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In the blizzard of attention around the virtues of local food production, food writers and activists place environmental protection, animal welfare, and saving small farms at the forefront of their attention. Yet amid this turn to wholesome and responsible food choices, the lives and working conditions of farmworkers are often an afterthought.<br /><br /><i>Labor and the Locavore</i> focuses on one of the most vibrant local food economies in the country, the Hudson Valley that supplies New York restaurants and farmers markets. Based on more than a decade’s in-depth interviews with workers, farmers, and others, Gray’s examination clearly shows how the currency of agrarian values serves to mask the labor concerns of an already hidden workforce. <br /><br />She also explores the historical roots of farmworkers’ predicaments and examines the ethnic shift from Black to Latino workers. With an analysis that can be applied to local food concerns around the country, this book challenges the reader to consider how the mentality of the alternative food movements implies a comprehensive food ethic that addresses workers’ concerns.<br /><br />

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This book is an interdisciplinary primer on critical thinking and effective action for the future of our global agrifood system, based on an understanding of the system’s biological and sociocultural roots. Key components of the book are a thorough analysis of the assumptions underlying different perspectives on problems related to food and agriculture around the world and a discussion of alternative solutions. David Cleveland argues that combining selected aspects of small-scale traditional agriculture with modern scientific agriculture can help balance our biological need for food with its environmental impact—and continue to fulfill cultural, social, and psychological needs related to food.<br> <br> <i>Balancing on a Planet </i> is based on Cleveland’s research and engaging teaching about food and agriculture for more than three decades. It is a tool to help students, faculty, researchers, and interested readers understand debates about the current crisis and alternatives for the future.<br>

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Calories—too few or too many—are the source of health problems affecting billions of people in today’s globalized world. Although calories are essential to human health and survival, they cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted. They are also hard to understand. In <i>Why Calories Count,</i> Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim explain in clear and accessible language what calories are and how they work, both biologically and politically. As they take readers through the issues that are fundamental to our understanding of diet and food, weight gain, loss, and obesity, Nestle and Nesheim sort through a great deal of the misinformation put forth by food manufacturers and diet program promoters. They elucidate the political stakes and show how federal and corporate policies have come together to create an «eat more» environment. Finally, having armed readers with the necessary information to interpret food labels, evaluate diet claims, and understand evidence as presented in popular media, the authors offer some candid advice: Get organized. Eat less. Eat better. Move more. Get political.

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The U.S. wine industry is growing rapidly and wine consumption is an increasingly important part of American culture. <i>American Wine Economics</i> is intended for students of economics, wine professionals, and general readers who seek to gain a unified and systematic understanding of the economic organization of the wine trade. <br /><br />The wine industry possesses unique characteristics that make it interesting to study from an economic perspective. This volume delivers up-to-date information about complex attributes of wine; grape growing, wine production, and wine distribution activities; wine firms and consumers; grape and wine markets; and wine globalization. Thornton employs economic principles to explain how grape growers, wine producers, distributors, retailers, and consumers interact and influence the wine market. The volume includes a summary of findings and presents insights from the growing body of studies related to wine economics. <br /><br />Economic concepts, supplemented by numerous examples and anecdotes, are used to gain insight into wine firm behavior and the importance of contractual arrangements in the industry. Thornton also provides a detailed analysis of wine consumer behavior and what studies reveal about the factors that dictate wine-buying decisions.<br /><br />

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In this book, Clive Coates, a Master of Wine who has spent four decades of his distinguished career in Burgundy, shares his vast insider’s knowledge of one of the world’s most exciting, complex, and intractable wine regions. Personal rather than encyclopedic, and informed by Coates’s unparalleled access to regular, extensive tastings, this book imparts the author’s philosophy and expertise as to how best approach, appreciate, and discuss the wines of Burgundy. Coates updates and supplements the domaine profiles featured in his two previous books, <i>Côte D’Or</i> and <i>The Wines of Burgundy</i> with new in-depth assessments of specific vineyards. Divided into three sections—Vineyard Profiles, Domaine Profiles, and Vintage Assessments—<i>My Favorite Burgundies</i> considers the leading vineyards and today’s top estates, and features detailed maps and a wealth of tasting notes that reflect how the wine develops as it ages. Enlivened by Coates’s singular, firsthand knowledge and precise descriptions, this is an indispensable guide for amateur and professional enophiles alike.

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Combining the best of memoir, travel literature, and food writing, Christopher Bakken delves into one of the most underappreciated cuisines in Europe in this rollicking celebration of the Greek table. He explores the traditions and history behind eight elements of Greek cuisine—olives, bread, fish, cheese, beans, wine, meat, and honey—and journeys through the country searching for the best examples of each. He picks olives on Thasos, bakes bread on Crete, eats thyme honey from Kythira with one of Greece’s greatest poets, and learns why Naxos is the best place for cheese in the Cyclades. Working with local cooks and artisans, he offers an intimate look at traditional village life, while honoring the conversations, friendships, and leisurely ceremonies of dining around which Hellenic culture has revolved for thousands of years. A hymn to slow food and to seasonal and sustainable cuisine, <i>Honey, Olives, Octopus</i> is a lyrical celebration of Greece, where such concepts have always been a simple part of living and eating well.

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Beyond Hummus and Falafel is the story of how food has come to play a central role in how Palestinian citizens of Israel negotiate life and a shared cultural identity within a tense political context. At the household level, Palestinian women govern food culture in the home, replicating tradition and acting as agents of change and modernization, carefully adopting and adapting mainstream Jewish culinary practices and technologies in the kitchen. Food is at the center of how Arab culture minorities define and shape the boundaries and substance of their identity within Israel.

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Veteran food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan opens the world of Hakka cooking to Western audiences in this fascinating chronicle that traces the rustic cuisine to its roots in a history of multiple migrations. Beginning in her grandmother’s kitchen in California, Anusasananan travels to her family’s home in China, and from there fans out to embrace Hakka cooking across the globe—including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Peru, and beyond. More than thirty home cooks and chefs share their experiences of the Hakka diaspora as they contribute over 140 recipes for everyday Chinese comfort food as well as more elaborate festive specialties.<br /><br />This book likens Hakka cooking to a nomadic type of «soul food,» or a hearty cooking tradition that responds to a shared history of hardship and oppression. Earthy, honest, and robust, it reflects the diversity of the estimated 75 million Hakka living in China and greater Asia, and in scattered communities around the world—yet still retains a core flavor and technique. Anusasananan’s deep personal connection to the tradition, together with her extensive experience testing and developing recipes, make this book both an intimate journey of discovery and an exciting introduction to a vibrant cuisine.<br /><br />

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After thirty years of leading culinary tours throughout Mexico, Marilyn Tausend teams up with Mexican chef and regional cooking authority Ricardo Muñoz Zurita to describe how the cultures of many profoundly different peoples combined to produce the unmistakable flavors of Mexican food. Weaving engrossing personal narrative with a broad selection of recipes, the authors show how the culinary heritage of indigenous groups, Europeans, and Africans coalesced into one of the world’s most celebrated cuisines.<br /><br />Cooks from a variety of cultures share recipes and stories that provide a glimpse into the preparation of both daily and festive foods. In a Maya village in Yucatán, <i>cochinita de pibil</i> is made with the native peccary instead of pig. In Mexico City, a savory <i>chile poblano</i> is wrapped in puff-pastry. On Oaxaca’s coast, families of African heritage share their way of cooking the local seafood. The book includes a range of recipes, from the delectably familiar to the intriguingly unusual.<br /><br />

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Although South Asian cookery and gastronomy has transformed contemporary urban foodscape all over the world, social scientists have paid scant attention to this phenomenon. <i>Curried Cultures</i>–a wide-ranging collection of essays–explores the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food, covering the cuisine of the colonial period to the contemporary era, investigating its material and symbolic meanings. <i>Curried Cultures</i> challenges disciplinary boundaries in considering South Asian gastronomy by assuming a proximity to dishes and diets that is often missing when food is a lens to investigate other topics. The book’s established scholarly contributors examine food to comment on a range of cultural activities as they argue that the practice of cooking and eating matter as an important way of knowing the world and acting on it.

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