MY LATEST BOOK
Pre-order your copy of Bet the Farm now. Out October 2012. “This story should have been on the front page of the New York Times.”
– Jami Floyd, Political Analyst, MSNBC “It’s on the reading list for my NYU classes.”
– Marion Nestle, author of Why Calories Count and Food Politics “'Eating is an agricultural act,’ as Wendell Berry said, but Frederick Kaufman shows, undeniably, that it is an economic act as well.”
– Dan Barber, chef, author, activist “Kaufman makes a convincing and terrifying case that the same merchant bankers who destroyed our housing market–and economy–five years ago are at it again. This time their target is the world’s food supply.”
– Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland
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
OTHER BOOKS
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009
Includes "Wasteland"Slice of Life: Contemporary Writers on Food
Includes "The Triumph of American Gastrosophy," a piece I wrote about the history of American diet book mania.- Everything That Lives, Eats
I wrote the lead essay for this collection of food photography. - About Men: Reflections on the Male Experience
I'm in this anthology - Frederick Kaufman: Forty-Two Days and Nights on the Iberian Peninsula With Anis Ladron
Frederick Kaufman: Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories
« December 2008 | Main | February 2009 »
January 2009
January 28, 2009
This Just In
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Super Bowl Eclipses Thanksgiving as National Eating Holiday
Well, at least that was the topic of discussion on the radio segment I recorded this morning on FM 107.5, Quebec. Here's the basic idea:
No matter who wins, at the end of the game the score will be: eleven-million pounds of potato chips, eight-million pounds of tortilla chips, and four-thousand tons of popcorn. Americans will spend $55 million on Super Bowl snacks.
No longer constrained by Thanksgiving’s ironclad menu of turkey and yams, on Super Bowl Sunday the American stomach will finally reveal itself in all its grotesque splendor. Of course, consuming vast quantities of suspect food has given an event national import ever since 1609, when Henry Hudson sat down with some Indians for a feast of fatted dog.
Will we eat too much fat on Super Bowl Sunday? Of course we will -- and rightly so. After the Yankeees won the Revolutionary War, a so-called “Fat Parade” marched down Broadway, a proto-ticker tape event (before ticker tape had been invented). On that day, teams of mounted butchers followed an endless stream of floats of slaughtered lamb and pig and beef.The Fat Parade soon became a New York tradition, culminating on March 13, 1821, when the butchers marched with nothing less than ten-thousand pounds of freshly slaughtered beef. Of course, it is possible that the purveyors of beef fat were simply trying to outdo the purveyors of milk fat: When Thomas Jefferson had been elected president, supporters presented him with a New Year’s gift, a nine-hundred pound “Mammoth Cheese,” said to have been produced from the milk of one thousand Republican cows. As surely as night follows day, cholesterol follows American patriotism.
Tomorrow, the morning show on 92.3 FM Las Vegas . . .
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January 26, 2009
For Those of You of Live in Quebec
I'll be on 107.5 FM this Wednesday, at 8:30 a.m., to talk about American eating habits during le Super Bowl Sunday . . .
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January 20, 2009
Closing the Loop re NYU
Bret Thorn has confirmed his participation in the Menus in the Media panel. Should be an interesting evening.
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January 19, 2009
Corrections, etc.
Seems that Bret Thorn, of Nation's Restaurant News, has yet to confirm that he will be on the Menus in the Media panel at NYU (see previous post). Will keep Stomach readers posted . . .
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January 16, 2009
Excellent Reviews
have begun to come in for the Freelance Seminar Ellen Walterscheid and I hosted at the CUNY J-School yesterday, especially for our editors panel, which featured bigs from The New Yorker, Harper's, Time Out New York, and Essence.
Next up: February 27th at NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge. Krishnendu Ray invited me to participate in a panel on "Menus and the Media." Other panelists include the chef Dan Barber, Bret Thorn (from Nation's Restaurant News), and perhaps a blogger. Hope to see you there . . .
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January 14, 2009
Freelance Seminar, Food Writing Seminar
This afternoon I'll be starting a two-day Freelance seminar at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and on Tuesday the 20th, Indrani Sen (Newsday, New York Times, Saveur) and I will be hosting a Food Writing seminar. Hope to see you there . . .
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January 07, 2009
Frederick Kaufman
- The food journalist who went looking for a slice of pizza and ended up on Wall Street.
I have written about American food culture and other subjects for Harper's Magazine, the New Yorker, Gourmet, Gastronomica, and the New York Times Magazine, among others. I've been a freelancer for years, and published something like one-hundred magazine articles, along with four books. I'm a contributing editor at Harper's, and teach at the City University of New York and CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism. Born in LA, I live in New York.
Follow Me
ARTICLES
- The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
Harper's, June 2010 - 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
- TEDxManhattan - The Measure of All Things
TEDxManhattan April 26, 2011 - Soaring Food Prices
My appearance on MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show. - The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
Video from my appearance on Democracy Now July 16, 2010. - Did Wall Street Cause a Food Bubble?
Audio from NPR's Here & Now. - 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.
SCHOLARLY
- The Enteric Terrors of Washington Irving
This article first appeared in Gastronomica
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Fastpitch
I wrote the script for this documentary on fast-pitch softball.