You want to consume sustainable food. But your hankering for a corned beef sandwich on rye just won’t fade. What to do?
JCC of the East Bay will host a forum to discuss this and other similar dilemmas at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9 at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley.
Registration and will-call pickup for “Referendum on the Deli Menu: Can a Retro Cuisine be Part of the Avant-Garde?” will begin at 5:30 p.m.
Panelists are Michael Pollan, U.C. Berkeley professor and author of bestsellers “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food”; Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic and author of “The Truth About Green Business”; Willow Rosenthal, founder of City Slicker Farms; and Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt, co-owners of Saul’s Restaurant and Deli.
Topics up for discussion include:
• What does sustainability mean for the future of deli cuisine and culture?
• How does a business committed to being part of the solution persuade traditionalist customers of the importance of change?
• Do collective memory and food traditions conflict with sustainability?
• What about local and/or organic vs. industrialized systems and cheaper food?
Pre-event materials noted that 99 percent of a towering pastrami sandwich is factory farmed nowadays. “How can we continue to stand by this as an icon?” the release asks. Moreover, even if its meat is factory farmed, this type of “pastrami sandwich has become an unsustainable business model, because of its tiny profit margins.”
Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Proceeds will benefit the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley. For more information, visit www.saulsdeli.com/deli/pressevents or call (510) 848-3354.