Foods for Thought

Funerals, they say, are for the living. The stories we share about those who have come and gone tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the past. What do we want to remember? What would we rather forget? The answers change, as we do.

Acquired Tastes tells the life stories of people whom history has largely forgotten. None are household names. Many were born into some degree of privilege. But all did something that was unexpected, leaving quiet legacies to extend far beyond their immediate circles. The book is part biography, part food writing, and part history, a faithless fusion of established genres. For that, I enjoyed it very much — because foodways are faithless too. Any food scholar worth their salt will tell you that culinary authenticity is a myth or rather that there are as many “authentic” dishes as there are people who cherish them. Foodways, the material and symbolic customs that surround people and the things they eat, continually...