By Edward H. Garcia
The other day I picked up some “artisanal” lettuce at WalMart. It was a little assortment of different kinds of lettuce packed tightly in a clear plastic cube. Naturally, it cost a little more than plain, non-artisanal lettuce. The lettuce tasted pretty much like lettuce, and I got to thinking about what “artisanal” might mean, especially when it comes to lettuce. (I also got to thinking about how to pronounce “artisanal.” There are a number of candidates, but I the one I vote for is ar-TIS-sanal.)
The definitions you’ll find in dictionaries and the Internet focus on the artisanal object’s being handmade using traditional methods. So artisanal bread would be bread that was baked by hand by someone with skill and no modern machines. (I recently saw “handmade quiche” on a restaurant menu. I suppose they were indicating they hadn’t picked it up at the local supermarket.) But how does that translate to lettuce? Maybe the artisan was the guy who made the plastic cube the lettuce came in, but that doesn’t seem likely since it’s hard to think of old world, traditional methods of making plastic cubes.
So artisanal must mean something else. Check the Internet and you’ll find artisanal theology and artisanal cocktails. The theology usage seems to have to do with a belief system that encourages paying attention to the environment. Artisanal cocktails are big on “farm to glass” recipes. A product like Dunkin’ Donuts’ artisan bagels surely can’t have much to do with small-scale baking in wood-burning stoves. It seems clear that artisanal has little to do with how things are made and more to do with how they are marketed. Calling something artisanal is a license to charge more on the dubious supposition that it is of higher quality.
There is a certain amount of talk these days about phasing out the term “artisanal” now that it is becoming increasingly clear how meaningless it is, but I think we should go in the opposite direction, extending it to new heights (or depths). What about artisanal real estate? I have a lot I could sell you–it stays a little damp year around, but the swamp is artisanal. And you could have an artisanal junk yard where you can buy parts that have been hand-removed from old wrecks by traditional methods–screwdrivers, wrenches and saws alls.
Best of all, I have acres of locally-sourced, artisanal pine straw, and you get to harvest it the old fashioned way–bending over and stuffing it in an artisanal black plastic bag. Bring the whole family for (what else?) a culturally-enriching, eco-friendly artisanal experience.
One last note: in my American Heritage Dictionary, “artisanal” is on the same page as “artsy-fartsy.” Just saying.
