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

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June 2009

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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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.

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    Fastpitch
    I wrote the script for this documentary on fast-pitch softball.

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