French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age

by Susanne Freidberg

From mad cows to McDonaldization to genetically modified maize, European food scares and controversies at the turn of the millennium provoked anxieties about the perils hidden in an increasingly industrialized, internationalized food supply. These food fears have cast a shadow as long as Africa, where farmers struggle to meet European demand for the certifiably clean green bean. But the trade in fresh foods between Africa and Europe is hardly uniform. Britain and France still do business mostly with their former colonies, in ways that differ as dramatically as their national cuisines. The British buy their "baby veg" from industrial-scale farms, pre-packaged and pre-trimmed; the French, meanwhile, prefer their green beans naked, and produced by peasants. Managers and technologists coordinate the baby veg trade between Anglophone Africa and Britain, whereas an assortment of commercants and self-styled agro-entrepreneurs run the French bean trade. Globalization, then, has not
erased cultural difference in the world of food and trade, but instead has stretched it to a transnational scale.

French Beans and Food Scares explores the cultural economies of two "non-traditional" commodity trades between Africa and Europe--one anglophone, the other francophone--in order to show not only why they differ but also how both have felt the fall-out of the wealthy world's food scares. In a voyage that begins in the mid-19th century and ends in the early 21st, passing by way of Paris, London, Burkina Faso and Zambia, French Beans and Food Scares illuminates the daily work of exporters, importers and other invisible intermediaries in the global fresh food economy. These intermediaries' accounts provide a unique perspective on the practical and ethical challenges of globalized food trading in an anxious age. They also show how postcolonial ties shape not only different societies' geographies of food supply, but also their very ideas about what makes food good.

Genres: Food, Anthropology, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Ellia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Friedberg’s book highlighted the culture and historical context that affects commodity chains of French beans grown in Burkina Faso and Zambian vegetables exported to Britain. She used qualitative methodology, by directly talking to people taking part in different parts of the commodity chain.

I appreciated that Friedberg highlighted the underlying power structures between exporters/growers and also between the countries. But at some moments, she described the colonized countries to have benefited from colonization, which I disagree with. Although she talks a lot about power, the language she uses regarding modernization and trade relationships have influences of agency in them.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this book unless your scholarship is in this field. If this IS your field, then it's a good example that shows the complexity and variability in commodity chain analysis

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing to think that the demand for green beans in Paris can drive the economy of African nations. Freidberg describes the entire supply chain from field, through middleman, to the stores and consumers. What power to shape a country, to grow an economy or cripple it.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colonialism is complicated and historical and political and not natural and this book teases apart how geography and history and politics are all so central to understanding how the world unfolds!!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about current international food commodity networks with a brief historical background beginning in the 1800's. Freidberg examines the trade in produce from Burkina Faso to France and Zambia to Britain. It's a surprisingly intriguing book, which I, now in Zambia, think about often as I shop. I can blame the Brits for the fact that I can't make flesh to vegatable contact in Shoprite.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for geographers and those thinking about where our food comes from and how production of said food affects those producing it.

[Akiko]

although academic, it is interesting to read and thought－provoking in many ways.