The Opinionist
Food writer and former Minimalist columnist Mark Bittman gets expansive on the NYT op-ed page / interview by Drew Lazor
M
ark Bittman is “The Minimalist” no more. After spending 13 years exploring no-frills
home cooking in his New York Times food column, the author and journalist has moved on to a fresh challenge: a weekly slot in the Times’ Opinion section, a platform for him to discuss the far-reaching food issues that influence what ends up on the American dinner table. (He will continue to write about cooking for New York Times Magazine.) Cowbell touched base with Bittman to talk big ideas—all while he prepped a cumin- and chiliscented stir-fry of veggies, brown rice and black beans in his New York City home.
Can you pinpoint an exact moment when you knew you were going to end “The Minimalist” and move into this new role?
It never occurred to me that I could make it happen until [the fall of 2010]. I pitched the [new] column to the Opinion people, and they liked the idea. At the same time, the Magazine was going through changes, and the new editor wanted me to take over that [cooking] column. What an opportunity. The op-ed column… it’s an idea whose time had come, and I consider myself fortunate to have been in a position to pitch it. I was maybe a week ahead of the curve. [Laughs] If it hadn’t been me, it would’ve been someone else. It’s something that should be happening. The way I pitched it was to say, “Food, like economics, like politics, touches everybody’s life, all the time. It’s the prism through which you can look
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at anything you want to look at.” Having been writing about food for a long time and having been making noise increasingly in the policy world… I’m sort of trying to walk a line between modesty and immodesty with this, I guess. [Laughs] But it’s not as if I’m not qualified to do this. How do you define your role now? What is your responsibility, your vocation?
It’s clear that I’m interested in food policy and what’s right and wrong in the food world. That’s what I want to be doing. Whether it becomes a political column is a long-term thing… or whether it becomes more personal and lighthearted, that’s all down the road. I’d like to think it becomes many different things—not only a weekly analysis of policy or current events, but a discussion of food in the broadest, and hopefully truest, sense.
The government is reacting to where the money and pressure is coming from. Most decisions that come from government agencies seem to be wrong about food, and wrong about everything that concerns consumers.” —mark bittman
One thing I struggle with, as far as the American diet goes, is how much responsibility falls on policymakers to shape how we eat, and how much responsibility falls on the individual to get educated and seek out sustainable choices. Is there a specific split there in your mind?
Sadly, it’s entirely up to individuals to press the government to do the right thing. It’s the government’s role to make the food supply better. That needs to happen, [but] it’s increasingly clear that will not happen without us pushing them. It’s up to us to change diets and educate ourselves. It’s all on us. The Feds are under so much corporate pressure; they’re not going to make positive change unless they’re pushed by people. And I’m not sure I would’ve said that six months ago, but things have gotten worse-looking. The government is not acting for or responding to the needs of its citizens—it’s acting and responding to the needs of its corporate benefactors. Money is coming from the corporations, but not enough pressure is coming from citizens. The government is reacting to where the money and pressure is coming from. Most decisions that come from government agencies seem to be wrong about food, and wrong about everything that concerns consumers. How do you change that? 41