Grocery : the buying and selling of food in America Cover Image

Grocery : the buying and selling of food in America / Michael Ruhlman.

Ruhlman, Michael, 1963- (author.).

Summary:

In a culture obsessed with food - how it looks, what it tastes like, where it comes from, what is good for us - there are often more questions than answers. Ruhlman proposes that the best practices for consuming wisely could be hiding in plain sight-in the aisles of your local supermarket. Using the human story of the family-run Midwestern chain Heinen's as an anchor to this journalistic narrative, he dives into the mysterious world of supermarkets and the ways in which we produce, consume, and distribute food. Grocery examines how rapidly supermarkets-and our food and culture-have changed since the days of your friendly neighborhood grocer. But rather than waxing nostalgic for the age of mom-and-pop shops, Ruhlman seeks to understand how our food needs have shifted since the mid-twentieth century, and how these needs mirror our cultural ones. A mix of reportage and rant, personal history and social commentary, Grocery is a landmark book from one of our most insightful food writers.

Record details

ISBN: 9781419723865
ISBN: 1419723863
ISBN: 9781419729539
Physical Description: 307 pages ; 24 cm
Publisher: New York : Abrams, 2017.
Copyright: ©2017

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-297) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Part I How we Got Here -- 1 My Father's Grocery Store Jones 9 -- 2 How the A&P Changed the Western World 29 -- 3 Growing Up 43 -- 4 Visionary Cleveland Grocer and the One-Stop Shop 47 -- 5 "Nea, I Think I Want to Move to Cleveland-I Think I Want to Work for These Grocers" 59 -- 6 How to Save a Locomotive That Has Jumped the Rails 64 -- Part II How to Think About Food -- 7 She Bought the Fat-Free Half-and-Half 79 -- 8 Breakfast: The Most Dangerous Meal of the Day 92 -- 9 No Food Is Healthy 99 -- 10 Shopping with My Doctor 104 -- 11 Nefarious Practices of the Modern-Day Grocer 116 -- Interlude: Checkout 129 -- Part III Center Aisles -- 12 A Few of the Twenty Thousand New Products for Your Consideration 141 -- 13 Better Living through Organic Turmeric, Ashwagandha Extract, and Hemp Seed Milk 158 -- 14 A Walk in the Medicine Cabinet 168 -- Part IV Perimeter -- 15 Farmer Who Can't Find His Animals 179 -- 16 Thirty-Two Thousand Pounds of Carrots, Every Week 205 -- 17 "Nobody Knows How to Cook-It's Mind-Boggling" 229 -- 18 Cooking Animal 246 -- 19 Frozen 253 -- Part V Where We Are Headed -- 20 America's Culinary Heritage 263 -- 21 Cleveland Trust 273 -- 22 Cathedral 286.