Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It


Karl Weber - 2009
    is guaranteed to shake up our perceptions of what we eat. This powerful documentary deconstructing the corporate food industry in America was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “more than a terrific movie—it's an important movie.” Aided by expert commentators such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the film poses questions such as: Where has my food come from, and who has processed it? What are the giant agribusinesses and what stake do they have in maintaining the status quo of food production and consumption? How can I feed my family healthy foods affordably?Expanding on the film's themes, the book Food, Inc. will answer those questions through a series of challenging essays by leading experts and thinkers. This book will encourage those inspired by the film to learn more about the issues, and act to change the world.

Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger


Nigel Slater - 2003
    Whether recalling his mother’s surprisingly good rice pudding, his father’s bold foray into spaghetti and his dreaded Boxing Day stew, or such culinary highlights as Arctic Roll and Grilled Grapefruit (then considered something of a status symbol in Wolverhampton), this memoir vividly recreates daily life in 1960s suburban England.

The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free


Paulina Bren - 2021
    Liberated from home and hearth by World War I, politically enfranchised and ready to work, women arrived to take their place in the dazzling new skyscrapers of Manhattan. But they did not want to stay in uncomfortable boarding houses. They wanted what men already had—exclusive residential hotels with maid service, workout rooms, and private dining. Built in 1927, at the height of the Roaring Twenties, the Barbizon Hotel was designed as a luxurious safe haven for the “Modern Woman” hoping for a career in the arts. Over time, it became the place to stay for any ambitious young woman hoping for fame and fortune. Sylvia Plath fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, and, over the years, it’s almost 700 tiny rooms with matching floral curtains and bedspreads housed, among many others, Titanic survivor Molly Brown; actresses Grace Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Ali MacGraw, Jaclyn Smith; and writers Joan Didion, Gael Greene, Diane Johnson, Meg Wolitzer. Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, as did Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School its students and the Ford Modeling Agency its young models. Before the hotel’s residents were household names, they were young women arriving at the Barbizon with a suitcase and a dream. Not everyone who passed through the Barbizon’s doors was destined for success—for some, it was a story of dashed hopes—but until 1981, when men were finally let in, the Barbizon offered its residents a room of their own and a life without family obligations. It gave women a chance to remake themselves however they pleased; it was the hotel that set them free. No place had existed like it before or has since. “Poignant and intriguing” (The New Republic), The Barbizon weaves together a tale that has, until now, never been told. It is both a vivid portrait of the lives of these young women looking for something more and a “brilliant many-layered social history of women’s ambition and a rapidly changing New York through the 20th century” (The Guardian).

Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America


Gustavo Arellano - 2012
    Arellano’s fascinating narrative combines history, cultural criticism, food writing, personal anecdotes, and Jesus on a tortilla. In seemingly every decade for over a century, America has tried new culinary trends from south of the border, loved them, and demanded the next big thing. As a result, Mexican food dominates American palates to the tune of billions of dollars in sales per year, from canned refried beans to tortilla wraps and ballpark nachos. It’s a little-known history, one that’s crept up on this country and left us better for it.

Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking


Linda Civitello - 2017
    For nearly a century, brands battled to win loyal consumers for the new leavening miracle, transforming American commerce and advertising even as they touched off a chemical revolution in the world's kitchens. Linda Civitello chronicles the titanic struggle that reshaped America's diet and rewrote its recipes. Presidents and robber barons, bare-knuckle litigation and bold-faced bribery, competing formulas and ruthless pricing--Civitello shows how hundreds of companies sought market control, focusing on the big four of Rumford, Calumet, Clabber Girl, and the once-popular brand Royal. She also tells the war's untold stories, from Royal's claims that its competitors sold poison, to the Ku Klux Klan's campaign against Clabber Girl and its German Catholic owners. Exhaustively researched and rich with detail, Baking Powder Wars is the forgotten story of how a dawning industry raised Cain--and cakes, cookies, muffins, pancakes, donuts, and biscuits.

100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More


Sarah Kieffer - 2020
    Nominated for a 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Best CookbooksFrom celebrated blogger Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Baking Blog!100 Cookies is a go-to baking book featuring 100 recipes for cookies and bars, organized into seven chapters.Chocolatey, fruity, crispy, chewy, classic, inventive—there's a foolproof recipe for the perfect treat for everyone in this cookie recipe book.• Introduces innovative baking techniques• Includes an entire chapter dedicated to Kieffer's "pan banging" technique that ensures crisp edges and soft centers for the most delicious cookies• Nearly every cookie dough recipe is accompanied by a photograph.Dessert recipes range from the Classic Chocolate Chip made three different ways, to bars, brownies, and blondies that reflect a wide range of flavors and global inspiration.This is the comprehensive-yet-charming cookbook every cookie lover (or those who love to bake cookies) needs.• Highly giftable with a textured case and a ribbon marker• Recipes include Marshmallow Peanut Butter Brownies, Olive Oil Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze, Red Wine Cherry Cheesecake Swirl Bars, and Pan-Banging Ginger Molasses, S'mores Cookies, Snickerdoodles, and more• A great pick for the home baker in search of a new bake sale recipe or someone who just loves cookies, as well as fans of Sarah Kieffer's blog and Instagram• Add it to the shelf with cookbooks like Sally's Cookie Addiction by Sally McKenney; Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan; and The Perfect Cookie: Your Ultimate Guide to Foolproof Cookies, Brownies & Bars by America's Test Kitchen

Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer's Guide


Cecily Wong - 2021
    The curious minds behind Atlas Obscura now turn to the hidden curiosities of food, which becomes a gateway to fascinating stories about human history, science, art, and tradition—like the first book, all organized by country, lavishly illustrated, and full of surprises.

Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture


Dana Goodyear - 2013
    Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?Dana Goodyear’s anticipated debut, Anything That Moves, is simultaneously a humorous adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at, and an attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing the rare and exotic into the marketplace. This is the fringe of the modern American meal, but to judge from history, it will not be long before it reaches the family table. Anything That Moves is a highly entertaining, revelatory look into the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.

Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and Fragrance


Patricia Rain - 2004
    Part culinary history, part cultural commentary, Vanilla tells the remarkable story of the world's most popular flavor and scent. The Spanish considered vanilla the ultimate aphrodisiac, the Totonac Indians called it the fruit of the gods, and the Aztecs taxed the Mayans in vanilla beans, using the beans as currency. Today, vanilla is in our coffee, our perfume, tea, home products, body lotion, and just about anything imaginable. Patricia Rain explores the incredibly diverse effect of vanilla on the worlds of food, medicine, psychology, and even politics. She intertwines the fields of cultural anthropology, botany, folklore, and economics, tracing the marvelous path of vanilla throughout world history. Vanilla shows how the impact and marketing of this ubiquitous little bean over the last eight hundred years saved the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Tahiti, put Madagascar on the map, drove the success of the great Parisian perfume houses and Europe's confection industry, and spurred trade routes across the Indian Ocean. Rain examines the rich history of vanilla with exacting detail and discusses its current role in our lives and the modern retail world, where the "vanilla boom" has caused the prices of many common consumer items to skyrocket. Filled with fascinating insights, quirky characters, trivia, and even recipes, this beautifully written book is perfect for vanilla lovers, history buffs, and anyone interested in a real-life captivating story.

Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us


George Zaidan - 2020
    Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. George Zaidan reveals what will kill you, what won't, and why--explained with high-octane hilarity, hysterical hijinks, and other things that don't begin with the letter H. INGREDIENTS offers the perspective of a chemist on the stuff we eat, drink, inhale, and smear on ourselves. Apart from the burning question of whether you should eat that Cheeto, Zaidan explores a range of topics. Here's a helpful guide:Stuff in this book: - How bad is processed food? How sure are we?- Is sunscreen safe? Should you use it?- Is coffee good or bad for you?- What's your disease horoscope?- What is that public pool smell made of?- What happens when you overdose on fentanyl in the sun?- What do cassava plants and Soviet spies have in common?- When will you die?Stuff in other books: - Your carbon footprint- Food sustainability- GMOs- CEO pay- Science funding- Politics- Football- Baseball- Any kind of ball reallyZaidan, an MIT-trained chemist who cohosted CNBC's hit Make Me a Millionaire Inventor and wrote and voiced several TED-Ed viral videos, makes chemistry more fun than Hogwarts as he reveals exactly what science can (and can't) tell us about the packaged ingredients sold to us every day. Sugar, spinach, formaldehyde, cyanide, the ingredients of life and death, and how we know if something is good or bad for us--as well as the genius of aphids and their butts--are all discussed in exquisite detail at breakneck speed.

The Little Paris Kitchen


Rachel Khoo - 2012
    Six years later, she still lives and works in Paris, cooking up a selection of classic French dishes from all over the country and giving them a fresh makeover with her own modern twists. From a Croque Madame muffin and the classic Boeuf bourguignon, to a deliciously fragrant Provencal lavender and lemon roast chicken, Rachel celebrates the culinary landscape of France as it is today and shows how simple these dishes are.The 120 recipes in the book range from easy, everyday dishes like Omelette Pipérade, to summer picnics by the Seine and afternoon 'goûter' (snacks), to meals with friends and delicious desserts including classics like Crème brulee and Tarte tatin. It's a book that celebrates the very best of French home-cooking in a modern and accessible way. Real French food is no longer something only served in fancy restaurants; Rachel will show how you can add a little French culinary touch to your everyday life at home, no matter where you are in the world, or how big your kitchen is!

Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating


Charles Spence - 2017
    Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence. Now he's stepping out of his lab to lift the lid on the entire eating experience how the taste, the aroma, and our overall enjoyment of food are influenced by all of our senses, as well as by our mood and expectations. The pleasures of food lie mostly in the mind, not in the mouth. Get that straight and you can start to understand what really makes food enjoyable, stimulating, and, most important, memorable. Spence reveals in amusing detail the importance of all the off the plate elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the color of the plate, the background music, and much more. Whether we re dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we re tasting and influence what others experience. This is accessible science at its best, fascinating to anyone in possession of an appetite. Crammed with discoveries about our everyday sensory lives, Gastrophysics is a book guaranteed to make you look at your plate in a whole new way."

Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything


Lydia Kang - 2017
    Like when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When snorting skull moss was a cure for a bloody nose. When consuming mail-order tapeworms was a latter-day fad diet. Or when snake oil salesmen peddled strychnine (used in rat poison) as an aphrodisiac in the '60s. Seamlessly combining macabre humor with hard science and compelling storytelling, Quackery is a visually rich and information-packed exploration of history's most outlandish cures, experiments, and scams.A humorous book that delves into some of the wacky but true ways that humans have looked to cure their ills. Leeches, mercury, strychnine, and lobotomies are a few of the topics that explore the lengths society has gone in the search for health.

Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food


Megan Kimble - 2015
    But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan's extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more--all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.What makes a food processed? As Megan would soon realize, the answer to that question went far beyond cutting out snacks and sodas, and became a fascinating journey through America's food system, past and present. She learned how wheat became white; how fresh produce was globalized and animals industrialized. But she also discovered that in daily life, as she attempted to balance her project with a normal social life--which included dating--the question of what made a food processed was inextricably tied to gender and economy, politics and money, work and play.Backed by extensive research and wide-ranging interviews--and including tips on how to ditch processed food and transition to a real-food lifestyle--Unprocessed offers provocative insights not only on the process of food, but also the processes that shape our habits, communities, and day-to-day lives.

Super Sushi Ramen Express: One Family's Journey Through the Belly of Japan


Michael Booth - 2009
    The Japanese go to the most extraordinary lengths and expense to eat the finest, most delectable, and downright freakiest food imaginable. Their creativity, dedication and ingenuity, not to mention courage in the face of dishes such as cod sperm, whale penis and octopus ice cream, is only now beginning to be fully appreciated in the sushi-saturated West, as are the remarkable health benefits of the traditional Japanese diet.Inspired by Shizuo Tsuji's classic book, Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art, food and travel writer Michael Booth sets off to take the culinary pulse of contemporary Japan, learning fascinating tips and recipes that few westerners have been privy to before. Accompanied by with two fussy eaters under the age of six, he and his wife travel the length of the country, from bear-infested, beer-loving Hokkaido to snake-infested, seaweed-loving Okinawa.Along the way, they dine with - and score a surprising victory over - sumos; meet the indigenous Ainu; drink coffee at the dog café; pamper the world's most expensive cows with massage and beer; discover the secret of the Okinawan people's remarkable longevity; share a seaside lunch with free-diving, female abalone hunters; and meet the greatest chefs working in Japan today. Less happily, they trash a Zen garden, witness a mass fugu slaughter, are traumatised by an encounter with giant crabs, and attempt a calamitous cooking demonstration for the lunching ladies of Kyoto. They also ask, 'Who are you?' to the most famous TV stars in Japan.What do the Japanese know about food? Perhaps more than anyone on else on earth, judging by this fascinating and funny journey through an extraordinary food-obsessed country.