National Network for Equitable Library Service

Do you know if your waiter sings in the bathroom? Or if the lady who whipped up the icing on your cake wore false fingernails? When was the last time you microwaved your dishcloth? Is your orange juice pasteurized? In Let Them Eat Flax!, award-winning author Dr. Joe Schwarcz explains why these are more important questions than whether you eat fresh or farmed salmon, whether genetically modified foods should be labeled, or whether fruits and vegetables harbor traces of pesticides.

Rappoport treats the dinner table like a Freudian couch, asking us to lie back and spill our guts. Tracing our culinary customs from the Stone Age to the stovetop range, he illuminates our complex and often contradictory eating habits, and suggests that perhaps we are what we eat.

Will eating insects change the world for the better?​

Meet the beetles: there are millions and millions of them and many fewer of the rest of us — mammals, birds, and reptiles. Since before recorded history, humans have eaten insects. While many get squeamish at the idea, entomophagy — people eating insects — is a possible way to ensure a sustainable and secure food supply for the eight billion of us on the planet.

"Snacks" is a history of Canadian snack foods, of the independent producers and workers who make them, and of the consumers who can’t put them down. Janis Thiessen profiles several iconic Canadian snack food companies, including Old Dutch Potato Chips, Hawkins Cheezies, and chocolate maker Ganong. These companies have developed in distinctive ways, reflecting the unique stories of their founders and their intense connection to specific locations.

Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touchpoints in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes listeners to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine.

The story of the "Lentil Underground" begins on a 280-acre homestead rooted in America's Great Plains: the Oien family farm. Forty years ago, corporate agribusiness told small farmers like the Oiens to "get big or get out." But twenty-seven-year-old David Oien decided to take a stand, becoming the first in his conservative Montana county to plant a radically different crop: organic lentils.

Still drinking Cabernet after that one bottle you liked five years ago? It can be overwhelming if not intimidating to branch out from your go-to grape, but everyone wants their next wine to be new and exciting. How to choose the right one? In this book, award-winning wine critic Alice Feiring presents an all-new way to look at the world of wine.

Inspired by Jules Verne's classic adventure tale, Mike Veseth takes listeners "around the world in eighty wines."

Outsmart Your Impulses and Eat Better A Belgian chocolate cake topped with a velvety homemade mousse catches your eye on the menu. The next thing you know, you've ordered it-despite the hefty price. But do you know why? Through over forty compelling questions, this book explores how our eating decisions tread the line between conscious and subconscious, and enables us to be more intelligent about food.

David Wondrich presents the newly updated edition of his definitive guide to classic American cocktails.