So it shouldn't surprise you at all that one of the books I'd reach for this past holiday season, was about that same delicious topic: food!
Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get It Back, by Ann Vileisis, charts the anthropology of production development in the United States and beyond, following the untold story of the relationship between people, and the food they eat. Whether it's precooked or canned, processed or pruned right from the tree, organic or imported, what we eat to live - and do more than live - has significant effects on our surroundings, our ecosystem, and yes, on us.
What follows is a surprisingly enthralling account of "the covenant of ignorance" between modern-day food producers and consumers. Packed with facts and laden with interesting anecdotes - the kind that compelled me to pull out my phone and take pictures of the pages I found particularly notable - this nonfiction chronology of industrial development and consumer demands truly opened my eyes to a lot of the action that goes on behind the scenes of marketing veneer and culinary tradition.
While judging between something as pedestrian as brands in a supermarket might feel as easy to compare as apples and oranges, the ways those foods get there matters... whether those apple were imported from the valleys of my own Washington, or the sunnier orchards of Florida. But it's not just the routes traveled, trucks used, water spent, to bring those fruits to your produce stands: it's the pesticides used to help them grow, the ways the soil used to yield them has been given nutrients, the ways the size and turnover of the farm itself affects the economy of the local landscape at large. It's the way the government has regulated these things, and the ways consumers have demanded some fruits and vegetables over others.
And while you might feel better about yourself and your health, picking up an orange from the supermarket, but how do you feel about the ways that particular industry developed, to bring that fruit all the way to you, even in the dead of winter?
That's the kind of information this book touches on. Things like the anthropology of the canning process - from industrialization to the effects of the war effort in the 1940s - to the legal intricacies of the generation of the "organic" label, or how the government responds to consumer concerns (most disconcertingly, the general answer seems to be that they don't). Covering bases from the transfers of agricultural power from family life to industrial agriculture, to the shadowy marketing processes behind getting consumers to trust things like fake butter or artificially-colored cherries, this book pulls the curtains aside to expose just what kind of machinations keep the shelves you shop at fully stocked.
As you could probably guess, the book is definitely written in a singular perspective: the author, Ann Vileisis, now lives in a house along the Oregon Coast, grows many vegetables in the garden behind her house, and tries shopping as locally as possible when she has to. This might give people pause to consider reading it, especially those who wish to keep that "covenant of ignorance" - the open trade-off of "you don't question, we don't answer" of how food is produced - firmly in place. However, that doesn't mean that Vileisis solely preaches for the sake of believing, but instead, writes in a way that readily considers opposing viewpoints (for instance, the impact of class distinctions) that impact how we buy food.
As a result of reading, I find myself considering the origins of my food - especially the over-processed, murky-ingredients-list kinds of stuff - almost every meal after having read this book.
And in particular, reading while running our family Christmas cookie gauntlet has also been an interesting process, due to the documented history of the evolution of some of the ingredients we use regularly, some of which are touched upon in the book itself:
- how early industrial manufacturers of flour used to "fortify" and bulk up the finely-milled powder with inexpensive chalk,
- how food experts of the 1800s called to avoid sugar produced by slave-owned plantations... not necessarily because of the production habits, but because the pain of slavery influenced the taste of food made with it (which makes me think about the ways slavery continues to impact the chocolate industry today),
- how sugar and butter rations during the war affected the baking industry, and how it in turn reacted to customer concerns about their homemade goods... aka, why you have to add an egg and oil to your cake mixes, instead of just water.
Final Verdict: Altogether unique and an effective introductory point into the study of culinary anthropology, specifically from an American viewpoint, Kitchen Literacy is a great read for anyone looking to understand what food is best to buy... and how our perspectives on that have been changed by industry, government, and consumer standards across centuries.
What kinds of culinary non-fiction have you read before? What have you been cooking this holiday season? Let me know, in the comments below!
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