Category Archives: politics

Local Dirt

Posted on October 10, 2020 by Appetite for Books

Here’s how it started with this book. At first I thought, sure, eating local is easy if you live and work on a farm, But as I flipped through the seasonal recipes I remembered those few leaves of kale and … Continue reading →

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CHoWline: Soul Food

Posted on July 4, 2020 by Appetite for Books

Have an American meal on this Independence Day–chips and salsa, pizza, hamburger–it’s a big table with room for everyone.

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CHoWline: Food in the Gilded Age

Posted on June 26, 2020 by Appetite for Books

In the 1980s there was a Texas congressman who was skeptical that there were hungry people in the US–poor people looked too fat to be hungry. He was an idiot. Just because there is “food” doesn’t mean it’s healthy, a … Continue reading →

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Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C.

Posted on October 26, 2019 by Appetite for Books

Examining how we use words, in this case “food desert,” makes us see people and places in new ways–more complex and complete. In this book, Ashante Reese examines a single DC neighborhood and finds agency in food that might otherwise … Continue reading →

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T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks

Posted on September 8, 2018 by Appetite for Books

This book records the cooking and shopping experiences of two American educators in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, and is an excellent mix of research, experience, and recipes. And yes, some of the tales of privation–wonky stoves, uneven markets–are true, but … Continue reading →

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Cleaning Out the Basement–Persephone Books 2

Posted on June 30, 2018 by Appetite for Books

This is another superbly chosen and tailored book from Persephone Books on Lamb’s Conduit Street in London. And what I didn’t mention in the previous Persephone post is a tasty bit of urban planning. Lamb’s Conduit Street is not a … Continue reading →

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Prison Food in America

Posted on May 5, 2018 by Appetite for Books

This review appeared in the May 2018 issue of CHoWline, the monthly newsletter of the Culinary Historians of Washington, DC. It made me realized that an often overlooked aspect of freedom is being able to choose what we eat, options … Continue reading →

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United Tastes, The Making of the First American Cookbook

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Appetite for Books

American Cookery is known as the first American cookbook, often because of it’s recipes for “pompkins,” “cramberries,” and cornmeal (used in the estimable Indian Pudding). But it is American for so many more reasons–how it was written, published, distributed, and … Continue reading →

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Farm to Fork in Montgomery County

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Appetite for Books

We’re dining this weekend from Farm to Fork with the Montgomery Countryside Alliance–celebrating and savoring the full and delicious menu of food produced on the 93,000 acres of Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve–a deeply diverse and beautiful place created in a … Continue reading →

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Happy Independence Day

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Appetite for Books

This menu, served on the S. S. Atlantic on July 4, 1963, displays the kind of happy United States history we’ve come to know is a fraction of the story. And check out the menu–more creativity in the word play … Continue reading →

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