Slow Food Seattle Books: September 8 – Food for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck

Our September book club selection is Food for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck.

We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 8th. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below. This will be an active, open conversation and all are welcome – please come even if you haven’t had a chance to finish the book!

How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and tater tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation’s school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States. Janet Poppendieck explores the deep politics of food provision from multiple perspectives–history, policy, nutrition, environmental sustainability, taste, and more.

Drawing from extensive interviews with officials, workers, students, and activists, she discusses the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and turns a critical eye on the “competitive foods” sold in cafeterias. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them?

Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces–the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models–that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day.

Janet Poppendieck

Janet Poppendieck is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America; (University of California Press, 2010); Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (Penguin, 1999); and Breadlines Knee Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression (Rutgers University Press, 1985).

“In her extraordinarily well-thought-out, beautifully written, sympathetic, and compelling book, Jan Poppendieck makes clear that Free for All has two meanings: how pressures to reduce the cost of school meals put our children’s health at risk, and how best to solve this problem–universal school meals. Anyone who reads this book will find the present school lunch situation beyond unacceptable. Free for All is a call for action on behalf of America’s school kids, one that we all need to join. I will be using this book in all my classes.”–Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics

Take the $5 Challenge on September 17th

THE CHALLENGE: This September 17, you’re invited to take back the ‘value meal’ by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person. Cook a meal with family and friends, have a potluck, or find a local event.

WHY: Because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food. If you know how to cook, then teach others. If you want to learn, this is your chance. Together, we’re sending a message that too many people live in communities where it’s harder to buy fruit than Froot Loops. Everybody should be able to eat fresh, healthy food every day.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED: Take the pledge to share a meal with family and friends, find a local meal or host your own. If the date doesn’t work, you can still take the pledge to show your support – and Slow Food USA will send you $5 cooking tips and updates on the campaign.

For more background on the day and the campaign, read the frequently asked questions. For $5 cooking tips and other resources, click here.

Get together for a slow food meal that costs less than $5/person & take back the value meal!

On Twitter? Join in the conversation by following/posting using #5challenge.

• Cheap Recipes for Slow Food USA’s $5 Challenge, EatingWell Magazine
• ‘How Low Can You Go’ Family Supper Challenge, NPR
• Your Best Dirt Cheap Dinner Contest, Food52
• Get Cooking! presents dinners for $5 and under, Slow Food San Francisco

Background On The Issue:

• How I Beat KFC’s Family Meal Challenge, Kurt Friese, Grist
• $20 Food Showdown: Fast Food vs. Healthy Food, Stepfanie Romine, DailySpark
• Is Local Food More Expensive?, Rich Pirog and Nick McCann, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
• The Farmer’s Market Myth, Barry Estabrook, The Atlantic

Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast with Hank Shaw on July 28

Hank Shaw, author of "Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast"

The Pacific Northwest has a rich bounty of flora and fauna to offer from land, sky, and sea. Foraging, gleaning, hunting, fishing, crabbing, clamming… not just for the hardcore outdoorsy-crowd anymore. Join us on Thursday, July 28th at 6pm, for an evening with Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. Hank will share his adventures in the field and in the kitchen with a talk on wild foods and book signing. Special guest, Chef Robin Leventhal (formerly of Crave & Top Chef), will also be on hand, serving up some delicious appetizers inspired by Hunt, Gather, Cook. Kevin Cedergreen of Cedergreen Cellars, Cole Sisson of Hestia Cellars, Melissa Peterman of Elsom Cellars, and the fine folks from McCrea Cellars will be pouring some fantastic Washington wines.

When: Thursday, July 28th at 6pm

Where: Wine World, 400 NE 45th St. Seattle, 98105

Tickets: $15/person (includes wild foods talk by Hank Shaw, wine tasting, and appetizers).

Readers to Eaters will have Hunt, Gather, Cook available for purchase and Hank will be signing copies at the event.

Co-sponsored by: Slow Food Seattle, Readers to Eaters, and Wine World.

For a review of Hunt, Gather, Cook by Seattle Weekly’s Voracious contributor, Sonja Groset, check here.

For Hank’s perspective on the book, check out this post.

About Hank Shaw:
Hank Shaw is a New Jersey native who worked as a political reporter for various newspapers for 18 years until becoming a full-time food writer, outdoorsman and cook in 2010. A forager and angler since he could walk, Hank began hunting in 2002 and has never looked back. He hunts or fishes for all the meat he eats at home, and foraged foods form a daily part of his diet. Hank runs the wild foods blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award. He won the International Association of Culinary Professionals award for Best Blog in 2010 and 2011, and his magazine writing has appeared in Food & Wine, Organic Gardening, Field & Stream, as well as many other publications.

About Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast:
If there is a frontier beyond organic, local, and seasonal, beyond farmers’ markets and sustainably
raised meat, it surely includes hunting, fishing, and foraging your own food. A lifelong angler and forager who became a hunter late in life, Hank Shaw has chronicled his passion for hunting and gathering in his widely read blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has developed an avid following among outdoor people and foodies alike. Hank is dedicated to finding a place on the table for the myriad overlooked and underutilized wild foods that are there for the taking if you know how to get them.

In Hunt, Gather, Cook, he shares his experiences both in the field and the kitchen, as well as his extensive knowledge of North America’s edible flora and fauna. With the fresh, clever prose that brings so many readers to his blog, Hank provides a user-friendly, food-oriented introduction to tracking down everything from sassafras to striped bass to snowshoe hares. He then provides innovative ways to prepare wild foods that go far beyond typical campfire cuisine: homemade root beer, cured wild boar loin, boneless tempura shad, Sardinian hare stew, even pasta made with handmade acorn flour.

Thanks to our co-sponsors:

     

Special thanks to our wine sponsors: