Omnivore Atlanta

Salon has published a fascinating interview with Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, argues that the signal event in the evolution of apes into men was learning to use fire to cook — not the development of tools, as is usually said.

Wrangham observes that cooked food is more efficiently digestible and nutritious than raw food (and he thus criticizes the so-called “raw food movement”). He also argues that cooking shaped our households and notions about gender.

It’s a great read, but I was surprised that neither the author of the interview or Wrangham himself credited Claude Lévi-Strauss for his seminal book, The Raw and the Cooked (1964), which argues (by looking at mythological themes) that the axis of the raw and the cooked signifies the binary opposition of nature and culture. It’s arguably a rather small step from Lévi-Strauss’ argument to Wrangham’s.

Maybe Wrangham takes up Lévi-Strauss in the book’s text….

Economy got you down? Home in foreclosure? Don’t worry. Bake cakes….

Atlanta did not make Huffington Post’s list of the 10 Best US Cities for Local Food. But you can still nominate us….

Hollywood organizes to help save the sushi favorite, bluefin tuna, from extinction.

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LARDY LARDY: One of the Slate pieces questions the potential hip factor of this once shunned ingredient.

Slate Magazine put out a special food issue today celebrating changing perspectives on food and our growing awareness about what we put on the table. “The Way We Eat” includes six stories on topics such as why lard just might become trendy again and cooking using ratios.

(Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

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A New York Times staffer, Amanda Hesser, thinks it’s dandy that Michelle Obama planted an organic garden but she wants Michelle to get more savvy about cooking:

When The Washington Post asked Mrs. Obama for her favorite recipe, she replied, “You know, cooking isn’t one of my huge things.” And last month, when a boy who was visiting the White House asked her if she liked to cook, she replied: “I don’t miss cooking. I’m just fine with other people cooking.” Though delivered lightheartedly, and by someone with a very busy schedule, the message was unmistakable: everyday cooking is a chore.

Both times Mrs. Obama missed a great opportunity to get people talking about a crucial yet neglected aspect of the food discussion: cooking. Because terrific local ingredients aren’t much use if people are cooking less and less; cooking is to gardening what parenting is to childbirth. Research by the NPD Group showed that Americans ate takeout meals an average of 125 times a year in 2008, up from 72 a year in 1983. And a recent U.C.L.A. study of 32 working families found that the subjects viewed cooking from scratch as a kind of rarefied hobby.

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Zen cooking

By Julia Stedman

I turned to my husband and said “if Mama asks me to cook supper, will you give me five dollars?” He gave me a very knowing half smile. Surely to God, with an hour left on our four hour drive and the sun setting, I was in the clear. Not so. Fifteen minutes later mama called asking us to retrieve my sociopathically late sister and bring her to join the rest of the family, their families, and a dozen or so out-of-towners all there to celebrate my sister’s wedding. That’s fine Mama, we’re happy to pick her up. Then it came, in a voice that chirped like a song bird – “oh, and when you get here can you cook the etouffe? I’ve already peeled the shrimp for you.” I held the phone towards my husband and asked her to repeat the question, feigning cosmic cellular interference. He gave me another knowing half smile. Of course Mama, I’m happy to help.

While my mother is a perfectly respectable Cajun cook, I tend to be on the more adventurous side. So when some twenty years ago I announced my newfound avoidance of meat, I was pretty much left to my own devices if actually wanted to eat when I visited. Accommodating my constraints was not considered considerable.

We arrived to a chaotic household, and an even more chaotic kitchen. There were two aunts, one uncle, and at least one sister-in-law buzzing about with all the grace one expects from bumblebees. I went into “sarge” mode, which didn’t quite have the effect I was hoping for – looks like I’m dealing with a bevy of conscientious objectors. (more…)

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NPR’s “Morning Edition” featured a segment this morning about an interesting collaboration between the Culinary Institute of America and Harvard Medical School. The two recently held a joint conference devoted to healthy cooking.

“Intention is the driver of all behavioral change,” says Dr. David Eisenberg of Harvard Medical School, who initiated the collaboration with the Culinary Institute of America a few years ago. He says healthy and delicious go naturally together — but sometimes people need a little education and help. Doctors can be leaders in this area, he says.

Many of the physicians attending the Culinary Institute/ Harvard conference say they want to spend more time focusing on diet, lifestyle and disease prevention in their practices. Patients, they say, are hungry for concrete advice.

I was a bit repulsed to learn one dish was made from canned salmon and frozen spinach, but I do like those fried salmon patties served at soul-food restaurants. Somehow, I’m guessing Harvard’s version is less … fried.

Listen to the whole story or read the transcript here.

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