NPR

Farm-To-Table May Feel Virtuous, But It's Food Labor That's Ripe For Change

Even the most wholesome ingredients are produced through cheap labor, often by people who are themselves poor and hungry. It's time the food world talks about that, says an award-winning chef.
Mexican farmworkers harvest lettuce in a field outside of Brawley, Calif.

Reusing (@AndreaReusing) is the James Beard award-winning chef at Lantern in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Novel and thrilling in earlier days, today's farm-to-table restaurant menus have scaled new heights of supposed transparency. The specificity can be weirdly opaque, much like an actual menu item that recently made the rounds: Quail Egg Coated in the Ashes of Dried Sheep's S***. Farm-to-table fatigue is most evident in those of us who cook in farm-to-table restaurants — Even We Are Sick of Us.

In the 15 years since Lantern opened, guests

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