Hungry Planet
What the World Eats
by Peter Menzl and Faith D'Aluisio
Ten Speed Press, 2007
$24.95, paper
287 pages
I sat down with this book, dutifully with pencil and paper in hand, prepared to takes notes for my review. But from the first page of Marion Nestle's introduction, where she mentions a Chadian family described later in the book and I flipped to see what she meant, I was drawn in to the human stories of what (and how) the world eats.
The pencil and paper slipped from my hand, I read and looked at pictures, and compared my own habits, larder, and kitchen with families from Australia, the Middle East, Asia, and Greenland. I wrinkled my nose at fried scorpions on a stick, related to a French family's love of elegant pastries, and felt a kinship with a Turkish family's table piled with fresh vegetables.
The book's stories, tales of grocery shopping and family meals, are strangely compelling, probably for the same reason going on house tours is appealing. Poking into the intimacy of other households is interesting. But the book is also also an approachable bit of social research with carefully documented economic and health comparisons.
One quibble, while all the weekly expenditures are translated in to dollars for the sake of comparison, it would have been interesting to see what percentage of their weekly income the profiled families spend on food. Americans pay very little for their food, even though much of it is highly processed and advertised, which should add to the cost. Ironically, we pay more for simple, fresh food, which is not subsidized and takes some time and effort to find and prepare.
Nonetheless, what seems to be shared around the world is an increasing preference for prepared foods. Women are freed from tedious chores and children are delighted with the novelty of fast food. At the same time, people of many countries have nostalgia for old ways and dishes that demand time and money they are unwilling to spend.
In between the family stories are photo galleries that compare kitchens, street food, fish, and other topics around the world. These photo essays are accompanied by written essays by writers including Michael Pollan and Corby Kummer on cooking techniques, fast food, and "Diabesity," about the increasing prevalence of disease generated by contemporary food delivery systems and products.
The book is a masterful blend of abstraction and specificity, from the political effort of "Launching a Sea Ethic" to pictures of fish spitted and grilled, fresh and frozen. The photos and writing are vivid. While the family portraits with their weekly larder are the book's focus and organizing feature, the communities appear again through the photo essays and you begin to recognize them as the world's kitchens begin to draw together. The combination of statistics and story, with field notes that give the author's own experience, from facing down fried starfish to politely sharing meals, give the book flow and the brightness of shared experiences.
But of course, the families are the focus. They are brought to life in shared conversations and meals, as well as in telling moments and images. A sleepy son waits for his father to join him as a cozy breakfast table, a Sicilian couples shock at realizing how much money they spend on cigarettes, a Cuban family manages on rationed food to feed an extended family brings these families to life. And you can taste these tables as well, with recipes like a Kuwaiti Chicken Biryani or an Okinawan Rice with Brown Seaweed.
This book records tables that look like ours - Coca-Cola and corn flakes - and tables that don't - sacks of grain and intricately formed pastries - but filled and surrounded by families, a universal.
© 2007 Claudia Kousoulas
