Kitchen literacy : how we lost knowledge of where food comes from and why we need to get it back /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Vileisis, Ann.
Imprint:	Washington : Island Press/Shearwater Books, ©2008.
Description:	1 online resource (332 pages) : illustrations
Language:	English
Subject:	Cooking, American -- History. Food habits -- United States -- History. Diet -- United States -- History. Diet. Cooking, American. Food habits. United States. Electronic books. History.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11183078

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781435676633 1435676637 9781597263719 1597263710 9781597261449 1597261440
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-307) and index. Print version record.
Summary:	Ask children where food comes from, and they will 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 become so disconnected from the sources of our breads, beef, cheeses, cereal, apples, and countless other foods that nourish us every day? The answer is a sensory-rich journey through the history of making dinner, as this book 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. The author chronicles profound changes in how American cooks have considered their foods over two centuries and delivers a powerful statement: what we don't know could hurt us. As the distance between farm and table grew, we went from knowing particular places and specific stories behind our foods' origins to instead relying on advertisers' claims. The woman who raised, plucked, and cooked her own chicken knew its entire life history while today most of us have no idea whether hormones were fed to our poultry. Industrialized eating is undeniably convenient, but it has also created health and environmental problems, including food-borne pathogens, toxic pesticides, and pollution from factory farms. Though the hidden costs of modern meals can be high, it is shown 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, this book will make us think differently about what we eat.
Other form:	Print version: Vileisis, Ann. Kitchen literacy. Washington : Island Press/Shearwater Books, ©2008 9781597261449 1597261440

Table of Contents:

Introduction : Missing stories
ch. 1. A meal by Martha
Envisioning a foodshed
Nature in Martha's garden
Tales of turkeys
The energy of eating
Consciousness of cookery
ch. 2. To market, to market
The transcription of kitchen know-how
To market
Who did the shopping?
ch. 3. Mystifying the mundane
Place of origin
The waning of wild foods
The abstraction of animals' lives
ch. 4. Denaturing the senses
The debut of cans
The power of labels
The mimicry of margarine
Eating by eye
ch. 5. A new longing for nature
The civility of cookery
The grounding nature of growing food
The unseemliness of stewed songbirds
The all-natural body
Allure of the natural.
ch. 6. Rise of the modern food sensibility
Bolstering brand names and promoting packages
The home economists' twist
Not-so-contented cows
The appeal of the modern
Nature transcended
ch. 7. The covenant of ignorance
New food chains : the rise of supermarket shopping
100 million guinea pigs
The secrets of DDT
For convenience sake
Hidden on supermarket shelves
ch. 8. Kitchen countertrends
The persistence of the natural
Burgers and rain forests
A purposeful palate
Turning attention back to farms
Epilogue : Returning stories to the modern kitchen
Notes
Illustration credits
Acknowledgments
Index.

Kitchen literacy : how we lost knowledge of where food comes from and why we need to get it back /

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