Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back
CONNECTICUT BOOK AWARD FINALIST
REAL SIMPLE MAGAZINE, ONE OF “50 BOOKS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE”
Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably answer, “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their replies may not be much different. Where our foods are raised and what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf have become mysteries. How did we come to the modern-day situation of knowing so little about the foods that nourish us every day?
Ann Vileisis’s answer is a sensory-rich journey through the history of making dinner. Kitchen Literacy takes us from an eighteenth-century garden to today’s sleek supermarket aisles, and eventually to farmer’s markets that are now enjoying a resurgence. Vileisis chronicles profound changes in how American cooks have considered their foods over two centuries as the distance between farm and table grew and we went from knowing particular places and stories behind our foods’ origins to instead relying on advertisers’ claims. Although industrialized eating is undeniably convenient, it has also created hidden health and environmental problems, including food-borne pathogens, toxic pesticides, and pollution from factory farms.
Vileisis shows that greater understanding can lead consumers to healthier and more sustainable choices. Revealing how knowledge of our food has been lost and how it might now be regained, Kitchen Literacy promises to make us think differently about what we eat.
REVIEW HIGHLIGHTS and PRAISE
“Her book performs a valuable service in reminding readers that we were not always so clueless when it came to making food choices.”
—Washington Post
“Kitchen Literacy brings home just how essential it is for eaters to cultivate knowledge of their food.”
—American Scientist
“This important and eye-opening book uncovers the machinery behind the modern food industry….Vileisis gathers it all in one place, weaving a clear, easy-to-read tapestry whose meaning is plain by the end of the book: you are what you eat, so think about what you've been eating.”
—Library Journal
“It’s a fascinating read and, in my opinion, should be on every nightstand in the country!”
—Lake Oswego Review
“A ‘must-read’ for modern-day consumers in the post-family farm era.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Vileisis' book provides an urgent historical overview on how distant foods rose to such prominence in the American marketplace and diet.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencier
“Unless you are out to sea in a kayak hunting whales, or unless you are harvesting songbirds while aloft under a handglider, you will want to read this book.”
—Kip Anderson, The Victory Garden
“A clearly written, historically grounded, and impassioned discussion of how and why Americans became so ignorant about the food they buy, cook, and eat.”
—Journal of American History
“Vileisis offers well-crafted prose, deep and careful research, and a provocative argument. She reminds environmental historians that ‘knowing food isn’t solely the means to a meal; it also provides a fundamental means for making sense of our place in the world.’ Like a chef who prepares a great dinner, Vileisis leaves her reader sated, but also eager to see where the menu—or story—may lead next.”
—Environmental History
“This book is important to me because it lays out our nation’s skewed relationship with food and delves into history to do so…. It should speak to anyone who reads and eats, for it does go to the heart of the matter—the corruption of food and the need to bring it back to where it belongs.”
—Deborah Madison, chef and author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and many other excellent books about food and cooking
“It is no exaggeration to say that the single most vital connection any of us has to the natural world is the food we eat. And yet the paradox of modern life is that over the past century, most of us have become profoundly ignorant about where our food comes from and the myriad ways it affects us. In her wonderful new book Kitchen Literacy, Ann Vileisis explains how we came to forget so much about the food we eat...and how much we gain by remembering the journeys it makes to reach our tables.”
—William Cronon, author of Changes in the Land and Nature’s Metropolis“Kitchen Literacy goes to the heart of our disconnection from one of the most vital and intimate aspects of our lives—how we feed ourselves and our families. Accessible, entertaining, and enlightening, Ann Vileisis’s new book has given us the historical context to understand what we have lost and how to bring food back to where it belongs—at the center of our families and communities.”
—Michael Ableman, farmer, author of Fields of Plenty
Q&A with Ann Vileisis about Kitchen Literacy
PRESENTATION about Kitchen Literacy
HOW TO BUY
You can buy Kitchen Literacy from your local bookstore or one of the following online retailers:
Indiebound.org (your local bookstore online)
SELECT MEDIA
The online TV show Cooking Up A Story featured Kitchen Literacy in a series of mini-documentary shorts:
This podcast features an interview about Kitchen Literacy with Ann by bibliophile, radio producer, and NPR contributor Rick Kleffel:
This podcast about the “new American meal” features a 3-way conversation with Ann and authors Michael Pollan and Molly Katzen, produced by Rick Kleffel:
Read an article Ann wrote about Kitchen Literacy in Oregon Tilth magazine
Watch a slide lecture that Ann recently gave about Kitchen Literacy at the Arlington Library