Low Tech

So, in the course of discussing bacterial growth with my seventh graders, we got around to talking about salt and food preservation. (It was only a matter of time.) We had been talking about the conditions where bacteria thrive, and I had them suggest some ways that we keep things from spoiling. They bring up the refrigerator, freezer, heat, plastic wrap, preservatives, antibiotics!, and salt. So we talk about the book Salt, by Mark Kurlansky, which I loved, and here they think I’m crazy for reading a whole book about salt in the first place, but also for liking it…

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Hungry Monkey

hungry monkey cover
Hungry Monkey, by Matthew Amster-Burton

Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa over at Ideas in Food turned me on to this book Hungry Monkey with their review a few weeks ago. And when my sister-in-law read the cover and subtitle, she laughed and asked if it had been written for me. A Food Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater? Yup. I really enjoyed the book, and I’m looking forward to making several of the recipes for the kid at some point. Author Matthew Amster-Burton has an easygoing voice, and he writes with wit, self awareness, and humor. He explains how parental anxiety about baby food can be overwhelming, and that the research out there on allergens, the timing of food introductions, and food philosophy (if you can call it that) varies hugely. Then you realize that over the course of recorded history (and before that too, I’m sure) parents have, after breastfeeding, been feeding kids adult food in some form, with developmentally appropriate degrees of mush, chunks, and spice. And it’s likely that over that span of time there have been kids that have been picky eaters. It’s not a new phenomenon.

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Michael Pollan on Julia, Cooking on TV, and Home Cooking

Michael Pollan’s article Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch is the cover story of today’s New York Times Magazine. And it’s a long one. But it basically says that cooking at home is actually good for you. This is good to hear. I like to cook at home. He means to really cook at home, though, not just to reheat frozen things, or to assemble a sandwich (which apparently technically counts as cooking, according to the people that gather statistics on these things). In short, by letting other people process and cook for you (by buying processed and pre-made foods), you’re giving up control of what goes into them. Salt, sugar, and fat are cheap, so it’s no surprise that they end up as prominent ingredients in many ready-to-eat or reheat options at the grocery store. This is one of the main premises of Pollan’s In Defense of Food. The simple act of preparing your own food puts you way ahead. But that’s not what the vast majority of Americans are doing.

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Summer Reading

With summer break here, I’m looking forward to reading several books that have been in the stack for a while.  Just before school ended, I got several recommendations on books to read, and I’d like to get through some of those (see Books page for the complete list, ever evolving).  I’m sure I’ll add more [...]

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