New Books in Food

Peter Singer, "Consider the Turkey" (Princeton UP, 2024)

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A turkey is the centerpiece of countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Yet most of us know almost nothing about today’s specially bred, commer...

Lisa Sheryl Jacobson. "Intoxicating Pleasures: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey After Prohibition" (U California Press, 2024)

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In popular memory the repeal of US Prohibition in 1933 signaled alcohol’s decisive triumph in a decades-long culture war. But as Dr. Lisa Jacobson r...

Jordan D. Rosenblum, "Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig" (NYU Press, 2024)

24 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jews do not eat pig. This (not always true) observation has been made by both Jews and non-Jews for more than three thousand years and is rooted in bi...

Jeffrey M. Pilcher, "Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity" (Oxford UP, 2024)

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m speaking with Jeffrey Pilcher, Professor of Food History at the University of Toronto. We are discussing his new book, Hopped Up: How Tra...

Russell Thomas, "Tofu: A Culinary History" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

To the untrained eye there’s nothing as unexciting as tofu, normally regarded as a tasteless, beige, congealed mass of crushed, boiled soybeans. How...

Rachel Hope Cleves, "Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex" (Polity, 2024)

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We take the edible trappings of flirtation for granted: chocolate covered strawberries and romance, oysters on the half shell and desire, the eggplant...

Travis A. Weisse, "Health Freaks: America's Diet Champions and the Specter of Chronic Illness" (UNC Press, 2024)

23 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Health Freaks: America's Diet Champions and the Specter of Chronic Illness (University of North Carolina Press, 2024) Dr. Travis A. Weisse tells ...

Luisa Weiss, "Classic German Cooking" (Ten Speed Press, 2024)

23 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

To many, German food is humble comfort food, the kind of food that may not win a beauty award, but more than makes up for it with its power to soothe,...

Jill Norman, "The English Table: Our Food Through the Ages" (Reaktion, 2024)

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The English Table: Our Food through the Ages (Reaktion, 2024) by Jill Norman is a delectable journey through the culinary history of England, from a...

Peter Singer, "Consider the Turkey" (Princeton UP, 2024)

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A turkey is the centerpiece of countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Yet most of us know almost nothing about today’s specially bred, commer...

Naomi S. S. Jacobs, "Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink: A Commentary" (Brill, 2018)

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink (Brill, 2018), Naomi S.S. Jacobs explores how the numerous references to food, dri...

Ashli Quesinberry Stokes and Wendy Atkins-Sayre, "Hungry Roots: How Food Communicates Appalachia's Search for Resilience" (U South Carolina Press, 2024)

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A journey through Southern Appalachia to explore the complex messages food communicates about the region. Depictions of Appalachian food culture and p...

Larisa Jasarević, "Beekeeping in the End Times" (Indiana UP, 2024)

26 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every hundred years, as the story goes, two angels wonder out loud whether the bees are still swarming. For as long as the bees are swarming, the ange...

Hélène Jawhara Piñer, "Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardic Jews" (Cherry Orchard, 2024)

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Hélène Jawhara Piñer, Gourmand World Cookbook Award-winning author of Sephardi: Cooking the History, comes a collection of 125 meticulously c...

Bananapocalypse: Plantation Southeast Asia and Its Many Afterlives

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode focuses on a cluster of issues of longstanding significance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies – plantation agriculture, ...

Ellen T. Meiser, "Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The restaurant industry is one of the few places in America where workers from lower-class backgrounds can rise to positions of power and prestige. Ye...

Anne Byrn, "Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories" (Harper Celebrate, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Witness the rise of Southern baking from the humble, make-do recipes of earlier generations to its place as one of the world's richest culinary tradit...

Eli Revelle Yano Wilson, "Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer" (U California Press, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer (U California Press, 2024) unpacks the problems and privileges of pursuing a career of...

Thomas White, "China's Camel Country: Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier" (U Washington Press, 2024)

14 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism. On the country’s arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have target...

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, "When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s" (UP of Kansas, 2022)

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Unlike a flood or fire, a the Farming Crisis of the 1980s did not have a set beginning of ending. Rather, it was a rolling, often invisible, disaster...

Jeremy Salamon, "Second Generation: 100 Hungarian and Jewish Classics Reimagined for the Modern Table" (Harvest Publications, 2024)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Jeremy Salamon the chef and owner of Agi’s Counter in Brooklyn comes 100 classic Hungarian and Jewish recipes reinvented for a new generation –...

Elizabeth A. Williams, "Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its D...

Christine Folch, "The Book of Yerba Mate: A Stimulating History" (Princeton UP, 2024)

01 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brewed from the dried leaves and tender shoots of an evergreen tree native to South America, yerba mate gives its drinkers the jolt of liquid efferves...

Henry H. Work, "Wood, Whiskey and Wine: A History of Barrels"(Reaktion Books, 2024)

01 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Barrels – we rarely acknowledge their importance, but without them we would be missing out on some of the world’s finest wines and spirits. For ov...

Susan Greenhalgh, "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (U Chicago Press, 2024) takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powe...

Constance L. Kirker and Mary Newman, "Mango: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mango: A Global History (Reaktion, 2024) by Constance L. Kirker & Dr Mary Newman is a beautifully illustrated book that takes us on a tour through th...

Hope Bohanec, "The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs" (Lantern Publishing, 2023)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As consumers become increasingly aware of the animal agriculture industry’s cruelty and environmental devastation, clever industry marketers are ada...

Christopher Beckman, "Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine" (Hurst, 2024)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine (Hurst, 2024) by Christopher Beckman takes readers on a tantalising voyage thro...

Crystal Wilkinson, "Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks" (Clarkson Potter, 2023)

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poet Laureate of Kentucky Crystal Wilkinson’s food memoir, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Co...

Roger Crowley, "Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World" (Yale UP, 2024)

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The spice islands: Specks of land in the Indonesian archipelago that were the exclusive home of cloves, commodities once worth their weight in gold. T...

Theresa McCulla, "Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A history of food in the Crescent City that explores race, power, social status, and labor. In Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans (U Chic...

Samuel Dolbee, "Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to Samuel Dolbee, Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. His book, Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and ...

Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King no...

Keja L. Valens, "Culinary Colonialism, Caribbean Cookbooks, and Recipes for National Independence" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

22 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Women across the Caribbean have been writing, reading, and exchanging cookbooks since at least the turn of the nineteenth century. These cookbooks are...

John Soluri, "Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States" (U Texas Press, 2021)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, "banana republics," and ...

Adam Zientek, "A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of French Soldiers on the Western Front" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2024)

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Zientek, Assistant Professor of History at UC Davis joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of ...

Cathy Stanton, "Food Margins: Lessons from an Unlikely Grocer" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An anthropologist walks into a grocery store—no that’s not the start of a joke, that’s the true story of how Cathy Stanton came to be involved w...

José Ciro Martínez, "States of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan" (Stanford UP, 2022)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1974 the government of Jordan established a new ministry to oversee a nationwide scheme to buy and distribute subsidized flour and regulate bakerie...

Kimberley Moore and Janis Thiessen, "Mmm... Manitoba: The Stories Behind the Foods We Eat" (U Manitoba Press, 2024)

12 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2018, Janis Thiessen, Kimberley Moore, and collaborator Kent Davies refashioned a used food truck into a mobile oral history lab. Together they emb...

Michael Gilson, "Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Britain is a nation of gardeners; the suburban garden, with its roses and privet hedges, is widely admired and copied across the world. But it is litt...

Sara B. Franklin, "The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America" (Atria, 2024)

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath...

Crystal Wilkinson, "Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks" (Clarkson Potter, 2023)

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized t...

John O'Brien, "States of Intoxication: The Place of Alcohol in Civilisation" (Routledge, 2018)

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is alcohol a universal feature of human society? Why is problematic in some countries and not others? How was alcohol helped build the modern state? T...

Tarana Husain Khan et al., Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia" (Pan Macmillan, 2023)

28 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the c...

Ruth Reichl, "The Paris Novel" (Random House, 2024)

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Stella St. Vincent, a thirty-something copy editor in 1980s New York, has survived a relationship with her mother, Celia, so complicated that even the...

Richard Olsen-Harbich, "Sun, Sea, Soil, Wine: Winemaking on the North Fork of Long Island" (SUNY Press, 2024)

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With his new book Sun, Sea, Soil, Wine: Winemaking on the North Fork of Long Island (SUNY Press, 2024), Richard Olsen-Harbich, Long Island's longest...

Victoria Flexner and Jay Reifel, "A History of the World in 10 Dinners: 2,000 Years, 100 Recipes" (Rizoli, 2023)

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For every lover of food culture, A History of the World in 10 Dinners: 2,000 Years, 100 Recipes (Rizzoli, 2023) by Victoria Flexner and Jay Reifel p...

Grazia Ting Deng, "Chinese Espresso: Contested Race and Convivial Space in Contemporary Italy" (Princeton UP, 2024)

14 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why and how local coffee bars in Italy--those distinctively Italian social and cultural spaces--have been increasingly managed by Chinese baristas sin...

JJ Johnson and Danica Novgorodoff, "The Simple Art of Rice: Recipes from Around the World for the Heart of Your Table" (Flatiron Books, 2023)

13 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Simple Art of Rice: Recipes from Around the World for the Heart of Your Table (Flatiron Books, 2023) is a cookbook celebrating the versatility of...

Tina Sikka, "Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023) critically examines contemporary health and wellne...

Paul Hansen, "Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan" (SUNY Press, 2024)

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of O...

Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, "Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America" (UNC Press, 2023)

31 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America (UNC Press, 2023), Elizabeth Engelhardt argu...

José Tenorio, "School Food Politics in Mexico: The Corporatization of Obesity and Healthy Eating Policies" (Routledge, 2023)

30 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For decades now, we’ve all heard the refrain – we are in a war against obesity, with perhaps the most important battle being fought over the healt...

David E. Sutton, "Bigger Fish to Fry: A Theory of Cooking as Risk, with Greek Examples" (Berghahn, 2021)

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What defines cooking as cooking, and why does cooking matter to the understanding of society, cultural change and everyday life? Bigger Fish to Fry: ...

Dinesh Wadiwel, "Animals and Capital" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 20th century, capitalist animal agriculture emerged with a twofold mission: to ruthlessly exploit animals for their labour time and enlarge hum...

Xaq Frohlich on the History of Food Labeling

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Xaq Frolich, Associate Professor of History at Auburn University, about his new book, From Label to Table...

Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm (Red Hen Press, 2023), by David Mas Masumoto. I...

Christy Spackman, "The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage" (U California Press, 2023)

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage...

Alicia Kennedy, "No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating" (Beacon Press, 2023)

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A culinary and cultural history of plant-based eating in the United States that delves into the subcultures and politics that have defined alternative...

Joanna Crosby, "Apples and Orchards Since the Eighteenth Century: Material Innovation and Cultural Tradition" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Showing how the history of the apple goes far beyond the orchard and into the social, cultural and technological developments of Britain and the USA, ...

Alessandro Gerosa, "The Hipster Economy: Taste and Authenticity in Late Modern Capitalism (UCL Press, 2024)

27 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, being authentic has become an aspiration and an imperative. The notion of authenticity shapes the consumption habits of individuals in the most...

The Taste of Water: A Conversation with Christy Spackman

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After WAY too long a hiatus, Peoples & Things is back! GET EXCITED!! In this episode, host Lee Vinsel interviews Christy Spackman, Assistant Professor...

Marcia Bricker Halperin, "Kibbitz and Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow's Cafeteria" (Cornell UP, 2023)

25 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle decades of the twentieth century in New York City, Dubrow’s cafeterias in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and the garment district of...

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, "Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World" (U California Press, 2022)

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World (University of California Press, 2022) by Dr. Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre is a bold, rigoro...

Rob Percival, "The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy, and the Future of Meat" (Pegasus, 2022)

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies, by geopolitical tensions, and the evolution of cultural pre...

Yamini Narayanan, "Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India" (Stanford UP, 2023)

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

India imposes stringent criminal penalties, including life imprisonment in some states, for cow slaughter, based on a Hindu ethic of revering the cow ...

Julia Ornelas-Higdon, "The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine, 1769–1920" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

California’s wine country conjures images of pastoral vineyards and cellars lined with oak barrels. As a mainstay of the state’s economy, Californ...

Use of Bacteriophages as Natural Antimicrobials to Manage Bacterial Pathogens in Aquaculture in Vietnam and Australia

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing protein production industry globally, with Vietnam one of the top producers and exporters of seafood products. In V...

Charlotte Coté, "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2022)

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Food is at the center of everything, writes University of Washington professor of American Indian Studies Charlotte Coté. In A Drum in One Hand, A...

James R. Fichter, "Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776" (Cornell UP, 2023)

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. James R. Fichter reveals that despite the so-called...

Loka Ashwood et al., "Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-By-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm" (UNC Press, 2023)

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the late 1970s, Right to Farm Laws have been adopted by states across the US to limit nuisance lawsuits against farmers engaged in standard agri...

Ian MacAllen, "Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Ian MacAllen traces the evolution of traditional Italian-American cuisi...

Matthew Batt, "The Last Supper Club: A Waiter's Requiem" (U of Minnesota Press, 2023)

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During a year on sabbatical from his university position, Matthew Batt realized he needed money—fast—and it just so happened that a craft brewery ...

Martha C. Nussbaum, "Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility" (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.  Animals are in tro...

Benjamin Lorr, "The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket" (Penguin, 2020)

01 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode of the New Books in Economic and Business History is an interview with New York writer Benjamin Lorr. Benjamin Lorr is the author of Hel...

Benjamin R. Siegel, “Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India” (Cambridge UP, 2018)

01 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his first book Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India (Cambridge University Press 2018), historian Benjamin Robert Siegel ...

Ilaria Tabusso Marcyan, "The Cultural Roots of Slow Food: Peasants, Partisans, and the Landscape of Italian Resistance" (Lexington Books, 2023)

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Cultural Roots of Slow Food: Peasants, Partisans, and the Landscape of Italian Resistance (Lexington Books, 2023) focuses on the work of a varie...

Benjamin A. Wurgaft and Merry White, "Ways of Eating: Exploring Food Through History and Culture" (U California Press, 2023)

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food. From the origins of agriculture to contemporary debates over culinary authentici...

Chetan Choithani, "Migration, Food Security and Development: Insights from Rural India" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Migration, Food Security and Development: Insights from Rural India (Cambridge UP, 2023) examines the role of migration as a livelihood strategy in i...

Caroline J. Smith, "Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women's Food Memoirs" (U Mississippi Press, 2023)

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Between 2000 and 2010, many contemporary US-American women writers were returning to the private space of the kitchen, writing about their experiences...

Lynn Z. Bloom, "Recipe" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recipe (Bloomsbury, 2022) by Lynn Z. Bloom reveals the surprising lessons that recipes teach, in addition to the obvious instructions on how to prepa...

Yan Slobodkin, "The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies" (Cornell UP, 2023)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Yan Slobodkin traces the history of famine in t...

Jesse Dart, "Feeding the Hustle: Free Food & Care Inside the Tech Industry" (Lexington Books, 2022)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Food is increasingly a subject of interest in social sciences: how we cook, consume, and share food is relevant to our social lives. In Feeding the H...

Grace Lin, "Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods" (Little, Brown Books, 2023)

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Newbery and Caldecott honoree and New York Times bestselling author Grace Lin joins New Books Network to talk about her new, groundbreaking, lushly il...

Jeremy Scheck, "ScheckEats-Cooking Smarter: Friendly Recipes with a Side of Science" (Harvest, 2023)

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From next-gen culinary phenom and TikTok superstar Jeremy Scheck, joins New Books Network to talk about his very first book, sharing easy and deliciou...

Dolly Kikon and Joel Rodrigues, "Food Journeys: Stories from the Heart" (Zubaan Books, 2023)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Food Journeys: Stories from the Heart (Zubaan Books, 2023) is a powerful collection that draws on personal experiences, and the meaning of grief, ra...

Christopher A. Whatley and Joanna Hambly, "Salt: Scotland's Newest Oldest Industry" (Birlinn, 2023)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservat...

Sara Byala, "Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African" (Oxford UP, 2023)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Travel to virtually any African country and you are likely to find a Coca-Cola, often a cold one at that. Bottled asks how this carbonated drink bec...

Samiparna Samanta, "Meat, Mercy, Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920" (Oxford UP, 2021)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Samiparna Samanta disenta...

Chhaya Kolavalli, "Well-Intentioned Whiteness: Green Urban Development and Black Resistance in Kansas City" (U Georgia Press, 2023)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chhaya Kolavalli's book Well-Intentioned Whiteness: Green Urban Development and Black Resistance in Kansas City (U Georgia Press, 2023) documents ho...

Anne Mendelson, "Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood" (Columbia UP, 2023)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why is cows' milk, which few nonwhite people can digest, promoted as a science-backed dietary necessity in countries where the majority of the populat...

Xaq Frohlich, "From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age" (U California Press, 2023)

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Xaq Frohlich’s From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (U California Press, 2023) is a biography of the Nutrition ...

Fuchsia Dunlop, "Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food" (Norton, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese labourers began to sojourn and settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake...

Babette’s Feast

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1965, Bob Dylan sang, “She’s got everything she needs; she’s an artist; she don’t look back.” About twenty years later, Gabriel Axel bril...

Robert C. Bradley, "Eating Peru: A Gastronomic Journey" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)

28 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, Peru is rightly recognized as the number one food destination on the planet. But twenty-five years ago, the world’s culinary critics were foc...

Big Night

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes, the idea for a film would work on paper—such is the case with Big Night (1996), a film that packs in as much real life a full novel. “...

Christopher John Bosso, "Why SNAP Works: A Political History--And Defense--of the Food Stamp Program" (U California Press, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program evolve from a Depression-era effort to use up surplus goods into America's foundational food ass...

Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill, "Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets" (Columbia UP, 2022)

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What makes fad diets so appealing to so many people? And how did these fads become so central to conversations about food and nutrition? Anxious Eater...

Christina Ward, "Holy Food: How Cults, Communes and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat" (Process, 2023)

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Independent food historian and author Christina Ward joins New Books Network to discuss her highly anticipated book Holy Food: How Cults, Communes an...

Globalisation and Glocalisation of Bubble Tea

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea, boba or tapioca milk tea is a popular drink in Asia. Wherever there is Asian diaspora, such as in the USA, o...