food
A dinner party where women talk food
Alissa Wilkinson imagines Maya Angelou hosting Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Laurie Colwin, and others.
by Amy Frykholm
Cooking my way through Africa’s east coast
Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen offer a rare thing: an English-language cookbook of African food that isn’t from Ethiopia.
Lisa Donovan tells the stories behind the recipes
Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger exposes the misogyny within the restaurant industry.
Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan on food justice and Jesus
“Jesus was preaching to people who were in the middle of the worst farming and fishing crisis yet.”
Amy Frykholm interviews Gary Nabhan
The pandemic didn’t make our food system vulnerable
It always has been—because vulnerability is part of creation.
In West Virginia, the teachers’ strike made new space for Eucharistic living
A church on my street fed food-insecure kids while schools were closed. The work of justice flowed outward from the table.
Can hunger end?
The binding constraint on progress against hunger and malnutrition is weak political commitment.
The (slight) Chipotle difference
Several weeks ago, Chipotle founder Steve Ells published a column headlined "Conventional vs. Grass-fed Beef." As you've probably heard, Chipotle prefers the latter—the fast-casual burrito chain has a lot to say about agricultural reform, ethical food, etc. But here the subject is more complicated than the title suggests: Ells was defending Chipotle's decision to stop buying exclusively domestic beef in favor of importing some of it from Australia, where the grass-fed supply is better.
It's a classic food-ethics connundrum: should you go with the higher production standard, or the food produced closer to home? Chipotle chose the former, a perfectly defensible choice if you just have the two.
Literal forbidden fruit
I have lived in the U.S. for nearly three years now, and there is so much to love: the beauty and the grandeur of the landscape, the welcome and hospitality I’ve found in one city after another, and so many new friends.
But there is one thing I don’t love so much.
By Maggi Dawn
Why won't Chipotle just use less meat?
Some news in the world of sustainable food: Chipotle is responding to beef supply shortages by considering looser standards. Instead of aiming to avoid all beef treated with antibiotics, the burrito chain and sustainable ag advocate may start accepting cows treated for illness, while still avoiding those given antibiotics as a matter of routine.
It's a defensible place to draw the line.
Eat with Joy, by Rachel Marie Stone
When Rachel Marie Stone offers homilies of food redemption rather than damnation, it may feel like a lovely if disorienting kind of grace.
reviewed by Valerie Weaver-Zercher
Food demand vs. food need
A recent report from PLOS One finds that growth in global agricultural yield is not projected to keep up with growth in demand. Brad Plumer picked it up, and someone gave his post this blog-snappy headline: "This terrifying chart shows we're not growing enough food to feed the world."
Well, not exactly.
Soup night at the bar: The rules are simple
Staring down the barrel of another Chicago winter at age 40, I was a little freaked. Then I started to serve soup.
by Martha Bayne
Farm bill blues
U.S. farm policy badly needs an overhaul. But first, amid the worst drought in decades, Congress needs to pass an uninspiring farm bill.
Mad farmer?
Joel Salatin's new book offers a full banquet of opinions, prescriptions and rants. How does the man find time to farm?
by LaVonne Neff
Buy organic?
I'm as down on big organics as the next guy who makes homemade sauerkraut out of cabbage grown by his farmer wife. As Stephanie Strom details, the standards of organic certification could be much stronger, and most national organic brands are owned by the very mainstream companies they're standing in implicit objection to. Not exactly a recipe for systemwide reform.
Still, I think Tom Philpott's right: Michael Potter of the independent holdout Eden's Organics, Strom's primary focus, goes too far in slamming the certified-organic label as a "fraud."
Eating in ignorance
Reconciliation requires relocation. To see the effects of our food choices, we have to get close to the land.