Acquired Tastes may be an edited collection, but it makes a single, convincing argument—the modern US food system is a product of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not of the last seventy years, as so many food writers (e.g., Michael Pollan) have argued. The volume's editors and authors effectively trace to this earlier period many aspects we think of as integral to “modern” food, including celebrity endorsements, plant-based meat, transnational distribution, and the labeling of mass-produced foods as “natural.” Acquired Tastes is a fun collection of well-written pieces that will be useful for scholars, viable for the classroom, and entertaining for foodies.
The collection is divided into three sections. The first concerns the constriction of time and space that made modern food possible. The second concerns contests over trust—in both industrialized food products and in the system that provides this food. The third and final section considers the...
