Welcome to Exquidibles

Food is more than fuel for our bodies: food is culture, ritual, and metaphor. If you examine the way a society eats, you can understand a great deal about its structure and ethics. People get really worked up over food: what to eat, when to eat, how to raise it, how to cook it. The science and history of nutrition and agriculture are endlessly fascinating!

Most Americans are completely disconnected from food production. We can go to the grocery store and buy fruits and vegetables that are completely out of season in our local area. We are living in an era in which general food production resembles something out of a sci-fi novel, and few realize it. People thoughtlessly buy plastic-wrapped cuts of meat without consideration for the economic and and ethical issues surrounding the journey their steaks took from the farm to the refrigerator. And who among us has ever attempted to survive on homemade bread?

As an on-again off-again vegetarian, CSA member, and ardent home cook, I spend a lot of time thinking about food. How does food affect brain chemistry? Why did humans decide to milk other animals? What is the history of pesticides? Why don't more people bake their own bread? What exactly is cream of tartar?

This blog is not only a venue for me to practice my craft as a writer, but also a space to explore these passing thoughts. I hope to examine these and other topics in an entertaining and enlightening manner, instead of letting them float away while I wander the aisles of the grocery store.

I have named this blog Exquidibles—a portmanteau of “exquisite” and “edibles.” In this blog, I will delve into a plethora of issues, practices and histories surrounding food, and maybe even a recipe or too.

Dig in!