Publication: Les Cuisines de la nation: Educating, feeding, industrializing – Geneviève Zoïa and Laurent Visier

Publication of the book by Geneviève Zoïa and Laurent Visier, Les Cuisines de la nation, Éduquer, nourrir, industrialiser (The Nation's Kitchens: Educating, Feeding, Industrializing), part of the "Le Monde qui vient" (The World to Come) collection.

Summary:

In just a few decades, schools have been stripped of their kitchens, their cooks, their raw ingredients, and their land. Production facilities, known as "central kitchens," are now responsible for feeding our children.

Just like the "green" revolution that is destroying small-scale farming, on-site kitchens are disappearing in favor of agribusiness, including a small handful of groups that monopolize institutional catering in France. It is the very act of eating that is being discredited, as well as the care provided by "canteen ladies."

Furthermore, the interests of industry and the state are intertwined in the school lunch program, where certain products become indispensable in the name of national identity—often at the expense of excluding children of immigrant origin from poor neighborhoods, who are supposed to be the primary beneficiaries of school lunches.

However, the cafeteria is a valuable opportunity to bring farmers into schools, reconnect with the living world, and better consider things and people. This is the vision promoted by resistance movements, which advocate for the return of on-site cooking in order to connect schools with their surroundings and rebuild the link between farmers, cooks, and eaters.

A rigorous investigation that sounds the alarm on the industrialization of school cafeterias.

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