How can we add more fish to our diets without knowing which are being overfished or imported on a carbon-consuming journey?
Can we add more fruits and vegetables to our plates without asking if the growers were somehow cheated or sickened? Do we really want to fund government subsidies for corn or cattle growers?
If food defines us, it can also box us in, says Karimi, 37. To get his point across, the Minneapolis-based performer stirs those complex concerns through the sieve of satire.
"It's more digestible that way," he says, smirking.
Karimi was in town last week for a series of comedic consciousness-raising performances at the Asian Arts Initiative at 12th and Vine Streets.
Acting as Mero Cocinero, a politically inflamed food geek hosting a faux cooking show with a Filipino sidekick named Comrade Castro (writer/actor John Castro), Karimi inspires audiences to both recall and reconsider their favorite foods.
When Comrade Castro craves the fried Spam of his childhood, for example, Mero rants about the evils of food processing and the effect of colonialism on his cultural psyche.
"We're at war against indigestion," Karimi says. "And our best weapon is food consciousness."
Everyone in the audience gets to taste the dips and dishes Karimi and Castro prepare on stage. Their Lumpia Campesina (see recipe) is a vegetarian Filipino-style version of the traditional egg roll, which was brought to the Philippines by the Chinese.
Karimi says he makes it in solidarity with agricultural workers everywhere, adding Campesina to the name of the dish in recognition of Via Campesina, a movement of rural farmers and indigenous communities who seek food sovereignty - the right to produce food on their own land.
