Casual
Casual Expeller Pressed Oil, Anyone? My introduction to organic foods came as a college freshman late in the Jimmy Carter era. A roommate in my group house baked "brownies" whose main ingredients,...
...If there's chicory for sale, it's not prominently displayed...
...Pondering the unsolved mystery-What exactly is an expeller?- I roll down the breakfast-cereal aisle, which offers "natural" replicas of America's most famous brand names (all except, as far as I can tell, Cap'n Crunch...
...asks the Heritage O's box...
...White sugar...
...Richard Starr...
...Or rather, you pay a premium for the words attached to them...
...Alex Carrel's statement that 'soil is the basis for all human life.' We invite our customers to share our vision and stop treating our soil like dirt...
...I was reminded of that place a few days ago when the Bread & Circus Whole Foods Market-a prosperous descendant of the hippie co-ops of the 1970s-opened just down the street in Arlington, Va...
...There are still whole grains and bulghur, certainly, but clear plastic bulk bins-some 240 or them-have replaced the barrels...
...It comes with an alibi...
...Which is not, to be sure, your ordinary tortured-calf variety...
...Striking architecture and interior design don't come cheap...
...You'll want the 100% Natural Cheddar Guppies, which "unlike lesser fish" (you know the ones they mean) "use the finest expeller pressed oil...
...The 20 bins of coffee beans are hard to miss, however, and a corner of the store is given over to the de rigueur espresso bar...
...They didn't, but morbid curiosity did...
...For starters, Bread & Circus is a beautiful supermarket, inside and out...
...Dig into a bag of Little Bear chips, made with Organic Potatoes and Expeller Pressed Oil...
...Try the Florida Crystals® Cane Sugar, which looks like white sugar and tastes like white sugar but "retains traces of some nutrients...
...Indeed, you could say the co-op-in tune with Carter's moral-equivalent-of-war energy policy-was offering the moral equivalent of wartime rationing...
...A cheesy snack for the kindergarten set...
...Well, I was the moral equivalent of a deserter...
...You pay a premium for these fine meats...
...The co-op was a dark hole-in-the-wall, full of barrels overflowing with whole grains...
...At the Bread & Circus exit is a customer comment board, filled with testimonials ("the recycled cardboard napkins are fine") and suggestions ("need more low-fat, healthy types of cookies") and one customer's poignant plea: "Please accept American Express...
...Unlike, say, Cheerio's, these are made "from the ancient grains Spelt, Quinoa & Kamut...
...Most startling, though, is the abundance of meat-steaks, pork chops, even . . . veal...
...While eating, you can read the alibi on the back of the bag: "Good For The Earth: Our Company vision has its roots in Nobel prize winner Dr...
...Chewing on the Heritage O's and their ancient grains, which I can now report are not quite as tasty as the o's they imitate, I'm reminded of the ill-fated televangelist Jim Bakker's Christian theme park and time-share condo development...
...These I have to try...
...Inferior substitutes, like carob for chocolate, were the coop's stock in trade...
...Likewise, the sirloin steak is "Colorado Mountain Raised...
...The hippies now prefer initial public offerings on the NASDAQ to herbal offerings on the summer solstice...
...The answer is Ben and Jerry's-the original alibi food-not carob...
...These came from a natural-food cooperative where she volunteered-an outpost of hippie commerce that her baked goods were meant to entice us into visiting...
...And the lamb is "raised by an exceptionally eco-conscious stockman," who "received a special award from . . . a group of leading environmental advocates that includes the Sierra Club...
...This holds true not just for the meat but for all the indulgences that were once anathematized by the Bible of the hippie co-ops, Diet for a Small Planet...
...As you might expect, there are multiple brands of designer water, culminating with the self-proclaimed "Queen of Table Waters," the German-bottled Apollinaris, which retails for $7.54 per gallon...
...It's clear that I wasn't the only deserter...
...The food no longer comes with a moral...
...The true church of high-fiber and protein complementarity has learned how to reach out...
...This is a well-capitalized publicly traded company...
...There were clove cigarettes, sea sponges to replace the paper products of the Tampax company, and chicory root, an ersatz coffee not seen in ordinary markets since World War II...
...This is "Free to Roam" veal, as the label explains...
...And they have long since made their peace with caffeine...
...Walking the aisles, bulghur cracking under your shoes, you realized that the food came with a moral: Slough off convenience, comfort, and pleasure for a harder, more virtuous life...
...The pork "comes from exceptional suppliers in Vermont and Ontario...
...Potato chips...
...Sprinkling some Florida Crystals® onto the Spelt, I hear the latest in Christian rap drowning out the Gregorian chant...
...Are You Up For Some Diversity This Morning...
...A roommate in my group house baked "brownies" whose main ingredients, substituting for chocolate and sugar, were carob and sorghum molasses...
Vol. 1 • April 1996 • No. 28
