New Books in Food Marshall Poe

The etrog is a curious fruit. The Bible commands its readers: “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day beautiful tree-fruit (peri etz hadar), palm fronds, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” Native to the Far East and adapted to the culture of the eastern Mediterranean, the rituals of the etrog are among the very few that are dependent upon a particular environment for growth. In their wanderings across the globe, the etrog has remained part of Jews’ practices and of the annual rhythms of the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot, the Feast of Booths. 
This book is a lovely collection, both intellectually and visually, covering everything from the sale of etrog throughout its history to visual representations, medical remedies and much more. This interview is with Joshua Teplitsky, Jordan Katz, and Jonathan Surnow.
Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and Linguistics at McGill for his BA and completed an MA in Hebrew Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. He works with Jewish organizations in media and content distribution, such as TheHabura.com and RabbiEfremGoldberg.org.
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Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present (Oxford UP, 2021) focuses on the iteration of the trope of ‘the monstrous vegan’ across 200 years of Anglophone literature. Explicating, through such monsters, veganism’s relation to utopian longing and challenge to the conceptual category of the ‘human’, the book explores ways in which ethical identities can be written, represented, and transmitted. Reading Veganism proposes that we can recognize and identify the monstrous vegan in relation to four key traits. First, monstrous vegans do not eat animals, an abstinence that generates a seemingly inexplicable anxiety in those who encounter them. Second, they are hybrid assemblages of human and nonhuman animal parts, destabilizing existing taxonomical classifications. Third, monstrous vegans are sired outside of heterosexual reproduction, the product of male acts of creation. And, finally, monstrous vegans are intimately connected to acts of writing and literary creation. The principal contention of the book is that understandings of veganism, as identity and practice, are limited without a consideration of multiplicity, provisionality, failure, and insufficiency within vegan definition and lived practice. Veganism’s association with positivity, in its drive for health and purity, is countered by a necessary and productive negativity generated by a recognition of the horrors of the modern world. Vegan monsters rehearse the key paradoxes involved in the writing of vegan identity.
Emelia Quinn is Assistant Professor of World Literatures & Environmental Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to this position she received her DPhil (PhD) in English from the University of Oxford. She is author of Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present (Oxford UP, 2021) and co-editor of Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
Callie Smith is a poet and a PhD candidate in English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
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This is the tale of one woman's journey of growing a community-supported farm from earth to plate. In 1995 Angela Tedesco bought a twenty-acre farm with the goal of growing food for her community, and for seventeen years she fed up to 180 families. Finding Turtle Farm: My Twenty-Acre Adventure in Community-Supported Agriculture (U Minnesota Press, 2022) is the story behind that incredible work, chronicling all the ups and downs of navigating grass-roots organic agriculture in its nascent era. From soil tests to invasive pests (and neighbors), she covers it all - but first and foremost this book is a story of connection, education, and the growth of a thriving local food system. Also included are suggestions of delicious, seasonal varieties of produce as well as recipes to whet your palate. Finding Turtle Farm is a beautiful memoir of food, farming, and one woman who deeply connected with the importance of what goes on our plate, why, and how.
Liz Barrett is currently history PhDing at Lehigh University. CSA Farmer, mother of 3, and veteran of the USMC. Lives in suburban Philadelphia where she reads and writes a lot, and really likes old stuff. On Twitter: @lizcantlose.
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What explains the uneven meatification of diets in three of Asia’s core ‘emerging economies’? How and why is meat consumption changing today, and what role have American fast-food chains played? To discuss these questions and more, Helene Ramnæs, coordinator for the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies, is joined by Marius Korsnes, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Arve Hansen.
Asian diets include considerably more meat now than in the recent past, but meat is a contested issue. China and Vietnam have experienced some of the world’s most dramatic meat booms but vegetarianism increases and concerns for unsafe production methods and negative health effects have made people cautious about the meat they eat. While India defies global meat trends, contemporary India is not as vegetarian as it claims, and a large beef sector exists in an uneasy relationship with Modi’s hindu-nationalist regime.
Marius Korsnes specialises in Science and Technology Studies at the Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His work focuses on sustainable consumption and production and he is PI of the ERC project: “A Middle Way? Probing Sufficiency through Meat and Milk in China”
Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a social anthropologist working on social movements and the political economy of development in India. In addition to working and teaching at the University of Oslo, he also leads the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies with Arve Hansen.
Arve Hansen is a human geographer at the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo, teaching and researching consumption and sustainability, and with a particular interest in meat and meat avoidance. He also leads the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies with Kenneth Bo Nielsen.
Karen Lykke Syse and Arve Hansen: Changing Meat Cultures Food Practices, Global Capitalism, and the Consumption of Animals
The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.
We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.
About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk
Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast
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There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-grains are a disaster; eat everything in moderation; eat only certain foods--and on and on. In 100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today (Picador, 2016), biological anthropologist Stephen Le explains how cuisines of different cultures are a result of centuries of evolution, finely tuned to our biology and surroundings. Today many cultures have strayed from their ancestral diets, relying instead on mass-produced food often made with chemicals that may be contributing to a rise in so-called "Western diseases," such as cancer, heart disease, and obesity.
Travelling around the world to places as far-flung as Vietnam, Kenya, India, and the US, Stephen Le introduces us to people who are growing, cooking, and eating food using both traditional and modern methods, striving for a sustainable, healthy diet. In clear, compelling arguments based on scientific research, Le contends that our ancestral diets provide the best first line of defense in protecting our health and providing a balanced diet. Fast-food diets, as well as strict regimens like paleo or vegan, in effect highjack our biology and ignore the complex nature of our bodies. In 100 Million Years of Food Le takes us on a guided tour of evolution, demonstrating how our diets are the result of millions of years of history, and how we can return to a sustainable, healthier way of eating.
Aven McMaster and Mark Sundaram are historians and the hosts of the excellent podcast The Endless Knot.
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A young sake bar owner, Yusuke Shimoki, arrives on the doorstep of Hannah Kirshner’s Brooklyn apartment “with a suitcase full of Ishikawa sake,” in Hannah’s words. That visit sparked a years-long connection between Hannah and the rural Japanese community of Yamanaka, a home for artisans and artists, hunters and farmers, and other ordinary Japanese trying to live in the countryside.
Those visits are the subject of Hannah’s book, Water Wood and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town, published in hardcover by Viking in 2021, and in paperback by Penguin this year. Hannah learns how to make sake, craft wooden trays, hunt ducks, farm vegetables, and several other activities common in this part of rural Japan.
And, as an added bonus, readers get to see recipes garnered from Hannah’s time in Yamanaka!
In this interview, Hannah and I talk about rural Japan, duck hunting, drinking sake and growing vegetables, as well as some of her favorite recipes in the book!
Hannah Kirshner is a writer, artist, and food stylist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, T Magazine, Vogue, Saveur, Taste, Food 52, Atlas Obscura, and Food & Wine, among others. Trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, Kirshner grew up on a small farm outside Seattle and divides her time between Brooklyn and rural Japan.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Water, Wood and Wild Things. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.
Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
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