Food and architecture have been dual passions in my life for as long as I can remember. My grandparents had a hotel in Bournemouth, and I can still recall my fascination with the way everything changed as I passed through the green baize doors between the service areas and the public rooms. I became an architect, but food was always there in the background, and much later, I realised how I could bring the two together in order to describe the world in a completely new way. This led to my first book, Hungry City,and its follow-upSitopia,both of which have changed the way I see the world.
Sitopia(from Greek sitos, food + topos, place) describes the world through the lens of food. Whether or not we realise it, we live in a world shaped by food: our bodies, habits, homes, cities, landscapes, economies, politics, and climate are all shaped by it. However, by failing to value food, we’ve created a bad sitopia: climate change, deforestation, soil erosion, water depletion, pollution, mass extinction, and diet-related disease are just some of the ‘externalities’ of the way we eat today. Our modern way of eating threatens our very future; yet by revaluing food and harnessing its power for good, we can address all these ills to build a healthier, happier and more resilient world.
This was the first book I read when I started researching my first book, and it turned out to be a very lucky choice, since it opened my eyes more than any other book to the power of food to shape our cultures and customs and ways of seeing the world.
It describes in fascinating detail how European food cultures developed according to landscape and climate, and how various differences – such as the Mediterranean propensity to eat lots of vegetables and drink wine in moderation, compared with the northern tendency to eat lots of meat and get drunk on beer or spirits – not only endure today, but continue to shape the way we live, behave and see ourselves and others.
This book is about the history of food in Europe and the part it has played in the evolution of the European cultures over two millennia. It has been a driving force in national and imperial ambition, the manner of its production and consumption a means by which the identity and status of regions, classes and individuals have been and still are expressed. In this wide--ranging exploration of its history the author weaves deftly between the classes, regions and nations of Europe, between the habits of late antiquity and the problems of modernity. He examines the interlinked evolutions of consumption,…
The Rituals of Dinner opened my eyes to the power and complexity of eating with other people – something we all do throughout our lives – and the profound ways in which this affects our relationships with friends and strangers alike.
The book delves into the history of the shared meal, dissecting various rituals which, despite regional differences, nevertheless have common threads across the world, for example in the deep, often hidden power that lies in the relationship between host and guest (words that both derive from the same root, ghostis) and the strong, even life-changing implications of knowing how to behave at dinner.
This is a fascinating and beautifully written book that will have you thinking about the way we eat long after you have finished it.
With an acute eye and an irrepressible wit, Margaret Visser takes a fascinating look at the way we eat our meals. From the ancient Greeks to modern yuppies, from cannibalism and the taking of the Eucharist to formal dinners and picnics, she thoroughly defines the eating ritual.
"Read this book. You'll never look at a table knife the same way again."-The New York Times.
Nature’s Metropolis is quite simply one of my all-time favourite books on food history.
It tells the remarkable story of how geography and railways merged in the nineteenth century to transform the American Midwest into the world’s breadbasket and to make Chicago a meatpacking centre on a truly epic scale – thus becoming the birthplace of the industrial food system.
It’s a fascinating and gripping tale, beautifully written and with any number of insights – if you want to understand the origins of our modern food system, with its deadly monocultures, factory farms, global corporations, and trade monopolies, look no further.
In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.
If you want to understand how modern (i.e. American) fast food culture evolved, this book is for you.
From ‘Chickens of Tomorrow’ to Betty Crocker’s cakes, from Women’s Lib to crash diets, flash-freezing to TV dinners, it’s all here – along with the political manoeuvring, misleading adverts, corporate greed, and social manipulation that created the unhealthiest, most destructive, yet also most popular and profitable food culture on earth.
Paradox of Plenty explains how we got into the mess we’re in when it comes to food – and is therefore essential reading for anyone concerned with the way we eat today. It’s also fast-paced, brilliant, and funny.
This book really opened my eyes to the craziness of industrial food culture and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Occasionally you come across a book that is so informative and insightful that it transforms the way you see the world.
The Hidden Half of Natureis one such book. Co-authored by soil expert David R Montgomery and his biologist wife Anne Biklé, the book explains the intricate microbial worlds of living soil and human health – and how the two are vitally connected. With admirable clarity and amusing examples (such as what actually happens in your gut when you eat Thanksgiving Dinner), the authors bring the complex microbial world to vivid life.
I felt very fortunate to come across this book before I wrote my own, since I could not have wished for better teachers in this vital and rapidly evolving topic.
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives about adoption, exposing the fallacy that adoption is always good.
In this story, I reckon with the pain and unanswered questions of my own experience and explore broader issues surrounding adoption in the United States, including changing legal policies, sterilization, and compulsory relinquishment programs, forced assimilation of babies of color and Indigenous babies adopted into white families, and other liabilities affecting women, mothers, and children. Now is the moment we must all hear these stories.
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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