Food Tank is rounding up 25 books about the past, present, and future of global food and agriculture systems to get you through the winter. In Chop Chop, Ozoz Sokoh celebrates Nigerian cuisine through 100 recipes. Insatiable City by Theresa McCulla explores race, power, and social status in New Orleans through the lens of food. And in The Painful Truth about Hunger in America, Mariana Chilton offers a new approach to eliminate food insecurity. These books will inspire readers to learn from global food movement wins, encourage them to find their creative spark in the kitchen, and help them understand how corporations have shaped today’s food and agriculture system.
1. A History of Bread: Consumers, Bakers and Public Authorities since the 18th Century by Peter Scholliers
In 18th century Europe, one third of household expenditure was spent on bread. Today, that number is less than 1 percent. Author Peter Scholliers looks at everything from policies and trends that shaped consumer preferences to technological advancements. As he traces this history, Schollier covers the most defining moments for bread and the people behind it.
2. Chile, Clove, and Cardamom: A Gastronomic Journey Into the Fragrances and Flavors of Desert Cuisines by Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan
Chile, Clove, Cardamom celebrates the flavors of dry climate and arid-adapted foodways from Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the deserts between the United States and Mexico. Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan’s book brings together more than 90 recipes from these regions including Squash Blossom Fritters, Watermelon and Cactus Fruit Gazpacho, and Blue Corn Bread.
3. Chop Chop: Cooking the Food of Nigeria by Ozoz Sokoh (Forthcoming March 2025)
Food writer, educator, and culinary anthropologist Ozoz Sokoh offers an introduction to Nigerian cooking in Chop Chop. The recipes, which come from the country’s six regions, include Akara (fried bean fritters), Imoyo Eleja (fish escabeche with salsa), and Kazan Ridi (sesame chicken). Alongside recipes, Sokoh also provides cultural and historical context for the dishes alongside photos from Nigeria’s landscapes, food markets, and people.
4. Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land: A Social Movement Ethnography by David E. Gilbert (Forthcoming March 2024)
Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming the Land tells the story of a group of Indonesian agricultural workers who started a movement when they began occupying an agribusiness plantation near their homes. Author David E. Gilbert’s work shows how this community regained collective control of the land and established biodiverse agroforests that repaired the harm done to the soil
5. Decolonizing African Agriculture: Food Security, Agroecology and the Need for Radical Transformation by William G. Moseley
In Decolonizing African Agriculture, William G. Moseley sets out to answer why so many approaches to farming and food policy in sub-Saharan Africa have failed. Drawing from decades of field research, he argues that the answer is in strategies that are based in colonial agricultural science. But he believes that there is a new way forward, advocating for a transformation that supports agroecology, rural communities, and networks of smaller cities.
6. Eating and Being: A History of Ideas about Our Food and Ourselves by Steven Shapin
Eating and Being explores the evolution of eaters’ perception of food, as priorities shifting from what is good to what is good for them. Historian Steven Shapin traces the development of traditional dietetics and its growth into the nutrition science of today, arguing that this change has fundamentally altered the way we think about food, bodies, and the mind.
7. Food Activism Today: Sustainability, Climate Change, and Social Justice by Donald M. Nonini and Dorothy C. Holland
As the climate and public health crises persist, food activists are taking new approaches to tackle industrialized food and agriculture systems and push for healthy, sustainable solutions. Drawing on ethnographic research, Food Activism Today examines these emerging strategies to understand the moral vision of advocates, the economic and racial dynamics that shape movements, and the ways that food activism is tied to the climate crisis.
8. Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans by Theresa McCulla
Theresa McCulla’s Insatiable City covers 200 years of New Orleans history to show linkages between production and reception of race, power, social status, and labor in a city famous for its food culture. The book draws on menus, cookbooks, newspapers, postcards, photography, and other media to show how the production and reception of food shapes, and is shaped by these social forces.
9. Julia Child’s Kitchen: The Design, Tools, Stories, and Legacy of an Iconic Space by Paula J. Johnson
On display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. is the home kitchen of chef, author, and television personality Julia Child, complete with the appliances, cabinets, tools and utensils that Child herself used. In Julia Child’s Kitchen, the museum’s curator and public historian Paula J. Johnson takes a close look at this historic space. The book brings together interviews, color photographs, and commentary on Child’s kitchen gadgets to reveal how the chef continues to influence food and cooking today.
10. Modern Chinese Foodways edited by Jia-Chen Fu, Michelle T. King and Jakob A. Klein
This collection analyzes Chinese foodways from the mid-19th to the 21st century to argue that, despite an emphasis on its early beginnings, the country’s cuisine is truly modern. Editors Jia-Chen Fu, Michelle T. King, and Jakob A. Klein focus on four major areas of change: the commodification of food production, new food technologies, new culinary identities, and migration. Through these lenses, the book’s essays examine the past of Chinese food studies and lay the groundwork for its future.
11. Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems: From Soil to Soil by Julia Freedgood
Author Julia Feedgood highlights how to build resilience, improve the environmental outcomes of farming, and address economic disparities. In Part One, Feedgood, a Senior Fellow and Senior Program Advisor at American Farmland Trust, outlines a public framework and presents principles and practices for food systems planning. And in Part Two, she shows readers the policies and programs that support farming systems, sustain agriculture, and bolster community food security.
12. Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat by Chloe Sorvino
Raw Deal exposes the corporate greed and corruption in the meat industry, how climate change threatens food production, and the limitations of local food movements challenging the status-quo. The new paperback edition comes with an afterword that tackles important changes, ranging from the rollback of commitments on antibiotics to evolution of the plant-based foods market, that have taken place since the book’s original release.
13. Reversing Deforestation: How Market Forces and Local Ownership Are Saving Forests in Latin America by Brent Sohngen and Douglas Southgate
Forests are the one of the planet’s largest storehouses of carbon, are home to over 80 percent of terrestrial biodiversity, and provide food or fuel for over 1.6 billion people worldwide. But deforestation threatens these many benefits. In their new book, Brent Sohngen and Douglas Southgate examine trends how demographic change can slow deforestation. And they argue that a focus on local land rights recognizing the value of biodiversity will help to prevent further loss of these valuable ecosystems.
14. Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa by Aaron Eddens
Seeding Empire connects the dots between some of the earliest Green Revolution projects in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s to those taking place across the African continent today. Readers will learn about the programs supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, field trials of hybrid Maize in Kenya, and the world’s largest biotechnology companies. Ultimately, author Aaron Eddens argues that the Green Revolution has failed to end hunger and address global inequalities.
15. Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon with Kim Green
In her coming-of-age memoir Chantha Ngon recounts how she lost her home, family, and country when she is displaced by two civil wars—first in Cambodia, then in Vietnam—before she flees to a refugee camp in Thailand. But she retains memories of her mother’s kitchen. As Nguon grows up, she finds that the re-creation of dishes from her child offers an act of resistance and a way to honor the memory of her family.
16. The Crop Cycle: Stories with Deep Roots by Shane Mitchell
Shane Mitchell spent nine years tracking down the history of fruits, vegetables, and grains in the American South to understand the region’s relationship to food. Essays explore both the personal and cultural significance of foods including grits, rice, onions, and tomatoes, touching on their broader connections to race, labor relations, civil rights, and agricultural production.
17. The Nature of Nature: The Metabolic Disorder of Climate Change by Vandana Shiva
“Climate change is an issue of justice, and of life and death,” writes author and environmental advocate Vandana Shiva in The Nature of Nature. Industry leaders in the worlds of agriculture and technology are developing new innovations to combat the interconnected food, climate, and health crises, but Shiva sees these as false promises. Instead, she argues that the future of the food system and the climate depends on a natural regeneration that works with the biosphere.
18. The Proof Is in the Dough: Rural Southern Women, Extension, and Money Making by Kathryn L. Beasley
The Proof Is in the Dough looks at the ways rural white and African American women in Alabama and Florida used the Cooperative Extension Service’s home demonstration programming to earn extra income in the early 1900s. Comparing the women’s approaches in each state, Kathryn Beasley details the unique ways these southern women applied their skills and the resources available to them to help their families and gain greater economic independence.
19. Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters by Jennifer Clapp (Forthcoming February 2025)
Titans of Industrial Agriculture traces the history of consolidation in the agri-food system, explaining how a handful of transnational corporations came to dominate the agricultural inputs sector. Jennifer Clapp examines the power these companies hold and the business moves that made them bigger and more dominant, while also analyzing recent attempts to address corporate power.
20. The Painful Truth about Hunger in America: Why We Must Unlearn Everything We Think We Know—and Start Again by Mariana Chilton
More than 47 million people in the United States live in food insecure households. Mariana Chilton makes the case in her book that it doesn’t have to be this way, but there are structural forces at play that allow hunger to persist. The Painful Truth about Hunger in America argues that to change this, there must be a radical transformation grounded in compassion, love, and connection.
21. The Regenerative Agriculture Solution: A Revolutionary Approach to Building Soil, Creating Climate Resilience, and Supporting Human and Planetary Health by Ronnie Cummins and André Leu
Before his passing in 2023, Ronnie Cummins was at work on a new book to spotlight farmers, educators, and advocates pushing for an alternative way of farming that can nourish communities and heal the Earth. While he wasn’t able to see this work through to completion, his longtime collaborator André Leu stepped in to finish the project. Now ready for the public, The Regenerative Agriculture Solution demonstrates how a regenerative approach to farming offers solutions to the interlocking crises the world faces today.
22. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
In her latest book Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the award-winning Braiding Sweetgrass, asks how we can learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most. Kimmerer looks to the serviceberry trees she harvests from, bringing readers’ attention to the way they distribute their berries to meet the needs of the natural community. These plants, she argues, offer a model of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude that the world can benefit from.
23. The Youth Climate Uprising: From the School Strike Movement to an Ecophilosophy of Democracy by David Fopp, Isabelle Axelsson, and Loukina Tille
2024 was the hottest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization and extreme weather events continue to increase in intensity as the climate crisis accelerates. But as The Youth Climate Uprising shows, young people are unwilling to sit idly by. Scientist David Fopp, with youth climate activists Isabelle Axelsson and Loukina Tille, offer guidance to push for a more just and sustainable planet while arguing that everyone has a place in this movement in an uncertain time.
24. Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource by Royal C. Gardner
In Waters of the United States, Royal C. Gardner digs into nuances of water policy and the regulations that do—or don’t—protect the rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands in the United States. Through its compelling narrative and detailed analysis, this book offers an important resource for lawyers and environmental advocates as well as readers looking to understand the forces that will shape the future of water systems in the U.S.
25. What a Farmer Wants You to Know about Food by Dennis Bulani
Written by fourth-generation family farmer Dennis Bulani, What a Farmer Wants You to Know attempts to answer questions that eaters have about the food on their plates. Bulani’s book covers topics ranging from food safety and farming inputs to food labeling and modern agricultural practices.
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