The American Way of Eating
Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table
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3.8 • 24 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling work of undercover journalism in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed that fully investigates our food system to explain what keeps Americans from eating well—and what we can do about it.
When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? And what can we do to change it? To find out, McMillan went undercover in three jobs that feed America, living and eating off her wages in each. Reporting from California fields, a Walmart produce aisle outside of Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s, McMillan examines the reality of our country’s food industry in this “clear and essential” (The Boston Globe) work of reportage. Chronicling her own experience and that of the Mexican garlic crews, Midwestern produce managers, and Caribbean line cooks with whom she works, McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there.
Fearlessly reported and beautifully written, The American Way of Eating goes beyond statistics and culture wars to deliver a book that is fiercely honest, strikingly intelligent, and compulsively readable. In making the simple case that—city or country, rich or poor—everyone wants good food, McMillan guarantees that talking about dinner will never be the same again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hailing from a middle-class rural Michigan background in which Tuna Helper and iceberg-lettuce salads were the usual dinner fare and later schooled at NYU, journalist McMillan (City Limits magazine) resolved to learn firsthand how the food America eats (mostly packaged and processed) is grown, distributed, and bought. Why does good, fresh food have to cost more and be harder to find than fast food? Over the course of a year she went "undercover," posing as a kind of ambitionless 33-year-old "white girl" in transition (she speaks Spanish), finding jobs as a fruit picker in California (grapes, peaches, garlic); a stock and produce clerk at the Wal-Mart in Kalamazoo, Mich., and another outside of Detroit; and as an expediter ("kitchen novice") at the Applebee's restaurant in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. In each job she stayed about two months; found a room to rent nearby; claims to have lived off her earnings, which she documents meticulously; and was rarely above the poverty level, e.g., as a picker she made an average of $153 a week. Personable, self-deprecating, elucidating, McMillan's account achieves an engaging balance between documentary and history, rich in the personalities of the people she works with and befriends while offering a smattering of research, such as tracing the growth of the world's first supermarket, King Kullen, and visiting Detroit's still teeming Terminal market.
Customer Reviews
Interesting exploration of America's Food
An overall interesting book. A different approach to look at food through a lens of different jobs associated with its production.
Simply amazing
This book is well-written and engaging. Ms. McMillan brings you on a journey though the American food chain that you won't forget. I almost couldn't put it down.
It is a cliche to call it Michael Pollan meets Barbara Ehrenreich - but a true one.
Download the sample or buy this today. You won't be disappointed.