New Books in Food Podcast
1) Michael W. Twitty, "Recipes from the American South" (Phaidon Press, 2025)
The views expressed by the guest are their own and do not reflect those of the New Books Network or its hosts. This episode contains some content that listeners may find controversial. A home cook's...Show More
2) Andrea Freeman, "Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: America’s Politics of Food, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch" (Metropolitan Books, 2024)
The first and definitive history of the use of food in American law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous...Show More
3) The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit
As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from th...Show More
4) David Singerman, "Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Sugar is everywhere in the western diet, blamed for epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other modern maladies. Our addiction to sweetness has a long and unsavory history. Over the past five hundred ye...Show More
5) Maria Fedorova, "Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935" (Northern Illinois UP, 2025)
Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935 (Northern Illinois UP, 2025) examines the US and Soviet exchange of agricultural knowledge and technology during the in...Show More
6) Susannah Fisher, "Sink Or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? Sink or Swim: How the world needs to adapt to a changing clima...Show More
7) Eric T. Jennings, "Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean" (Yale UP, 2025)
Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a key ingredient in dishes ranging from crème...Show More
8) Devin Smart, "Preparing the Modern Meal: Urban Capitalism and Working-Class Food in Kenya's Port City" (Ohio UP, 2025)
Preparing the Modern Meal: Urban Capitalism and Working-Class Food in Kenya's Port City (Ohio UP, 2025) is an urban history that connects town and country. Devin Smart examines how labor migrants who ...Show More
9) Stephen A. Harris, "50 Plants That Changed the World" (Bodleian Library, 2025)
Have you ever stopped to think about how your morning cappuccino came to be? From the coffee bush that yielded the beans, to the grass for the cattle – or perhaps the soya – that produced the milk, pl...Show More
10) Jessica B. Harris, "Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine" (Clarkson Potter, 2025)
Discover the sweeping story of how Indigenous, European, and African traditions intertwined to form an entirely new cuisine, with over 90 recipes for the modern home cook—from the James Beard Cookbook...Show More