Most Americans eat like kings without realizing it.

Mano and metate: hand tools used for grinding corn. Image by the National Parks Service via Wikimedia Commons.

Mano and metate: hand tools used for grinding corn. Image by the National Parks Service via Wikimedia Commons.

 

It’s undeniable that the way people eat has changed drastically in the last century. It took thousands of years for human societies to transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers. By contrast, it’s only been in the last hundred years or so that people have moved away from growing their own crops and raising their own livestock to getting most of their food from a restaurant or store.  

Food historian Rachel Laudan thinks that this recent and rapid transition is ultimately a good thing. She takes issue with the conventional wisdom that industrialized food is a blight. In her book Cuisine and Empire, she details the rise of “middling cuisine”—the food of the middle class. On this episode of UnTextbooked, producer Grace Davis interviews Rachel Laudan about how greater access to a wide variety of food is a marker of social equality.

 
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Grace DavisJeff EmtmanCuisine and empire, high cuisine, middling cuisine, humble cuisine, food history, food historian, food, aristocrats, peasants, globalization, farming, agriculture, industrial food complex, supermarket, grocery store, processed food, food justice, food equality, labor, crops, livestock, rachel laudan, historian, podcast, youth, history