Author Archive
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
A major work by an interesting thinker, this genre-busting volume will someday become a standard text in a standard university department – though no satisfactory one yet exists – that will teach and research the discipline of "Food Studies", encompassing economics, history, philosophy, anthropology, several fields of life sciences and the humanities.
Bristol, UK
Bristol Festival of Ideas, Cooking as a Political Act, A Talk by Michael Pollan, Rosalind Franklin Room, At-Bristol, Anchor Road, 7:45pm
London, UK
Cooking as a Political Act, A talk by Michael Pollan, New Theatre, East Building, London School of Economics, 6:30pm
London, UK
How Cooking Can Change Your Life A talk by Michael Pollan, RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London 1:00pm
London, UK
Michael Pollan talks to William Leith, The School of Life, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, 7:30pm
Amsterdam
Aula – Universiteit van Amsterdam – Singel 411, Amsterdam. Presented in cooperation with The John Adams Institute.
Hay on Wye, Wales
Hay Literary Festival, Michael Pollan talks to Rosie Boycott, Sky Arts Studio, Hay Festival Site, Dairy Meadows, Brecon Road, Hay on Wye
Michael Pollan Talks About Braises and Barbeque
When it was time for the audience at Portland’s Newmark Theater to ask Michael Pollan a question, the first out of the gate was: what are the five things that are always in your fridge? His answer: “Eggs. Milk. Yogurt. Mustard. Ketchup.” Other people wanted to know what he thought of Mark Bittman’s idea of being vegan before
Some of My Best Friends Are Germs
I can tell you the exact date that I began to think of myself in the first-person plural — as a superorganism, that is, rather than a plain old individual human being. It happened on March 7. That’s when I opened my e-mail to find a huge, processor-choking file of charts and raw data from a laboratory located at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. As part of a new citizen-science initiative called the American Gut project, the lab sequenced my microbiome — that is, the genes not of “me,” exactly, but of the several hundred microbial species with whom I share this body. These bacteria, which number around 100 trillion, are living (and dying) right now on the surface of my skin, on my tongue and deep in the coils of my intestines, where the largest contingent of them will be found, a pound or two of microbes together forming a vast, largely uncharted interior wilderness that scientists are just beginning to map.
You Are What You Cook
In his new book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Michael Pollan takes a tour of the most time-tested cooking techniques, from southern whole-hog barbecue and slow-cooked ragus to sourdough baking and pickle making. Listen to Michael on NPR’s Science Friday or read the transcript here.
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth— to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink.