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Take 5: Elaine Blatt talks food, travel and her latest project 'From Field to Fork'

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: In her travels around the world, photographer Elaine Blatt loves visiting local markets to people watch, to find new spices and eat the local foods. Images from those travels are being displayed now through the end of May in a new exhibit, “From Field to Fork,” in the Ridgeway Visitor’s Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

There, you'll find photos of Missouri pumpkin patches, vineyards of champagne wine grapes in France, enormous lemons in Italy, olive groves in Greece and hot pink dragon fruit in Israel. 

Local, healthy food is important to people right now, Blatt says.

“When we were all growing up, everybody went to McDonald's. I don’t know any people who still go there.”

Blatt spoke with the St. Louis Beacon about her photos, the food she eats when traveling and how people in other countries and cultures eat. Some answers were edited for length.

Beacon: The Missouri Botanical Garden’s focusing on food this year in a number of ways, how did this photo project come about for you?

Blatt: They asked me to do it. And visiting local markets is one of my favorite ways to look at the people, see the farmers see the neighborhood products, and you learn about their culture and their spices and herbs. It’s interesting. And so many people are interested in that. 

You’ve taken photos around the world. In your travels, what sort of distance did you find from field to fork in other cultures? 

Blatt: I think they’re much closer than we are. If you go to Africa, the people who live there are growing these things in their backyard, like mangos and breadfruit. They’re much closer to agriculture than we are. So that’s why I included some local things. For example, there’a a picture of red and purple peppers, and I took that at the Tower Grove market. And I took a picture of the apple orchard at Eckhart's. 

There are a lot of discussions right now about Monsanto, including in the Supreme Court, as well as sustainable, local and organic agriculture. Compared to the places you’ve traveled, how do we do things differently in the U.S.?

Blatt: I think we use a lot more chemicals and things here. I know we travel to France a lot, and in Europe they hate the idea of messing with mother nature. Here we’re used to Monsanto, don’t you think?

Has this project or your travels changed the way you eat, or the way you view food, or the choices you make about what you eat and where you get that food from?

Blatt: If we’re in Italy, I love the olives, they’re growing everywhere. And we go often to France; and if you see these beautiful carrots in the market and little tiny radishes, you want to eat these things because they do look so healthy.

In all your travels, do you have a favorite food, or a favorite meal or food experience you could share with us?

Blatt: My husband and I enjoy wine a lot. We love to go to the wine areas in France: Champagne or Burgundy or Bordeaux. But I don’t know about the food that they have that goes with it, you know, foie gras is not a healthy thing. But we all like that, too, right?

Kristen Hare