the educated serf

( image: gil and lisa listen intently; craig harris and abby on the right -- literally, not intellectually!) Every year for the last eleven years, I've gone to a conference sponsored by the Association for the Study of Food and Society and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society.   Those names are a mouthful, but the issues discussed by academics and activists are practical, significant, and easy to digest if you care about the way we lead our everyday lives.    We discuss sustainable projects ranging from growing methods to labor to consumption, the historical and contemporary conditions that produce cuisines through the mixing of cultures and ingredients, the unequal distribution of goods, services, technology, and information that shapes what we grow and how we eat.    Well, the list goes on. I have just returned from this year's conference, which was in State College, PA, a town I've been visiting regularly since 1981 (in-law family).  Not as exciting as last ye...