It's a Book!

It's called Cavemen, Monks and Slow Food: A History of Eating Well, and it's about our ever changing relationship with the food we eat. I was talking to someone at some point during the writing process, and she said that she'd never been particularly interested in history because it was all about wars. I disagreed. Personally, I grew interested in history when I realized that it was actually all about food.

We first became human when changes to our teeth and legs enabled us to hunt, gather and eat a more interesting diet than our simian ancestors had enjoyed. Civilization and farming evolved hand in hand, and more recently the industrial and technological revolutions both hinged on having an ample food supply.

As a farmers' market vendor, I was especially fascinated to learn about the many important social and political developments that occurred when small-scale agriculture managed to thrive. Ancient Greek democracy emerged among independent olive and grape growers, and the bleak years of medieval feudalism drew to a close when enterprising farmers began clearing and claiming marginal land, and striking out on their own.

But there are already plenty of terrific food history books out there telling you how we came to eat what we eat. I was more interested in exploring how we came to enjoy the foods that we prefer, and how longstanding attitudes and feelings about food tie into today's issues and debates, such as organic foods, local eating, vegetarianism, and whether foodies are inevitably snobbish.

Copies are available on Amazon, and I'm working hard to get it into bookstores and libraries. In the meantime, I'll be blogging more regularly about the long view. Thanks for listening.