Publication Date: September 18, 2009 | Series: Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History
Food expert and celebrated food historian Andrew F. Smith recounts—in delicious detail—the creation of contemporary American cuisine. The diet of the modern American wasn't always as corporate, conglomerated, and corn-rich as it is today, and the style of American cooking, along with the ingredients that compose it, has never been fixed. With a cast of characters including bold inventors, savvy restaurateurs, ruthless advertisers, mad scientists, adventurous entrepreneurs, celebrity chefs, and relentless health nuts, Smith pins down the truly crackerjack history behind the way America eats.
Smith's story opens with early America, an agriculturally independent nation where most citizens grew and consumed their own food. Over the next two hundred years, however, Americans would cultivate an entirely different approach to crops and consumption. Advances in food processing, transportation, regulation, nutrition, and science introduced highly complex and mechanized methods of production. The proliferation of cookbooks, cooking shows, and professionally designed kitchens made meals more commercially, politically, and culturally potent. To better understand these trends, Smith delves deeply and humorously into their creation. Ultimately he shows how, by revisiting this history, we can reclaim the independent, locally sustainable roots of American food.
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Starred Review. With an incisive style, food writer and editor Smith (Hamburger: A Global History) cuts deep into the origins of modern American culture with 30 succinct servings of U.S. food history. Beginning with Oliver Evan's automated mill in 1784 and ending with the present-day development of food conglomerates like Kraft Foods, Smith offers ample context for the way Americans currently consume (and think about) food. Easy-to-digest prose and modest portions make these stories compulsively readable, and reveal new angles on old stories, like Sarah Hale's successful efforts to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, the first food magazine (recently-shuttered Gourmet), to a recurring examination of the American obsession with French cuisine. Exhaustively researched by a professional expert, Smith can be slowed by lists of names and numbers (especially in the mergers section), but anyone interested in food will learn much, especially about the serious consequences of decisions regarding our food supply.
Review
Easy-to-digest prose and modest portions make these stories compulsively readable, and reveal new angles on old stories.Publishers Weekly (starred review)
(Publishers Weekly (starred review) 11/2/09)
Clear and engaging... erudite and entertaining... Recommended.
(Choice 3/1/10)
Eating History covers an enormous amount of ground and is something of a mini-encyclopedia with many entries, each densely packed with information. Smith is a talented storyteller, so the copious facts and figures are presented well, nicely sprinkled with interesting anecdotes.
I am a freelance writer and speaker on culinary matters. I teach culinary history and professional food writing at the New School in Manhattan, serve as the General Editor of the Food Series at the University of Illinois Press, and am the general editor for the Edible Series at Reaktion Press in the United Kingdom. I am also the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia on Food and Drink in America and the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink.
I am a member of the Culinary Historians of New York, the Association for the Study of Food Society (ASFS), and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). I serve on the editorial board for the ASFS journal, Food, Culture and Society and is the Chairman of The Culinary Trust, the philanthropic arm of IACP.
I have delivered more than fifteen hundred presentations on various educational, historical, and international topics, and has organized seventy-three major conferences. I have been frequently interviewed by and quoted in newspapers, journals and magazines, such as the New York Times, New Yorker, Reader's Digest, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Fortune Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. I have been regularly interviewed on radio and television, including National Public Radio and the Food Network. I have served as historical consultant to several television series and appeared in episodes of: the 'Food Essence,' developed by Charles Bishop Productions, Halifax, Canada; 'American Eats' and 'America Drinks,' documentaries regularly broadcast on the History Channel and A&E; 'A Century of Food,' produced by Greystone Communications, Inc., broadcast on the Food Network in January 2001; 'Follow that Food,' series by Gordon Elliot, broadcast on the Food Network; 'What We Eat,' hosted by Burt Wolf and produced by Acorn Productions, currently airing on PBS; 'Ever Wondered about Food' by the BBC; the Food Network's 'Top Five;' Burt Wolf's PBS program on 'Thanksgiving;' Tom Zapeicki's (WBGU) 'Ketchup: King of Condiments' on PBS; Meals in 1776, 1876 and the 1950s, Steve Gillion's History Center's program, 'Eating through American History,' which aired on May 21, 2006 on the History Channel; and Atlas Media's American Eats episodes on 'Salty Snacks,' 'Condiments,' 'Cookies,' 'Chocolate,' 'Canning,' 'Soft Drinks,' 'Holiday Food,' and 'Presidential Food,' which were released on History Channel during the Summer and Fall 2006.
I'm partial, I know. I prefer local foods purchased at Farmers Markets to any store bought goods. Andrew F. Smith, author of Eating History and professor of food studies at the New School University in New York City holds a contrary opinion. Even though American express a preference for organic produce raised on local farms and meals made from scratch, the author points out that "the total market share of organic food in the United States is only a little more than 3 percent; and somewhere between 25 and 40 percent of Americans eat at fast-food outlets every day."
I was prepared to sputter in indignation as I read how Americans arrived at a food system that emphasizes "convenience, superabundance, low cost and consumer choice" - and is largely based on industrial agriculture. I quickly became fascinated by the push and pull of historical forces and how they stack up for or against a local food network at various turning points of United States history.
The opening of the Eire Canal (Turning Point #2) in 1825 flooded the eastern market with cheap wheat grown in the upstate New York and the mid-west. In other words, Americans learned early that food from a distance can be cheaper than local food. We also learned early to heed the call of food advertisers. Campbell Soup added labels with cute kids to their canned products. Quaker Oats (#12) boxed its cereal and enlisted a pious preacher to create an early brand. Cracker Jacks (#14) advertised heavily, included a small toy in each box and quickly replaced dried fruits or nuts as the snack of choice. Now, according to the author, "the modern American diet is largely a result of the advertising and marketing industries."
The first supermarket chain (#19), King Kullen, gradually led to the demise of small local stores and open-air markets. The author admits that "supermarket chains developed symbiotic relationships with ... factory farms, which today supply most of their produce, meat, and poultry ...." Other interesting turning points Smith discusses are the assembly-line production of food perfected by McDonalds (#24); the introduction of the microwave oven (#22); the gradual conversion of food preparation from everyday necessity to spectator sport by way of Gourmet magazine (#20), the French Chef (#25) and the Food Network (#28); and the rise of what the author calls "transgenic" crops beginning with the Flavr Savr tomato (#29). Smith carefully avoids the more commonly used term, GMOs or genetically modified organisms when he states that "between 70 ad 75 percent of all processed foods in United States grocery stores may contain ingredients from transgenic plants."
While I enjoyed the author's choices of turning points, here are others I would like to have seen him cover. The invention of high fructose corn syrup in 1957 and how/why its consumption rose to 39 lbs per person by 2009. Victory Gardens, the ultimate local food story when, for three years during World War II, American families turned to their gardens and collectively produced almost half of all homeland produce. And finally, a question: What turning point launched us into the world of huge food portions and super-sized drinks? After all, the original McDonalds hamburger was only 1.5 oz.
Modern-day American culture is often said to be shaped in part by its food. Yet the mass produced, conglomerate-dominated American food world and all of its variety is, by no means, truly representative of America past, present or maybe even the future.
In 30 distinct chapters or mini essays the author carefully dissects the broad range of American food history over time, mirrored by industrialisation, globalisation and a growing level of consumer choice (albeit owned by a small number of mega companies). Written in an accessible academic style, the language is engaging and explanatory without it feeling like a lecture. Whether you are reading for fun or for study, the various nuggets of information, anecdotes and maybe even a few myths being debunked will keep you engaged to the (rather too closely-printed together) text in this book.
American culture is said to be a great mixing pot, derived from a multitude of different cultures who have immigrated and made America their home, importing favourite recipes from home, maybe "Americanising" them slightly and seeing how they become American staples. Pizzas, Hot Dogs, Bagels... all true "All American" foods in their own modern-day right, but Uncle Sam can hardly brand them as "100% Original American".
The growth of frozen foods, ready-made meals, mass-production and logistical developments all fall under the microscope. Other industries benefitted through this rapid pace of change. Not every development is necessarily beneficial or appreciated, as the latter chapter on so-called genetically-modified "Frankenfoods" show, yet even in the early days of frozen foods and processed foods there was a degree of scepticism in many sections of society.
Towards the rear of the book, as befitting such an academic work, are a multitude of various notes, bibliographic references and a top rate index. Many academically-orientated books tend to forget the average reader can also have a quest for knowledge. Not so this book. Sure, it is not richly illustrated with lots of colourful photographs and various "pull out" boxes, but the book does not feel any the worse for the lack of this and certainly the language and overall "feel" of the book is positive and welcoming, or as much as an inanimate object can be.
So overall a great read for the information curious. A thoughtful resource for those who need to study around this subject. A good little read overall, particularly when you consider the price.
The concept of this book is good. However, the execution is somewhat plodding. It feels like a text book, rather than a good, relaxing read. Each chapter starts wtih a summary of the chapter, then a fuller exposition of the events, and ends with the ultimate fate of the people most involved. I will say that I did learn a bit of interesting background.
