The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table
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The New York Times bestselling work of undercover journalism in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed that fully investigates our food system to explain what keeps Americans from eating well—and what we can do about it. When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? And what can we do to change it? To find out, McMillan went undercover in three jobs that feed America, living and eating off her wages in each. Reporting from California fields, a Walmart produce aisle outside of Detroit, and the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s, McMillan examines the reality of our country’s food industry in this “clear and essential” (The Boston Globe) work of reportage. Chronicling her own experience and that of the Mexican garlic crews, Midwestern produce managers, and Caribbean line cooks with whom she works, McMillan goes beyond the food on her plate to explore the national priorities that put it there. Fearlessly reported and beautifully written, The American Way of Eating goes beyond statistics and culture wars to deliver a book that is fiercely honest, strikingly intelligent, and compulsively readable. In making the simple case that—city or country, rich or poor—everyone wants good food, McMillan guarantees that talking about dinner will never be the same again. Read more
Publisher : Scribner
Publication date : October 2, 2012
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 1439171963
ISBN-13 : 67
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.38 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #125 in Agriculture & Food Policy (Books) #550 in Poverty #1,177 in Food Science (Books)
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
Imagine you're a woman interested in food practices in the United States so you go undercover living on what you earn in three sectors: a) working as a migrant worker in California; b) working at Walmart in Michigan; and c) working at an Applebees in New York City. In a nutshell, this is Tracie McMillan's story of these experiences. She stated her interest as: "how food works in our lives, how priorities around health and convenience and cost shift when resources are tight, and what we won't compromise on even when they are" (p. 12). The thing is - everyone eats. No culture, people group, community, or person is exempt from this fact. McMillan's first hand experiences illuminate and gives voice to the lived experiences of people living at or near minimum wage. She touches on so many interesting topics: * The historical enculturation of food as 'fast' and the subsequent impact on the way we approach eating, cooking, and nutrition * The cultural belief that 'foodies' are upper class enlightened souls versus the notion that working classes aren't interested in food. Her personal examples and the way food was used as a part of community and relationships blasted the prior view. The reality is that everyone is interested in food. * Emphasis on food supply as a distribution problem has created and exacerbated food freshness, food costs, and food availability. * Issues of access and cost have created a food divide where working class people do not have access and/or cannot afford the food that is provided. She used the term food desert to describe those areas where affordable fresh, health, affordable food is difficult to find. * Educational practices around meal planning, nutrition, and eating. Realistically some simply do not know how to plan meals, shop, and cook. If you grew up solely on hamburger helper - this may be the only way you know to 'cook' * Class, gender, and ethnic aspects of food work The book is well cited with a bibliography so that you can read more. My only critique is that I read this book alone on a plane. I wanted/want to spend time discussing this book with others - food related issues are simply some of the more critical issues facing us particularly obesity and healthcare. More importantly though, perhaps the most important thing is my underlying belief that food practices contribute a great deal to community, the deep sense of community that we share with one another. In the book, even when there was insufficient money to 'make it' - people shared food, they made sure McMillan had sufficient food to eat. Food is a great source of communion and community. I know of no topic as vital, no topic with the capacity to help us transcend difference, no topic that can so quickly connect us with positive memories (e.g., wedding cake, communion, picnics, family dinners, etc.). When we disconnect food from people and community - it may easily become a product to be distributed...to the detriment of us all. These are the thoughts that bubble up for me as I reflect on this book (smile).
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Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2013 by Alicia Crumpton
Format: Kindle
I first read about journalist Tracie McMillan's debut book The American Way of Eating in a New York Times review by literary critic and author Dwight Garner on February 20th, 2012. He had opened his review with this: "One of the first things to like about Tracie McMillan, the author of 'The American Way of Eating,' is her forthrightness. She's a blue-collar girl who grew up eating a lot of Tuna Helper and Ortega Taco Dinners because her mother was gravely ill for a decade, and her father, who sold lawn equipment, had little time to cook. About these box meals, she says, 'I liked them.'" This interested me, as I've been following articles about food and its sources for some time, so it was worth a closer look. I had read and enjoyed Garner's witty and informative 2009 book Read Me, so when he closed his review with this comment, I was further intrigued: "By the end of `The American Way of Eating,' the author ties so many strands of argument together that you'll begin to agree with one of the cooks at Applebee's, who declares about her in awe: 'You see that white girl work? Damn, she can work.'" Author McMillan's book begins with a few paragraphs explaining that her book is "a work of journalism," and that she had gone undercover to write it, choosing to work side by side with the people involved in various aspects of what we look at as the food industry in America today. Her introduction begins with this somewhat jolting statement, and it's one that made this reader sit up and take notice, wondering if her book was going to be some vegan manifesto against anything that had to do with meat: "The first Brooklyn supermarket I ever walked into had a cockroach in the deli. Not one of those stealthy critters stealing along the crevices in the floor, or hanging out backstage in dry storage. No, this was a proud-to-be-here New York City roach, crawling openly up the wall's white tile before dropping, unceremoniously, onto the meat slicer below. I decided to skip the lunchmeat and headed for the produce aisle." My initial suspicions were quickly alleviated, as this book is an actual first-hand exploration, one that took the author to jobs such as picking grapes and peaches in the California fields, then moving on to cutting and gleaning garlic, working right beside the other farmworkers, most of whom she converses with in Spanish, the only gringa, and one making well under minimum wage. This is for nine hours of grueling and physically exhausting work. And in all of this, she's working with the people that she encounters, not standing aside with public relations people and repeating the media hype that is seen in advertisements. She lives with these people, discussing their kids, doctor visits, food... in short all of the things that regular people discuss with their coworkers in almost any field of work in America. From those California fields, author McMillan moves on in Part II to Michigan for a stint working at Wal-Mart, which it turns out, has become the "largest grocer in both the U.S. and the world." Her in-depth observations are both fascinating and revealing, especially since Wal-Mart, founded in 1962, didn't really get into food until the 1980s. While she's describing her experiences working side by side with other employees there, she interleaves the paragraphs with hard facts about how large Wal-Mart is in our American food chain, and she backs it up with extensive footnotes. Part III takes us to the cooking of food, and here she starts as a kitchen novice at Applebee's in Brooklyn, NY. There are over twenty Applebee's restaurants in New York City, and McMillan was trying to get a kitchen job in food preparation with the chain. This was one of the more fascinating sections of the book, though there's an unsettling part, which results in the author being assaulted (and not by a work colleague) after the get-together following her last night at Applebee's, a place that she had openly enjoyed the work. Each of the book sections starts by listing how much she earned picking, producing or handling food and how much was spent on what she ate, both percentagewise and in terms of annualized salary. Some of these numbers can be quite sobering in terms of comparative living in this country today, and wondering where we may be headed. It's all too easy to compare this book with cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich's bestselling Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, and in that comparison, both Ehrenreich and McMillan have gone undercover among the working people of America. Having read both, this reader found more depth in Ms. McMillan offering, but perhaps that's due to the difference in the fact that self-proclaimed "myth buster" Ehrenreich seems to dwell on class struggles. McMillan's working family background offers a more three-dimensional feel to the people and the situations that she encountered. But there were times that she seemed to be reluctant to get too close or reveal what she was feeling about those with whom she was involved during her work. That may be a subjective observation on this reader's point, but there were times that I found myself waiting for the author to indeed open up with the emotions that she was surely feeling just below the surface, yet so often it went 80% there... and stopped. It should be noted that Ms. McMillan's extensive footnotes sprinkled throughout this book are surprising in both their depth and their accuracy. This reader spent quite a few hours bouncing between the Kindle and the computer looking at some of the sources that she had listed, and it became clear that she had really done her homework. Her appendix entitled "Cheap Food?" is intriguing, and worth the time to read, and her wide-ranging bibliography could make food reading into quite a project for those so interested. This reader has already bookmarked a number of her sources for more in-depth reading. There are some holes here and there in this book, but without making excuses on behalf of the author, that's to be expected in any journalistic work such as this. All questions and answers cannot possibly be put into a book such as this without either making it completely boring or dull, and in this author McMillan has succeeded quite well. What stands out is that this is a good read, and often moving on much like a novel, with dialogue that makes one wonder what's coming next. As a debut offering, this reader is impressed with the depth that Tracie McMillan has gone into with this book. If you're at all interested in food, where it comes from and how it's handled, this book is a solidly recommended 4-star read, and a worthwhile look at the actual politics involved in food policy in America today. I'll be looking forward to what she comes up with next. 3/11/2012
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2012 by John Williamson
Format: Hardcover
***** The book reads like a novel, this first person account of the author's undercover journey into the world of the working poor in the food industry. The author is a remarkable storyteller, recounting all aspects of her adventure in a way that makes you feel like you are entering into her world and joining her and the other workers at each place she is employed. She covers what it felt like, how it was to live and work under harsh conditions, where she lived, the friends she made, the choices she was faced with by living on such a small amount of money. It is fascinating to be able to feel immersed in a world that perhaps few of us would voluntarily enter into, but that many of us find ourselves. The author spends time harvesting grapes with Hispanic farm workers, harvesting peaches, cutting and gleaning garlic, working at Walmart (including in the produce department), and working at Applebee's. During this time the work is grueling--she gets injured and suffers heatstroke, experiences identity theft, and even is sexually assaulted. She is also taken advantage of repeatedly by her employers in so many creative ways that it's mind-boggling. The reader comes to understand and empathize with workers trapped in low-level jobs and see how hard it becomes to fight back and/or to move beyond a daily existence. But this is not really just a memoir of an undercover adventure. It is another book as well, an important social commentary. It is not just about one woman's journey, but it is about our food supply. How it works, what drives it. How, "It is far easier to eat well in American than in most of the world but we've done little to ensure that fresh and healthy food is available to everyone." (pg 153) This book explores answers to the questions: "What would it take for us all to eat well?" and "What are the realities of food and eating in America, especially for the working poor?" It answers these important questions literally BY telling the author's story, and helps the reader to see why we all need to care about access to fresh and healthy food--to work for equality in so many areas besides food as well. It shows the reader how many of these social issues are inexorably linked. For those who enjoy details (as I do) the book is painstakingly footnoted--the notes take up almost 40 pages of very small print. This was a good way to organize the book, as those who are interested can read every footnote of supporting information (as I did), whereas those who just want a good story can easily avoid all of the detailed information. If you are interested in this topic at all, you will not regret reading this book. To find out more before buying, you can google the book's title and find the author's book web site; the book also has a Facebook page that you can find by searching for the title on Facebook. Highly recommended. *****
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Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2012 by O. Merce Brown
Format: Paperback
This book is a tough one for me to review, so a few caveats first: I've worked in all three sectors of the food business McMillan covers (growing, distributing and serving) and I've done an extensive amount of research into all the subjects mentioned here - so I'm probably not the target audience. All that being said, I thought this book was a decent casual read that just couldn't find its way. McMillan did a great job of covering the details of an industrialized food system that favors logistical efficiency over all else. You'll definitely understand the system better if you pick up this book. Her account of farm labor conditions in California was both upsetting and predictable - I read this book alongside Steinbeck's classic, Grapes of Wrath. How shamefully little has changed in 80 years. Her coverage of Walmart (retail distribution) and Applebee's (food service) were less insightful and honestly rushed. McMillan is writing in a haphazard style, jumping between characters, jobs, social commentary and even a deeply personal account of rape which seemed very out of place. The book kept me interested but it was like reading somebody's personal journal; it sorely needs a professional editor. So who is the book for? That is a question I could never quite wrap my head around. If you're wealthy, new to food and poverty issues and an avid reader, this book has a place on your shelf. For almost everyone else, other books like Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (outlining industrial food), Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (covering poverty) or Marion Nestle's Food Politics (explaining why food is the way it is in America) are much better bets.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2013 by staypuftman
Format: Hardcover
The reason that this book is amazing is that it opens up a whole new world to people who may not be out looking for a "food nutrition" book. I just got this book and set aside my other reading to start the book ... and found it so good that I stayed up late reading it. Another reason the book is amazing is the footnotes, endnotes and bibliography ... very extensive! You can just read the book and skip "the fine details" ... or you can pause in your reading to check her footnote which often includes places where you can cross-check what she is saying! I appreciate this and have been reading every footnote as I read through her book. I would highly recommend this book!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2012 by Len Lindsay
Format: Hardcover
Interesting book about the behind-the-scenes of the food industry. I think that if more people knew more about where their food comes from and what is is done to it before we eat it, people would make very, very different eating decisions. This book will appeal to people who like, e.g., Michael Pollan. Focus lies less on facts & figures and more on experience (this is not to say that the book is not based on facts or not well researched, I just meant to say thatthe focus lies more on her personal experience of working in the different stages of the food industry and less on numbers, biochemistry, and cooking know-how!!!).
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Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2013 by Constructed_preference
Format: Hardcover
This book is worth it just for the anecdote about the Detroit hipster trying to explain why his being "really into food" is different from your average resourceful Mexican-American mom. McMillan gives a powerful reality check to precious foodie culture--not saying that $9 tomatoes are inherently terrible, but simply telling the story of how regular food gets to your plate. And, more important: the stories of the people who get it there. They may not be "foodies," but, as McMillan so clearly shows, they care just as much about food as anyone else in America--and have just as much of a right to it. The book mixes McMillan's personal experience working at the bottom end of the food industry with extremely well-written reportage, for general context. Nearly every personal story she tells is backed up with research that shows it's not an anomaly. The stats are there, but it's McMillan's stories that will stick with me. The woman who considers a fresh orange a "treat" because it's so expensive? That's how wrong things are. This is a powerful book, very much in the style of Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed." Like Ehrenreich's book, it's a bit overwhelming to see just how grim the economic situation really is in America--and to consider what it would take to change it. McMillan has some ideas, and perhaps the most powerful one is that the food production system should be treated more like a public utility than a private corporate tool. It's a pretty radical concept, but when you get to the end of this book, you'll see how it makes sense.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2012 by Zora O'Neill
Format: Kindle
Well written & a very good book to read. It explains quite a lot about the food industry & what it takes to work in it. I was familiar with the farm & retail arenas; however, the restaurant arena was an eye opener. I had not realized that most restaurant meals were pre-created & simply assembled (just a fancier fast-food joint) before presentation to the diner(s). I should have known that almost every food item in a restaurant comes from either SYSCO, or US Foods. So, it's off to the produce section & the local farm for my food items, thank you! PS. yesterday, I started creating my third set of marinated vegetables. Step 1) Get a large clean pickle jar & a lid. 64-oz size works well. Step 2) Chop up a bunch of loose vegetables. I chose an onion, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, sweet pepers, and one Jalipino pepper Step 3) Boil for 15 minutes in a large soup pot with water & 1 cup of white vinegar Step 4) Ladle into the jar after cooling, Add 1 tsp of mixed spices & 1 tsp of course ground pepper Step 5) Leave in the refrigerator for 3 days -- Shake & remix each day Step 6) Open & enjoy And I ain't going back to a restaurant again!
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Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2014 by David Ecale