How did white bread, once an icon of American progress, become “white trash”? In this lively history of bakers, dietary crusaders, and social reformers, Aaron Bobrow-Strain shows us that what we think about the humble, puffy loaf says a lot about who we are and what we want our society to look like. White Bread teaches us that when Americans debate what one should eat, they are also wrestling with larger questions of race, class, immigration, and gender. As Bobrow-Strain traces the story of bread, from the first factory loaf to the latest gourmet pain au levain, he shows how efforts to champion “good food” reflect dreams of a better society—even as they reinforce stark social hierarchies.
In the early twentieth century, the factory-baked loaf heralded a bright new future, a world away from the hot, dusty, “dirty” bakeries run by immigrants. Fortified with vitamins, this bread was considered the original “superfood” and even marketed as patriotic—while food reformers painted white bread as a symbol of all that was wrong with America.
The history of America’s one-hundred-year-long love-hate relationship with white bread reveals a lot about contemporary efforts to change the way we eat. Today, the alternative food movement favors foods deemed ethical and environmentally correct to eat, and fluffy industrial loaves are about as far from slow, local, and organic as you can get. Still, the beliefs of early twentieth-century food experts and diet gurus, that getting people to eat a certain food could restore the nation’s decaying physical, moral, and social fabric, will sound surprisingly familiar. Given that open disdain for “unhealthy” eaters and discrimination on the basis of eating habits grow increasingly acceptable, White Bread is a timely and important examination of what we talk about when we talk about food.
About Aaron Bobrow-Strain
Aaron Bobrow-Strain is associate professor of politics at Whitman College in Washington. He writes and teaches on the politics of the global food system. He is the author of Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and Violence in Chiapas.
Against the Grain - ‘White Bread,’ by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
The New York Times Book Review – June 29, 2012 (Excerpt)
“And the house of Israel called its name Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it like wafers made with honey.”
Bread, the food that symbolizes our bodily, intellectual and spiritual lives, must do one thing. It must sustain us. This has been true forever. In the Paleolithic age, we ground plant roots with stones and made coarse cakes. Ancient Egyptians baked theirs in ovens and ate so many loaves that Greeks called them “artophagoi,” or “bread eaters.” In the Middle Ages, we used sturdy slices of barley-wheat bread as edible plates, which we would either lick clean and crack with tough teeth, or feed to our cats and dogs.
Until the invention of the iron roll mill in the 19th century, bread, if it was available, did its job. Wheat was milled by stone wheels, its nutritious germ and starchy endosperm ground together into dark, nutty flour. The iron roller, though, squeezed the germ off, leaving behind only its pale, starchy ghost.
Today, not only does our bread not sustain us, it can barely feed us safely. Animals and humans fed exclusively on white bread quickly sicken. Studies repeatedly advise against its consumption. A divinely inspired writer long ago imagined this stuff, but without providing a good name: “And when I have broken the staff of your bread, . . . you shall eat, and not be satisfied.” [Read the full article...]
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I have fought a good fight,
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The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS
