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

History in Every Bite: Plotting New York City's Place in the Food Chain

This series uses food as a lens to look at the history of New York City, exploring how every bite we eat contains our past, present and future. Each session centers on a book selected by Nancy Hoch, a graduate student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The series opens with a discussion of Slavery in New York, the companion book to a recent New York Historical Society exhibition, which explores the role of slaves and freed blacks as some of the city's earliest farm workers.

This session focuses on Avant-Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City and the World, a lively collection of essays by participants in the city's community gardening movement.

A discussion of Drown a group of short stories by Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz, which trace the generational movement of an agricultural Dominincan family to live in urban New York City.

The final session centers on Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall, which places urban/rural issues of food production in a global context.

This series is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities "We the People" initiative. It was developed in collaboration with the Center for the Humanities of the CUNY Graduate Center and first presented at the New York Public Library. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.