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Why Food Matters: A Yale University Press Book Discussion

Presented in Partnership with YUP

Yale University Press Director John Donatitch in conversation with Yale Professor Paul Freedman about his new book, Why Food Matters.

This program will be presented in hybrid format (in person and online).

A modest reception will follow the in-person event. Masks must be worn at all times in the library.

Can't make it in person? Join us on Zoom! Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2516321371576/WN_nYm1NVs3R6GPDS0gT8EKzQ 

Paul Freedman is Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University. He specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and the history of cuisine. In 2007 he edited Food: The History of Taste, which runs chronologically from prehistoric humanity to the present and has been translated into ten languages, while 2008 saw the publication of his Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. Professor Freedman has also written two single-authored books on U.S. food history: Ten Restaurants That Changed America (2016) and American Cuisine and How It Got This Way (2019) His most recent book, Why Food Matters, was published by Yale University Press in September 2021. 

John Donatich has served as the Director of Yale University Press since 2003. He previously served as VP Publisher of Basic Books. He earned a BA and MA from New York University. His articles and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The Village Voice and many other periodicals. He has published two books, Ambivalence, A Love Story and The Variations. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow at the Yale Whitney Center for the Humanities, and was recently awarded a fellowship by the Corporation of Yaddo.

About the Book:

From the author of Ten Restaurants That Changed America, an exploration of food’s cultural importance and its crucial role throughout human history Why does food matter? Historically, food has not always been considered a serious subject on par with, for instance, a performance art like opera or a humanities discipline like philosophy. Necessity, ubiquity, and repetition contribute to the apparent banality of food, but these attributes don’t capture food’s emotional and cultural range, from the quotidian to the exquisite. In this short, passionate book, Paul Freedman makes the case for food’s vital importance, stressing its crucial role in the evolution of human identity and human civilizations. Freedman presents a highly readable and illuminating account of food’s unique role in our lives, a way of expressing community and celebration, but also divisive with regard to race, cultural difference, gender, and geography. This wide-ranging book is a must-read for food lovers and all those interested in how cultures and identities are formed
and maintained.

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