Id started a side career as a food writer. After a few pieces about Latin American cookingfiestas dePascua (Easter), Ecuadorian soups, street foodI found myself increasingly drawn to writing not about home cooking, my own or that of others, but about the industrial foodstuffs that I, with annoyance, accepted as staples in my pantry. First off the block was that insidious impostor Annies mac n cheese, pretending to be more wholesome than it was: I read the label very carefully, and it turned out to have practically the same components as the neon-orange standby, Krafts. The Internet exploded, mostly with vitriolic responses by parents defending their reliance on the Bunny and his wares as a decision that was somehow healthier than buying an almost identical nutrition-free product from a major conglomerate.