New York Council for the Humanities: Reading Groups: Adult Reading Groups

History In Every Bite: New York City's Place in the Food Chain
This series looks at the history and development of New York City through agriculture and food. Each session centers on a book selected by Joan Gussow, an emeritus professor of nutrition and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The series opens with a discussion of The Big Oyster: A Moluscular History of New York by Mark Kurlansky, a surprising look at New York and the links between the decline of its once famous oysters and its environment.

This session is centered on Marc Linder's Of Cabbages and Kings County: Agriculture and the Formation of Modern Brooklyn, the story of Brooklyn's transformation from farmland to real estate and how it might not have been necessary.

A discussion of The Last Algonquin by Theodore Kazimiroff. The amazing life of the "last" Algonquin Indian as told toa young boy who, discovering the camp of Joe Two Tree in a wild corner of the Bronx in 1924, earned his trust and his story.

The series concludes with a conversation about It’s a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life by Keith Stewart, an engaging story of a man living in a small New York apartment who went north to farm and now sells at the NYC Greenmarket.