Food for Thought: Kitchen Literacy Book

I just finished a fascinating book called Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need To Get It Back by writer and historian, Ann Vileisis. The book traces the history of our relationship to food from the late 18th century to today starting with a simple but probably delicious meal of "bakt lamb with string beens and cucumbers" cooked by a woman named Martha Ballard in August of 1790 in the area now known as Augusta, Maine and ending with some anecdotes from her own garden in coastal Oregon.

Along the way, she covers everything from the first canned foods to the rise of marketing to processed foods to industrial production to home economics to pesticides to additives to genetically engineered food to the organic movement and much much more.

Luckily for all of us, Ann just agreed to an interview so there will be more to come on Kitchen Literacy in a few weeks. In the meantime, I suggest you pick up a copy and start reading -- this is good stuff! You can buy it from either Island Press (the publisher) or from Amazon (which somehow manages to offer the book for roughly $10 less than the publisher.)