Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food: Perspectives on Eating from the Past and a Preliminary Agenda for the Future (OSU Press Horning Visiting Scholars Publication)

Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is a practical food history lesson, an editorial about everything gone wrong with modern food, and a call to arms of the kitchen knife variety. Historian Ken Albala relates his experiences of growing, cooking, and sharing food in ways that people did in the past, ways that we have needlessly lost. He finds lessons in surprising places, including obscure seventeenth century Italian farmer/nobles, ancient statesmen, and quirky cheesemakers from centuries ago. A rare but important variety of historical activism, Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food uses history to enrich people's lives through a greater awareness and appreciation of what they put in their bodies. Read more... Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is a practical food history lesson, an editorial on our use of packaged convenience foods, and a call to armsof the kitchen variety. Mixing food writing and history, adding a dash of cookbook, author and scholar Ken Albala shares the story of what happened when he started taking food history seriously and embarked on a mission to grow, cook, and share food in the ways that people did in the past. Albala considers what the traditions we have needlessly lost have to offer us today: a serious appreciation for the generative power of the earth, the great pleasures of cooking food, and the joy of sharing food with family, friends, and even strangers. In Albalas compelling book, obscure seventeenth-century Italian farmer-nobles, Roman statesmen, and quirky cheesemakers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries all offer lessons about our relationship with the food we eat. A rare form of historical activism, Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is written for anyone who likes to eat, loves to cook, and knows how to throw a great dinner party. An OSU Press Horning Visiting Scholars Publication.