New Books in Food

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 words “my daughter” give Stella pause. Celia lived life to the fullest, reinventing herself and discarding anything that no longer pleased her, including Stella’s father, whom Celia refused even to name. And when Stella rebelle

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-tenured winemaker, weighs in on what makes the North Fork so unique for fine wine production. He shares his journey through the intricate art of winemaking – a tale of dedication, passion, and the remarkable bond between the sun-soak

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 presents scrupulously researched and accessible cookbook presents one-of-a-kind dinner parties inspired by seminal moments in culinary history. In ten chapters—each an important moment in food history, from Ancient Rome to Al-Andalus i

Why and how local coffee bars in Italy--those distinctively Italian social and cultural spaces--have been increasingly managed by Chinese baristas since the Great Recession of 2008? Italians regard espresso as a quintessentially Italian cultural product--so much so that Italy has applied to add Italian espresso to UNESCO's official list of intangible heritages of humanity. The coff

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 this grain. Its recipes are rooted in many cultures from around the globe, including Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Award-winning author Chef JJ Johnson, along with Danica Novgorodoff, produces rice recipes for every meal and

Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023) critically examines contemporary health and wellness culture through the lens of personalization, genetification and functional foods. These developments have had a significant impact on the intersecting categories of gender, race, and class in light of the increasing adoption of digi

As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan (SUNY Press, 2024) offers a historical and ethnographic examination of the rapid industrialization of the dairy industry in Tokachi, Hokkaido. The book begins with a history of dairy farm

In Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America (UNC Press, 2023), Elizabeth Engelhardt argues that modern American food, business, caretaking, politics, sex, travel, writing, and restaurants all owe a debt to boardinghouse women in the South. From the eighteenth century well into the twentieth, entrepreneurial women ran board

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 health of our children. What better place could there be to defeat the enemy of obesity than our schools, where children are fed and educated and educated about being fed on a daily basis? But how did we come to see health promotion in sch

What defines cooking as cooking, and why does cooking matter to the understanding of society, cultural change and everyday life? Bigger Fish to Fry: A Theory of Cooking as Risk, with Greek Examples (Berghahn, 2021) by Dr. David E. Sutton explores these questions by proposing a new theory of the meaning of cooking as a willingness to put oneself and one’s meals at risk on a daily