Scan barcode
A review by realityczar
Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America by Michael Ruhlman
3.0
Grocery does a fair job of describing the ins and outs of the grocery business in the US, at least from the perspective of the small, regional supermarket chain. It provides limited insight into the corner store, except as a historical notion, or into the operation of the national chains, which largely loom as soulless money machines that the plucky regionals stand in counterpoint against.
A significant part of the book is preaching on American eating habits, but covers little new ground, repeatedly referring to Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, and echoing their sentiments. Ruhlman likes his facts and figures, except when science might illuminate his arguments about food, lifestyle, and cooking, where he lets anecdote and "common sense" do the persuading.
Most troubling, he talks only briefly about food deserts and similar aspects of the economics of food. He glorifies his local childhood grocery chain, as they heroically plan to lose money by selling $500 wines in a redeveloped downtown landmark building, but doesn't point out that most of the food he wants us to eat and much of the traditional cooking he would like us to do is just not available economically or geographically to large portions of the population. And his local grocers, though they seem to put a strong focus on treating their employees well, aren't doing anything to help those folks who can't get fresh produce, organic or not, by offering lamb raised in a national park to the wealthy.
A significant part of the book is preaching on American eating habits, but covers little new ground, repeatedly referring to Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, and echoing their sentiments. Ruhlman likes his facts and figures, except when science might illuminate his arguments about food, lifestyle, and cooking, where he lets anecdote and "common sense" do the persuading.
Most troubling, he talks only briefly about food deserts and similar aspects of the economics of food. He glorifies his local childhood grocery chain, as they heroically plan to lose money by selling $500 wines in a redeveloped downtown landmark building, but doesn't point out that most of the food he wants us to eat and much of the traditional cooking he would like us to do is just not available economically or geographically to large portions of the population. And his local grocers, though they seem to put a strong focus on treating their employees well, aren't doing anything to help those folks who can't get fresh produce, organic or not, by offering lamb raised in a national park to the wealthy.