AmericanStomach.com

MY LATEST BOOK

Now available in paperback.
Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Award, "Best Culinary History Book, 2008."
A Short History of the American Stomach
The extremes of American eating—our urge to stuff and to starve ourselves—are easy to blame on the excesses of modern living. But, we’ve been this way all along. From the secret history of Puritan purges to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, this is the story of America told by way of the American stomach.
"Kaufman’s witty historical analysis will be a treat for anyone interested in food."
- Time Out New York
"For the foodie on your gift list."
- Zagat.com
"A hip, journalistic approach to America's all-consuming relationship to the gut, from Puritan rituals of fasting to the creation of the Food Network."
- Publisher's Weekly
"Brilliant. Original. Inspirational."
- NPR's Kitchen Sisters
“Gourmets and gourmands alike will savor Kaufman’s keen, caustic anatomy of the American palate.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Who knew that Cotton Mather was America’s first food faddist or Benjamin Franklin our founding foodie? I loved every chapter of Kaufman’s book. American history has never been so much fun.”
—Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat
“A Short History of the American Stomach gives us something fresh, mixing erudition and passion with a tempered, lean, accurate prose that never misses its beats and never compromises a witty economy of style. Petronius would be proud.”
—Lawrence Osborne, author of The Accidental Connoisseur
“Kaufman makes brilliant use of humor and history to expose American's bipolar relationship with food. This is the book to read if you want to understand why, generation after generation, we doggedly persist in dividing edibles into good and bad, healthy and deadly, alternately stuffing then depriving ourselves, worshiping processed foods one year and organic the next, ad nauseam.”
—Barry Glassner, author of The Gospel of Food

June 22, 2009

Comments, Letters

One of my CUNY J-School students, Jenni Avins (presently at Saveur), sent in this latest dispatch from the fronts of food porn, blogged by her colleague Rebekah Peppler.

Speaking food porn, the tenth anniversary edition of Gastronomica will feature a roundtable discussion on the subject. My submission is due the 25th.

More letters coming in: Turns out my latest for Harper's, "Let Them Eat Cash: Can Bill Gates Profit from World Hunger?" (see pdf's of articles down right hand side of this blog) has generated a storm of written response, and that the entire August letters section will be devoted to the debate. I have answered the critics, but since Harper's isn't online (except for subscribers), you'll have to buy the July and August issues.

Will be heading out of town at the end of this week. Will send in dispatches from Paris . . .

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June 15, 2009

Serious Eats on Short History

One of my favorite food sites, Serious Eats, has featured American Stomach as a "Serious Read."

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June 09, 2009

ActionAid News Blog Picks Up "Let Them Eat Cash"

Tony Durham, Senior Media Officer at ActionAid International, recently posted this interesting take on the issue.

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May 26, 2009

Talking Hunger

I'll be on Texas Public Radio's "Think" tomorrow, 1-2 Central Time. Krys Boyd is an excellent interviewer, so very much looking forward to the hour. If you miss us live, you can listen to the podcast here.

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May 22, 2009

Food Porn in the Mainstream

The AOL newsfeed and SmartMoney.com now take food porn for granted. We've come a long way since "Debbie Does Salad" created a stir . . .

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May 20, 2009

In the Cross Hairs

A link to the Rice interview.

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May 19, 2009

Hunger on the Air

My conversation with Jack Rice will air this evening on Air America national radio. Can we end world hunger by turning dirt farmers into commodity traders? Bill Gates may think so, but I'm not so sure . . .

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May 18, 2009

What to Watch

"Time Warp," this Wednesday, 8:00, will air its Competitive Eating segment, and I will be calling play-by-play as man and dog go head to head over spaghetti and meatballs . . .

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On the Radio

This morning, Jim Rice, ex-CIA agent turned media pundit, will host me on his KOGO San Diego morning political talk show, to talk about my new article for Harper's, "Let Them Eat Cash: Can Bill Gates Turn Hunger Into Profit?" Will post the article shortly . . .

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May 13, 2009

A History of TV Dinners

This sounds like an interesting event at the Astor Center . . .

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ARTICLES

Let Them Eat Cash
Let Them Eat Cash: Can Bill Gates Turn Hunger Into Profit? (Harper's cover story, June 2009)
THE NUCLEOTIDAL WAVE: The Front Line of Mutant Food
GMO gone gonzo. (VICE, The Technology Issue 2009)
Wasteland: A journey through the American cloaca
Selected for Best American Science and Nature Writing, 2008. (Harper's, Feb. 2008, .pdf)
They Eat What We Are
New York Times Magazine article on the nearly $15 billion pet food industry.
Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the Frontiers of Pornography by Frederick Kaufman
The unadulterated Harper's Magazine article.
The Secret Ingredient
Harper's article on kosher food (.pdf).
Fat of the Land
Harper's profile of Dale Boone (.pdf).
Our Daily Bread
Harper's article on the triumph of American gastrosophy (.pdf).

MEDIA

CUNY TV
Kaufman discusses fat parades, artificial oysters, gastroporn and his beginnings as a food writer.
WREG-TV Memphis
Appearance on "Live at 9" morning show.
The Commonwealth Club
Video from my California reading on Feb. 22.
Seattle NPR
The Leonard Lopate Show

2/1/08: On WNYC.
On Point

WBUR's Tom Ashbrook and I talk about "the most fashionable pukes" of American history and other subjects.
On The Media: "Pornucopia" interview

NPR's Brooke Gladstone and I discuss food porn.