Food Archives - Public Books

The World Is a Factory Farm

Ben Platt — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 15:00:20 +0000

If factory farming is the source of pathogens like SARS-CoV-2, could smaller-scale farms and communities—even in China—be the safest alternative?

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Public Thinker: B. R. Cohen on How Food Became “Pure”

Imani Radney — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 15:00:32 +0000

“There were so many new laws, I had to make a map showing the spread and intensity of antimargarine laws in states over a quarter century.”[none-for-homepage]

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Why Seek Impossible Foods?

Imani Radney — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 15:00:06 +0000

The Impossible™ burger does pollute less. But does this matter, in the face of capitalism’s continued control of the global food system?

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A Culinary Golden Age—but for Whom?

Annie Galvin — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:00:52 +0000

In the 17th century, nostalgia was considered a disease. Today, nostalgia has shifted from an individual illness to a collective malaise. It is now often ...

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What Future for Magic Mushrooms?

Annie Galvin — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 16:00:00 +0000

Hallucinogenic mushrooms have been used for centuries by numerous indigenous peoples around the world. These fungi appear in Aztec statues (like the one ...

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“There Is Always a Norther North”: Highway 1, Alaska

Annie Galvin — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 14:00:13 +0000

There’s a fire burning by Swan Lake. For the sixth time in the last 20 years ...

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Can a Recipe Save Your Life?

Stephen Twilley — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 15:00:14 +0000

A recipe can be more than a guide to making food. A recipe can be a mantra, a ritual, a symbolic stay against chaos in the psyche and in the world. A hybrid genre ...

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For the Love of Doughnuts

Ismail Ibrahim — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:00:28 +0000

On the surface, Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie tells the story of Minerva and Cal, who fall in love with each other. Really, though, Bet Me is a story about a fat woman ...

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India’s Garbage Politics

Stephen Twilley — Tue, 08 May 2018 15:00:58 +0000

Writing in 1993, after decades spent documenting America’s shifting landscapes, poet A. R. Ammons suggested that “garbage [ought] to be the poem of our time.” Inspired by “mounds of disposal” along a stretch of I-95 in Florida, Ammons’s plea to recognize the silent ubiquity of waste would grow into a book-length tribute.1 But the waste […]

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The Vegan Resistance

Asey Koh — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 15:00:29 +0000

In 2011, Oprah Winfrey asked her staff at Harpo Studios to take a vegan challenge: eat no meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or any other animal products for seven days. The episode, which has since enjoyed a robust afterlife on YouTube, included a visit to a Cargill meat processing plant, cooking advice from “veganish” self-help advocate […]

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