Synonyms

Craft; Pickling; Preserving; Small batch; Traditional food preparation

Introduction

The word “artisanal” has regained a foothold in the US food vernacular and is being used to describe many food and beverage products like pickles, cheese, jam, and gin that have been populating the shelves of specialty shops and crowding tables at farmer’s markets since the start of the new millennium. Like so many similar monikers that have been adopted to connote a specific sense of values in production or quality, such as “natural” and “green,” the word is not regulated and has since been used by large corporations to describe industrial- or mass-produced goods such as crackers, potato chips, and pizza (Donnelly 2012). Thus a debate has ensued about the true meaning of the term and what, if anything, should be done to ensure its veracity.

The term “artisanal” has its roots in the Italian word “artigiano,” meaning artisan or craftsman, which has its own etymology from the Latin “artitus” which means instructed in the arts. Thus, the term is understood to mean someone who makes a specific product or provides a specialized service with a high degree of skill or art, stemming from the Old World culture whose economies relied upon local artisans for everything from bread to furniture. In present vernacular, “artisanal” is used, in its broadest sense, to describe a product that is made by an artisan and is most properly used to indicate something that is handmade, unique, and high quality – often the very opposite of mass-produced. It was the reaction of some to the industrialization of US culture’s food system – with its cheap meat and dairy, increasing monoculture and proliferation of processed foods – that helped spark a growing revolution in the last few decades back towards personal gardens, small farms, and traditional forms of food preparation and preservation, both in the home and in the marketplace, which prompted a resurgence of interest in artisanal goods and methods.

Historically, the term artisanal has been used to refer to a wide variety of goods and services, including some edibles. However, only since the start of the new millennium has the term been reclaimed within the vernacular to describe primarily food products, generally referring to those that have been made using traditional methods, often by hand and with attention to quality. Artisanal goods are sometimes referred to as “craft” goods, referring to the skill needed to make these items, or “small batch” – a term that originally was used to describe high-end whiskeys that represented the highest quality of a batch and were closely tended to by artisans, but has come to be inclusive of all goods that are made with the same attention to ingredients and skill. Thus, with this increase in artisanal food production for both personal and commercial use, the debate surrounding this category of food has focused on determining a true definition of what an artisanal good is and whether an embracing of more – and often more expensive – artisanal goods in the marketplace is a move forwards in regard to food culture, safety, and security.

History

The term artisanal was originally used to refer to primarily to nonfood-related goods and skills, and evidence of an artisan class can be traced back to Ancient Egypt where workers specialized in jewelry making, carpentry, and sculpting, among other skills. During the medieval period, when artisan guilds were created to help organize and maintain standards of these workers whose livelihood and status depended on their specialized skills, the western societal role of artisans was elevated beyond that of a slave or laborer and seen more akin to an artist. The artisan guilds of the Middle Ages included bakers and butchers, as well as experts in other food and nonfood-related skills. Many of these skilled workers continued to be a vital part of western society into the modern age. The food artisans in particular – through trial and error, new understandings in science and technique, and technological advances – continually improved their craft and helped define their role in their local and regional food culture. The result was specialty artisanal food that developed in areas and regions around the world, such as the refined smoked sausages from Germany, cured prosciutto from Italy, or aged cheese from Spain, as well as many other examples of food local to a region prepared or preserved used traditional methods unique to an area or culture.

What made the artisanal food culture in the United States unique, however, was the ways that the population learned to adapt to the available foods and climate of the New World and the eventual melding of cultures and skills, starting with what the settlers learned from the Native Americans in the 1600s and continuing with the immigration of many different cultures from Europe, Asia, Africa, and beyond into the 1900s and through to the present. All of these cultures brought their own food preparation and preservation skills and methods, inspiring the culture and adapting to the region, creating a unique artisanal food culture in the United States, noted for its independence and individuality, both for commercial sale and personal use (Eden 1999).

In the United States, artisanal food culture was evident in many towns and neighborhoods from the earliest settlers, even if the term artisanal was not often used. By the twentieth century, however, increased technological advances spurred cultural changes, fewer homes had personal gardens, and women in both urban and rural areas were more likely to purchase staples like pickles, cheese, and canned goods at a store rather than make them at home, and these purchased goods were increasingly mass-produced rather than made by local artisans (Levenstein 1988).

Further technological advances and the two World Wars also greatly influenced the movement towards mass-produced convenience foods. The wars brought cultural changes, such as more women in the workforce, which resulted in less time spent on food preparation at home. Packaged foods like TV dinners, using technology developed for soldiers, became popular, and the introduction of fast-food chains made eating out more accessible (Shephard 2000). Agricultural moved towards monoculture as well, which, along with the increase in mass-produced foods, helped push culinary trends towards flavor homogenization. Further, after the rationing of the Second World War, feeding people food of uniform quality and safety becomes the highest priority, rather than distinction of flavor (Roudot 2004). Skilled household food preparation and preservation activities from a generation prior, such as canning, pickling, and cheesemaking, were becoming increasingly rare in urban and suburban homes, with more consumers choosing to buy the versions available at the local grocery store. Likewise, many local artisanal food producers went out of business as shopping habits moved towards the larger supermarkets and away from specialty retailers. With this move towards mass production, prices dropped for the average consumer, as did the variations in products, quality, and proliferation of food preparation and preservation skills.

The “counterculture” movement of the 1960s sparked interest in a growing segment of the population in gardening, vegetarianism, and food co-ops and brought attention to the potential health risks of the red meat- and preservative-heavy meals that had become prevalent in US homes. This influenced a shift in culinary tastes that gained speed in the 1970s when Alice Waters began to popularize “Californian” cuisine that emphasized fresh, seasonal ingredients, and traditional preparation methods. This movement began to grow into a resurgent interest in personal gardens and small-farm production, as well as traditional food preparation and preservation methods, which evolved into a “back-to-the-land” movement in the 1980s (Paxson 2010). International travel also hastened the shift of cultural tastes, with sophisticated eaters returning from their trips interested in increasingly diversified flavors and more in touch with the artisanal foods that they encountered in countries like Italy, which had not moved towards the pervasive mass production of popular foods like the United States.

This cultural shift was apparent in a small, but influential portion of the population into the new millennium. As the first rumblings of the recession were being felt in the mid-2000s, so continued a rise in family gardens, preserving, and artisanal food production, as evidenced by the dramatic rise in cheesemakers, whose numbers doubled since 2000 (Paxson 2012). This interest in artisanal edibles grew alongside the interest in locally sourced food. In fact, since the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began publishing the national directory of Farmer’s Markets in 1994, the number of farmer’s markets had more than quadrupled nationally by 2012 (United States Department of Agriculture 2012). With these new markets came new customers interested in local produce and products made from ingredients and by people, they felt adhered to their same values of environmental and economic sustainability. In addition, these markets provided a literal marketplace where small and start-up businesses could sell their products and started to gain customers relatively easily, because of the lack of need for distributors, and for a relatively low start-up cost. Also, at this time, people looking to cut costs started to grow their own food, and sales of seeds spiked in 2007, with the National Gardening Association noting that more than 43 million households grew their own food in 2009, an increase of 19% from the year before (Sanburn 2011). Now, not only were more households harvesting their own produce and, presumably, looking for ways to preserve their bounty, but also more people were looking for work. This led to more people trying traditional preserving and preparation methods in their home, a greater cultural interest in homemade, local, and high-quality food products (Muller 2010), and an increased number of people starting food-based businesses (Casserly 2012). These businesses ran the gamut from a glut of food trucks serving mostly urban areas to smaller-scale organic farms to specialty foods like high-end baked goods, often boasting of as “artisanal” aesthetic of preparation and quality. Many of these businesses were envisioned to cater to the new “foodie” culture that sought high-quality, handmade, and often environmentally conscious food options. This new trend in artisanal foods can be seen most prominently in the recent rise of artisanal cheese, pickles, fruit preserves, charcuterie, alcoholic spirits, and other similar small batch purveyors. The dominant narrative in each of these industries is a desire to reclaim what the makers believe are the original, traditional, or true essence of each product – and its endless variations – because of the vast dominance of mass production that each product had endured over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Debates

While artisanal food production and craft had long histories in many countries outside of the United States, the larger culture of artisanal foods is relatively new in this country. While there have been some artisanal food makers who have retained a tradition of their craft for generations, unlike in Europe, most food artisans are relatively new with the rise of artisanal products increasing sharply after 2000. These goods may draw heavily from Old World traditions, but pride themselves on individuality. However this variety of craft products and techniques can mean the dilution of the understanding of the term artisan. Unlike Europe’s highly regulated cheese industry, for example, the American Cheese Society asserts a definition of artisanal cheese but has no power to police that their members use it correctly. The European Union has rules about process and ingredients in various artisanal goods, such as cheese, and other countries, like Italy, have similar regulations to preserve the quality and identity of other traditionally made products, such as meat, wine, cheese, among other foods (Gudrais 2010). Thus, the primary debate within the artisanal food community surrounds the true definition of the term and what, if any, regulation should be in place to preserve it.

Various organizations, craftspeople, and food writers assert that a true “artisanal” food product is one made by a skilled craftsman, using high-quality ingredients and a mastered, often traditional, technique (CUESA 2006). Some also assert that artisanal foods can only be made in small batches and with ingredients that are sustainably sourced. However, with the rise in popularity of artisanal edible or potable goods come stories of artisans who initially produced all of their goods by themselves using ingredients that adhere to the strictest of values, but who have expanded to include multiple employees, more readily available produce or other ingredients, automated methods such as mass-processed heat preserving or labeling. The question remains of when a good ceases being artisanal, even if it follows a similar recipe or technique of a small batch good, but on a larger scale. Some argue that a good retains its artisanal descriptor as long as the artisans themselves are still ensuring that the more nuanced mixing, tasting, and quality control are to their standards. Others cite any form of automation or any deviation from traditional methods as unworthy of the artisanal moniker. Only the cheese industry has a somewhat standard, although unenforced, definition of artisanal cheese, which is understood to mean a product made primarily by hand, in small batches, with attention paid to the quality of the ingredients and the skills used in production (Raskin 2012). This also represents the overarching general understanding of the term by the consumers, food writers, and producers who are familiar with this segment of the market. Thus, while the average consumer may not be concerned with the debate surrounding the term “artisanal” as used by corporate marketers to describe clearly mass-produced items like pizza or potato chips, the numbers who do seek out specifically “artisanal” goods – the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) conducted a study in 2011 which found that 26% of specialty-food consumers seek out artisan products – are growing making the debate over standardization of this term even more pertinent and could lead to misrepresentation of the true nature of products and the devaluing of artisanal goods and methods.

With the consumer desire for artisanal goods is growing and the relatively easy entrance into this market at community spaces like farmer’s markets comes the concern of food safety. Numerous artisans cite the often arduous safety or legal regulations that have been a detriment to their growing business, with a great number of craftspeople admitting that they began their business in their kitchen or some other unregulated and illegal space. Most food safety laws are regulated at the state level, although many are similar and include the need for food sold for public consumption to be produced in a certified commercial kitchen, with other frequent requirements including the need for a food processing license or lab tests to ensure food safety. Some exceptions to these laws include allowances for farmers who process produce they grow or “non-potentially hazardous” items to be produced in home kitchens (Gansky 2012). Many artisanal producers note the high price of these regulations – which can reach into the thousands – and cite this as a major burden for starting a business and staying profitable. They have lobbied for more changes to the “cottage food laws,” as they are known, which have resulted in more than thirty states creating allowances for the sale of small batch food items, often limiting the types of food that can be produced and sold and putting a ceiling on allowed profits (Andrews 2012). However, proponents of keeping food safety laws strictly in place note the long history behind these regulations, which historically have greatly reduced illness from food produced in unsanitary environments or through questionably methods, and cite the need to keep standards high to ensure the integrity of public health.

Another issue faced among artisanal food producers is whether the term encompasses a specific value system of environmental ethics. Many small producers begin with a commitment to source their ingredients seasonally, organically, or from local farms, while others merely put an emphasis on self-assessed “quality” raw materials. These purveyors note that this is borne out of the true intent of many artisans throughout history, who were fully integrated with every step of procuring and creating their product, such as illustrated via the strict regulations on ingredients of artisanal foods in Europe, where there are numerous continent- and countrywide rules on the ingredients and methods necessary for proper labeling of specific artisan-made goods, such as types of cheese, sausage, or wine. Some artisans argue in favor of a more exclusive definition of the term, looking to a study that cited an understood level of quality and environmental consciousness in a good labeled “artisanal.” This research looked at the artisanal food culture in Ohio to determine the definition and motivations of artisanal food producers and corroborated a commitment to handmade aesthetic, quality, and environmental concerns – with ingredients often organic or locally sourced (Caricofe 2011). These findings echo what other artisans in favor of a more exclusive definition of the term argue. Opponents note, however, that Americans pride themselves in their independence and would resist additional bureaucracy, with even the large artisanal cheese industry preferring not to pursue regulations, offering instead standard definitions only as guides for labeling (Gudrais 2010).

Further, the issue of environmentally conscious sourcing as part of the definition of an artisanal good can be complicated. Shipping heavy jars, or perishables like charcuterie and cheese, can increase the carbon footprint or call into question the often initial business philosophy of environmental sustainability. The true environmental and health costs of nonorganic and nonlocal goods are often debated, with others noting that high-quality ingredients can be environmentally sustainable, even if they do not share these distinctions (McWilliams 2009). Likewise, not all artisans put high priority on organic or local ingredients or handmade techniques, asserting that promoting artisanal goods made with whole ingredients, like dessert topping made with fresh cherries – even if with the inclusion of sugar – and less processed or unnatural ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and food dye, is beneficial to consumers and the environment overall, even if the ingredients are not sustainably sourced or the production methods used are sometimes automated. These proponents cite that anything that keeps traditional preservation methods alive, and goods with fewer preservatives and more produce and whole foods in demand, is a positive outcome (Raskin 2012).

Along with environmental sustainability comes the issue of business viability. Some artisans note that they feel pressured by some consumers and fellow craftspeople to keep production as small and handmade as their business survival will allow, sometimes even eschewing automated chopping or mixing machines. Strict adherence to completely handmade can result in higher prices, more barriers towards expansion, and issues of business sustainability, depending on the industry. This reality of business sustainability and the related issue of affordability are issues that many artisanal producers deal with. For the home artisan, whether the material and time required to make a product for personal consumption is worth, it is a personal decision, akin to a hobby or based in preserving traditions, and is worth a higher cost. For others, using raw materials from their own farm or garden, or purchased cheaply in season, making a large amount of an artisanal good for personal use and perhaps to trade with others in their community, is cheaper than buying the goods at retail. However, from a business perspective, often the real calculated cost of selling a jar of artisanal jam or pickles can be many times the price of the mass-produced version to reflect the true price of high-quality produce, packaging, and manual labor. While some consumers are willing and able to pay that amount, many artisans note that lowering the cost of their goods can improve their profitability and overall ability to provide what they consider higher-quality foods to a larger population, making a case for a more liberal interpretation of the definition of artisanal production. Those in favor keeping the term artisanal highly defined or exclusive would note that any dilution of the term would create a slippery slope resulting in lower-quality products and lost culture or methods that some artisans care deeply about retaining.

Despite these debates over safety, sourcing, and costs, the proponents of artisanal food – both produced for profit and also for personal use – note the unquantifiable positive effect of community building. This can be seen through the exponential growth of farmer’s markets that sell artisanal goods in addition to produce, community classes teaching traditional production and preservation methods, and the myriad first person accounts of small batch producers who cite the help of friends, family, consumers, and even other artisans as helping them refine their process and build their business.

Summary

There is no denying that artisanal food production has long been an integral part of global food culture. With increasing industrialization in the western world in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the number of artisans – creating edible goods for both commercial and personal use – dropped, and mass-produced food became more popular in the vast majority of households. However, the past decade has seen a rapid return to these traditional methods of food production for a number of reasons, including the desire to explore and preserve tradition and the increased consciousness about the quality and provenance of one’s food. For commercial artisans, there are barriers to entering this increasingly crowded marketplace, including the cost of licenses and fees to operate a certified food production business and the increasing dilution of the term “artisan” through large businesses who seek to cash in on this growing trend. However, even with artisanal goods priced at a premium over similar mass-produced items, growth in this sector of the market is still robust, which seems to indicate that the consumer interest in true artisanal goods – and the values that these products often embody – is only increasing.

Cross-References