The star food writer asks, are our appetites are really our own?
The iconic New Yorker and Vittles food writer asks: Why do we eat the way we eat now?
Being into food - following and making it, queuing for it and discussing it - is no longer a subculture. It's become mass culture, and a national obsession.
Our food culture is more expansive and chaotic by the day. Recipes aren't passed from hand to hand; they're on TV and in newspaper supplements, flooding YouTube and Instagram. Our tastes are painstakingly engineered in food factories, shaped by supermarket shelves and hacked by craveable Instagram recipes.
Ruby Tandoh's startlingly original analysis of today's food landscape traces the roots of this extraordinary transformation over the past 75 years, examining the social, economic, demographic and technological forces shaping the foods that we consume and hunger for today.
As she explores the evolution of the cookbook and light-speed growth of bubble tea, the advent of Tiktok critics and qualities of the perfect dinner party, Tandoh's laser sharp and wry investigation leaves her questioning her tastes and ours: are they, in fact, our own?
Author: Tandoh Ruby
Publisher: PROFILE BOOKS
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781800810044
Cover: Hardback
Edition Number: 1
Release Year: 2025
Ruby Tandoh is a food writer who has written for the New Yorker, Guardian, Vittles and Vice. A finalist on the Great British Bake Off, she has published Eat Up, about the pleasures of eating, as well as three cookery books: Crumb, Flavour and Cook As You Are.
Description
The star food writer asks, are our appetites are really our own?
The iconic New Yorker and Vittles food writer asks: Why do we eat the way we eat now?
Being into food - following and making it, queuing for it and discussing it - is no longer a subculture. It's become mass culture, and a national obsession.
Our food culture is more expansive and chaotic by the day. Recipes aren't passed from hand to hand; they're on TV and in newspaper supplements, flooding YouTube and Instagram. Our tastes are painstakingly engineered in food factories, shaped by supermarket shelves and hacked by craveable Instagram recipes.
Ruby Tandoh's startlingly original analysis of today's food landscape traces the roots of this extraordinary transformation over the past 75 years, examining the social, economic, demographic and technological forces shaping the foods that we consume and hunger for today.
As she explores the evolution of the cookbook and light-speed growth of bubble tea, the advent of Tiktok critics and qualities of the perfect dinner party, Tandoh's laser sharp and wry investigation leaves her questioning her tastes and ours: are they, in fact, our own?
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