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

Slow Food Seattle Books: July 14 – The Unprejudiced Palate by Angelo Pellegrini

Angelo Pellegrini: Slow Food, before Slow Food existed

Join us for our next book club selection on Thursday, July 14th, the classic - The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life by Seattle’s own Angelo Pellegrini.

Join us! 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! We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 14th. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below. 

From the publisher:
“First issued in 1948, when soulless minute steaks and quick casseroles were becoming the norm, The Unprejudiced Palate inspired a seismic culinary shift in how America eats. Written by a food-loving immigrant from Tuscany, this memoir-cum-cookbook articulates the Italian American vision of the good life: a backyard garden, a well-cooked meal shared with family and friends, and a passion for ingredients and cooking that nourish the body and the soul.”

“I have always thought that Angelo Pellegrini misnamed his charming but opinionated book. It should have been called the Prejudiced Palate, because he is so absolutely sure and unwavering in his vision of how to live a beautiful and delicious life. And I think he’s right.”
–Alice Waters, Owner, Chez Panisse

“Like great dishes, great writing remains in our memory forever. Angelo Pellegrini’s THE UNPREJUDICED PALATE is a lesson in how to enjoy life in an elegant and highly civilized way.”
– Jacques Pépin

“THE UNPREJUDICED PALATE is a forgotten gem from what might be remembered as the Golden Age of American food writing. This Italian born, beloved Seattle professor, friend and colleague of MFK Fisher, wrote with charm, wit, and a rare intelligence about food.”
–Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt, Cod, 1968

Resources:

• http://blogs.seattleweekly​.com/voracious/2009/03/who​s_angelo_pellegrini_draft_​p.php
• http://www.seattleweekly.c​om/2010-04-14/food/ruth-re​ichl-on-angelo-pellegrini-​a-slow-food-voice-in-a-fas​t-food-nation
• http://www.powells.com/bib​lio/1-9780812971552-0
• http://seattlebonvivant.ty​pepad.com/seattle_bon_viva​nt/2005/08/on_angelo_pelle​.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Angelo_Pellegrini
• http://www.westcoastcookin​g.com/content/view/186/27

Next Slow Food Seattle Books Meeting: May 12

Kurt Timmermeister

Join us on May 12 for the next Slow Food Seattle Books!

Our May book club selection is Kurt Timmermeister’s, Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land.

“An intimate look at the life and livelihood of a modern-day farmer, as told by a former urbanite. A bona-fide city dweller, Kurt Timmermeister never intended to run his own dairy farm. When he purchased four acres of land on Vashon

Island, he was looking for an affordable home a ferry ride away from the restaurants he ran in Seattle. But as he continued to serve his customers frozen chicken breasts and packaged pork, he became aware of the connection between what he ate and where it came from: a hive of bees provided honey; a young cow could give fresh milk; an apple orchard allowed him to make vinegar.

Told in Timmermeister’s plainspoken voice, Growing a Farmer details with honesty the initial stumbles and subsequent realities he had to face in his quest to establish a profitable farm for himself. Personal yet

practical, Growing a Farmer includes the specifics of making cheese, raising cows, and slaughtering pigs, and it will recast entirely the way we think about our relationship to the food we consume.”

Join us! 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! We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 12. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below.

Please post questions as you’re reading for Kurt in the comments here or on our Reading Discussion on Facebook. Kurt has generously agreed to answer them for us!

• You can listen to an interview with Timmermeister on KUOW or the recent NPR interview with On Point/WBUR in Boston
• Watch a video on Growing a Farmer
• Learn more about Kurtwood Farms

RSVP to books@slowfoodseattle.org

Want to pick up a copy of Growing a Farmer? Here’s a list of local booksellers, also available via our Amazon store.