TEDxRainier -- Michael Hebb -- Table Making
I've had the good fortune of traveling around the world with my table like one would a boat gathering coffee farmers together at a comment able to collect their stories and document them also as naseem mentioned my table has ended up on Interstate 5 medians as a tool to provoke dialogue about use of space and commerce many of the country's leading musicians have also been at this table to share songs about eating and drinking I've had the opportunity to recreate the classic Greek symposium with thought leaders ranging from Gore Vidal's to Mary Robinson to Spike Lee some of these table making adventures are going to show up behind me I'm hoping that they raised more questions than they do answers at the core of this 15 years of traveling around with the table is a distinct hunch and that is that the table the place where we come together to share food is one of the most important cultural sites in the modern world and the second part of that hunch is that the common table is in a state of peril we don't eat together anymore I don't need statistics to point to the bleak realities in the modern world when it comes to conviviality the rise of the drive through the breakdown of the family dinner and the prevalence of the solitary miam are all self-evident realities but rising from this backdrop there have been two main tenants really been at the core of this work and one of them is that the world of progressive ideas especially the world of Ted is in dire need of civic rituals if the ideas that we are sharing and hearing today are going to come off this stage and reshape the world we need to rethink how we convene how we gather and I think the table needs to be central part of that consideration the second tenet is that the the local food movement and I've been an active member and proudly so for the last decade in order for that movement to achieve the success that it can how we can sit together and eat that local food this esteem movement will plateau in order for the food revolution to gain real culture shift in momentum we need to promote the proverbial horse back in front of the cart real progress will elude us if we don't think about new bottles for eating local food I'm appalled at how little consideration and energy is invested in howey together but also blown away by the work that's being done in small pockets around the country this is the departure point the context from which my work rises up and within this unsteady ground I placed a kind of strange flag and decided to call this practice table making now I've already gotten some feedback that's a little bit sloppy or to lead in the term but I'm hoping with some tenacity I can slip it into low-grade usage so table making working definition the evocative powerful meaningful or progressive use of the common table any action that invigorates reinvigorates the common table ie any action that inspires people to eat together there have been profound uses of the common table throughout history here are three Gertrude Stein and Alice B toklas understood the core and quintessential importance of the hearth and table a modernist revolution found its early a spark in their dinners and their salons in their Parisian apartment the New York Times called the stein salon the first-ever Museum of Modern Art every year millions of members of the Jewish faiths gathered together at the Seder table they literally consumed their history gratitude for ancestors is renewed and a new year opens up it is remarkable ritual that Seder got new wings this year in 2010 Obama hosted the first ever White House Seder and I quote Eric lesser White House staffer possibly the first time in history that gefilte fish has been served on White House China now the White House Seder found its inspiration in a dark basement in 2008 Obama was on the campaign trail and staffer Eric lesser and two others had gathered in a dark basement to put an ad hoc Seder together Obama happened upon them was intrigued and joined the dinner number three Katharine Graham hailed as the most powerful woman in publishing at a famous dinner in the 70s she decided to break a pretty old tradition and you know this is a decade after she'd been running the post and had already brought it through Watergate she was at a dinner party and she said to Joe Allsop I think I'd rather go home then not join the men for whiskey and cigars and the postprandial discussion and so he'd invited her to stay and soon thereafter she was not only the one of the most desired table companions but also postprandial companions so we have Katharine Graham Obama and Gertrude sign all activating the table in powerful ways more commonplace examples definitely deserved mentioning thanksgiving feast the communion family meal and what i think is the most important historic use of the table and I call it the harvest feast this is a dinner that comes together when your neighbor decides to cut to kill a large animal I know it happens all the time to you so let's call that large animal of pig pigs are really big you cannot eat a pig in one sitting with your family or even several so historically the neighbor would pick up the phone and invite you to come eat pig so in that really simple telephone call a brilliant interaction and complex exchange happens of gift culture and to back up a second I'm going to talk about that harvest feast that I was mentioning where we were all killing animals and calling her neighbors so the modern urban harvest feast we call that the dinner party what is different between the dinner party and making a reservation at a local restaurant it's the future the dinner party implies the future Marcel Mauss summed it up by calling it the obligation to return now you might not be roasting a whole pig in return at that dinner party but a basic obligation to return the cultural exchange is established now it can be argued this common plays dinner party that many of us have taken part in carries with it the root of all civil society the world of giving pretty heavy for offering up a little bit of stew now the other thing the basic dinner party has in its favor is the heart a center point it's what Ileana calls the Axis Mundi it contains an identity a heart contains an identity of an individual a family there's very little risk very little vulnerability and perhaps equally little reward in making a reservation at a restaurant but bringing someone into your home and cooking for them is scary it's human I think it's gorgeous Secretary of State Clinton hearth's I quote whatever they look like and where ever we gather around them where we tell our stories and pass down our values bind families together now this was stated last month with the Clinton Global Initiative and i don't mean went back to the restaurant to beat up on the restaurant i'm just think that we need more models many models and not just the type of dinner parties are parents had but evocative compelling new reasons to eat together I might also submit the fear for cooking for eight people the fear of entertaining is likely encroaching on our number one fear in America without of public speaking just a submission before wrap-up I urge you to consider the work of my under discovered colleagues open restaurant in the Bay Area outstanding in the field kurtwood farms Sunday suppers out on Vashon maverick farms that are using this is a farm that is using communal meals and gathering people to bring attention to the endangered farming community in North Carolina I'm doing a remarkable job expanding that dialogue so I will successfully spent my time on this stage if you go home today and cast a different kind of glance at that dinner table and also if there's two questions that foot around your brain and inspire action one how can we expect to revolutionize our food system without a deep investment and how we share the food from that system and how can we expect to create a progressive state without meaningful Civic ritual will you even remember the ideas shared here today I assert that a conversation you're about to have at lunch it's going to be maybe more memorable than anything I said in last nine minutes but the remarkable thing about food is when it's shared intimately it can turn something ethereal into something palpable a reality so I know I'm out of my time but you have received a little imitation and lunch is next so i can go a second longer um hope don't not quite yet you have received that invitation open it up and what this invitation is is not for you for me to cook you dinner but actually for you to cook dinner or to bring people together and I want to know what happens at those dinners and I want you to tell me about it our little facebook page because I think a national movement happen with people eating together and I think I can give table making a bit of mileage so thank you for listening you