22 minutes with Alice Waters

This is your first trip Down Under. What have you heard about Aussie cuisine?

It is my first trip and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve certainly heard about Kylie Kwong. I met her at Terra Madre, a Slow Food event. I’m really looking forward to her concession in the farmers’ markets [in Eveleigh, Sydney] and her very good spirit about food.

Who else will you be catching up with?

A young cook from Chez Panisse [Danielle Alvarez] is opening a restaurant in Sydney and I certainly want to visit her. [Alvarez is the Head Chef at Fish Shop and will be heading a new Merivale restaurant in Paddington next year]. She’s really one of my favourite cooks.

That’s an impressive accolade!

She has a beautiful style – very fine-tuned and careful about ingredients. I think she has taken all the best of Chez Panisse with her!

You opened Chez Panisse with a group of friends at a pretty tender age in 1971. How did you deal with the pressures of running a kitchen and a business?

Well, we lost $40,000 in the first three months! [Laughs] It was an experiment. I was very naïve. I wanted a place to feed my friends and I thought “Oh, I’ll just open a restaurant and they can pay, and I can do what I love to do”. But, of course, I never saw my friends after I opened the restaurant!

The tagline to your memoir sums it up completely: the romantic, impractical, often eccentric, ultimately brilliant making of a food revolution. Did you ever conceive that it would take you to this point in your career? No, I never imagined where it would take me. I just felt compelled, especially after I had a child, to think about what was happening around the world, what was influencing the life that I wanted to live in Berkeley [California].

How much of your petitioning prowess stems from uni days at Berkeley – in the 1960s of all eras?

Lots of it does. I’m still idealistic and that came from a very big empowerment around the war in Vietnam, around the student movement, around free speech [and] around civil rights. We felt like we could change the world and believe it or not, I still feel that way.

Is that why you lobbied Michelle Obama to start a veggie patch at the White House and now you’re campaigning for edible school gardens across the States? You make it look easy winning people over with your ethos – is it?

I think the Obamas embrace all of the values of real food and sustainability, so I was pleased when they decided to make that vegetable garden and to do it with school children in Washington. It was symbolic. I just want them to go all the way now, so edible education in the public school system can break free from this fast food culture.

Your views on organic, locally sourced produce have attracted some criticism in the past – most notably from Anthony Bourdain who said in 2009 that Americans are unlikely to buy “expensive organic food” during economic hardship. Are you phased by negative publicity?

I see [my views] as provocative and not as elitist. I think good food needs to be a right and not a privilege. I think it’s really elitism when six big companies own the whole food system. We need a garden movement worldwide, like we had in the United States with [President] Roosevelt. He inspired us to plant victory gardens and we were able to feed our nation. We can do that again, we just need to be encouraged and supported.

What are your tips to thrifty cooks who might think sustainable foods are out of their price range?

One of the biggest impediments is not knowing how to cook well and cook economically. When we leave out the middle man and we go straight to the farmers’ market, we can find affordable food. But food can never, ever, be cheap. When we have cheap food, somebody’s losing out, and nine out of ten times it’s the farmers.

What will you be talking about at the Opera House and Good Food Month events?

My message is going to be how to teach slow food values in a fast food culture. I’m calling it a “delicious revolution” but that’s really what it’s about – being aware of the culture that surrounds us and figuring out how we can teach our children the real value [of food].

Speaking of revolutions, if you could pick any chefs or food authors to run the nation, who would they be?

I’ve always wanted Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser to run for President and Vice-President of the United States, and right now I think they probably can do it!

You’re pretty good at petitioning, Alice. Maybe you and Michael should have a chat…

Well, I’ve been talking about it, but Michael is resisting me. He might have to get drafted!

Alice Waters is speaking at the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday 12 November as part of the Carnegie Conversations series. She will also present with Stephanie Alexander at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre on Monday 17 November in partnership with The Wheeler Centre. This event is part of The Age Good Food Month.