Kitchen Literacy
PART 1—A conversation with author, Ann Vileisis about her new book Kitchen Literacy; what we know about our food, and how we came to know it. For Ann, Kitchen Literacy came about because she was struck by how much she didn’t know about the common foods she encountered in the supermarket. In conducting her research, she was surprised to learn how much people in pre-industrial times expected to know about their food. It was common that they would find out the sex and age of the animal, the farm it came from, and even the animal’s background before purchasing the meat. Certainly a far cry from our expectations today!
January 25th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Agreed, good story!
January 25th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Listening to Ann, and reading her book, I learned so much, Michael. It is a good story… actually good stories! Part 2 goes talks about the mechanization of food, and how it became so ‘normal’ to us. Fascinating.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Good interview! I recently read Omnivore’s Dilemma and saw the King Corn clip, and this hits on the same themes of localizing and knowing our food and its history. This site is an excellent resource!
Thanks,
Mary