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Food City: Four Centuries of Food-Making in New York
New York is hailed as one of the world’s “food capitals,” but the history of food-making in the city has been mostly lost. Since the establishment of the first Dutch brewery, the commerce and culture of food enriched New York and promoted its influence on America and the world by driving innovations in machinery and transportation, shaping international trade, and feeding sailors and soldiers at war. Immigrant ingenuity re-created Old World flavors and spawned such familiar brands as Thomas’ English Muffins, Hebrew National, Twizzlers, and Ronzoni macaroni.
Food historian Joy Santlofer re-creates the texture of everyday life in a growing metropolis—the sound of stampeding cattle, the smell of burning bone for char, and the taste of novelties such as chocolate-covered matzoh and Chiclets. With an eye-opening focus on bread, sugar, drink, and meat, Food City recovers the fruitful tradition behind today’s local brewers and confectioners, recounting how food shaped a city and a nation.
Food historian Joy Santlofer re-creates the texture of everyday life in a growing metropolis—the sound of stampeding cattle, the smell of burning bone for char, and the taste of novelties such as chocolate-covered matzoh and Chiclets. With an eye-opening focus on bread, sugar, drink, and meat, Food City recovers the fruitful tradition behind today’s local brewers and confectioners, recounting how food shaped a city and a nation.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2016
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428 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 6, 2017
This was a very good book about this history of food manufacturing in NYC. We start from the Dutch in the 17th century down to the last few years. The pattern: local brew and bread, meat markets and dairies. Then - big corporations swoop in and consolidate and relocate. Finally, artisanal breads, craft brews, one last remaining local dairy, organic nut milks.
As far as sanitary and safe conditions - yuk. Not until modern times do the factories seem relatively safe to work in and the food relatively safe to eat. I'm glad I'm not living and eating in 19th century New York City, at least not being poor and eating there. I imagine I'd have a good resistance to nasty bacteria, though.
It is a shame the author died before this book could be printed. A lot of research went into this book. I always enjoy histories of food and food processing and this was an entertaining read during my lunch break every day.
As far as sanitary and safe conditions - yuk. Not until modern times do the factories seem relatively safe to work in and the food relatively safe to eat. I'm glad I'm not living and eating in 19th century New York City, at least not being poor and eating there. I imagine I'd have a good resistance to nasty bacteria, though.
It is a shame the author died before this book could be printed. A lot of research went into this book. I always enjoy histories of food and food processing and this was an entertaining read during my lunch break every day.
March 23, 2017
Food City, by the late Joy Santlofer, shows us the amazing history of manufacturing, in this case food manufacturing, in New York City. Nowadays we don’t associate New York with manufacturing, but as recently as 1950, it was one of the largest manufacturing centers in the country. Reading about this lost past is a fascinating exercise, even if there is much less manufacturing in the city today.
Santlofer begins with a brief overview of the food history of the city, under the Dutch and then the English. This introduction culminates in what sets the framework of the book: a parade celebrating the ratification of the Constitution, held in 1788, in which various food trades marched in groups. These included brewers, chocolate makers, butchers, bakers, and many more. Santlofer does an outstanding job, here and elsewhere in the book, evoking the atmosphere of the time she’s discussing, whether the 18th Century or the 20th. The reader practically feels like he’s there, watching the parade.
The rest of the book is divided into four major sections, each covering one type of food: bread, sugar, drink, and meat. In each section, Santlofer weaves together descriptions of the food making processes, from raw materials to marketing and sale, and descriptions of the city at various times, including its physical atmosphere and the ins-and-outs of politics, especially as food affected its physical atmosphere and politics affected food. Naturally, the predominance of ethnic groups in eating patterns, manufacturing, and politics features frequently. Plus, there are enough descriptions of manufacturing equipment to satisfy a die-hard fan of the TV show How It’s Made, without the descriptions becoming overly technical or tedious. For example, I now know why sugar was sold in cones in blue paper—the refined sugar was a thick liquid that was poured into cone-shaped molds and dried, and the blue paper made the sugar look more white. And there is more, much more, where that came from.
So the book is full of fascinating anecdotes. In fact, the book is basically a series of anecdotes. That’s not a criticism; the anecdotes are well-chosen, illustrative and hang together in service of the common themes of the book. It’s amazing to know, for example, sticking with sugar as my example, that sugar manufacturing was a huge business in New York for centuries. Sugar was of course intimately connected with the slave trade, since the raw materials for making refined sugar were produced by slaves in the Caribbean under conditions far worse than the terrible conditions of the American South. Cotton was not the only American industry that relied on slaves, just the one that did so most obviously. Naturally, the sugar barons of New York opposed the Civil War, fearing disruption of their economic interests, both from the disruption of trade and from slavery potentially ending. The Roosevelt family made its fortune on sugar, beginning prior to the Revolutionary War and going through the Civil War, which they opposed, of course—something that is ignored today, since they are liberal heroes. But it is good to remember that Franklin Roosevelt’s jaunty mien had foundations of slave bones.
Santlofer also covers the common problem of maltreatment of workers by owners. Of course, when owners maltreated workers, it was in order to get money, and what money would buy, including social acceptance. That doesn’t mean that owners were necessarily, or even often, rich. In many instances, they were barely surviving themselves—one thing that comes through very clearly in Santlofer’s book is how intensely competitive all aspects of food manufacturing have always been in New York. An owner might have to work grueling hours himself, living in squalor himself, while his employees did the same, just to stay in business. But, of course, there were those businessmen who, especially as factories got bigger (some Manhattan factories occupied entire city blocks), divorced themselves from manual labor and from the actual operation of their businesses, and lived in luxury, yet still demanded that the workers compete among themselves, and against lower-priced labor if it could be found, to accept the lowest possible wages.
The book ends with the decline and fall of food manufacturing in New York, as the high costs of real estate and taxes, along with snooty locals no longer desiring manufacturing in their proximity, combined to drive manufacturing farther and farther out, eventually away from the city and the area entirely. Santlofer concludes on a positive note, focusing on the rebirth of artisanal food manufacturing, from bread to pickles—although, of course, those foods are sold to the same wealthy people who drove out old-style manufacturing, which provided jobs and decent lives to hundreds of thousands of people who did not and do not eat artisanal bread. A little research does show that after decades of steep decline, manufacturing is on the uptick in New York City, with several thousand jobs having been added in recent years—all in small manufacturing businesses of various types. But in 2016, only 79,000 people worked in manufacturing in the entire NYC metro area. One can never tell, though—perhaps there will be a wholesale renaissance of manufacturing in America, and perhaps it will once again be led by New York.
Santlofer begins with a brief overview of the food history of the city, under the Dutch and then the English. This introduction culminates in what sets the framework of the book: a parade celebrating the ratification of the Constitution, held in 1788, in which various food trades marched in groups. These included brewers, chocolate makers, butchers, bakers, and many more. Santlofer does an outstanding job, here and elsewhere in the book, evoking the atmosphere of the time she’s discussing, whether the 18th Century or the 20th. The reader practically feels like he’s there, watching the parade.
The rest of the book is divided into four major sections, each covering one type of food: bread, sugar, drink, and meat. In each section, Santlofer weaves together descriptions of the food making processes, from raw materials to marketing and sale, and descriptions of the city at various times, including its physical atmosphere and the ins-and-outs of politics, especially as food affected its physical atmosphere and politics affected food. Naturally, the predominance of ethnic groups in eating patterns, manufacturing, and politics features frequently. Plus, there are enough descriptions of manufacturing equipment to satisfy a die-hard fan of the TV show How It’s Made, without the descriptions becoming overly technical or tedious. For example, I now know why sugar was sold in cones in blue paper—the refined sugar was a thick liquid that was poured into cone-shaped molds and dried, and the blue paper made the sugar look more white. And there is more, much more, where that came from.
So the book is full of fascinating anecdotes. In fact, the book is basically a series of anecdotes. That’s not a criticism; the anecdotes are well-chosen, illustrative and hang together in service of the common themes of the book. It’s amazing to know, for example, sticking with sugar as my example, that sugar manufacturing was a huge business in New York for centuries. Sugar was of course intimately connected with the slave trade, since the raw materials for making refined sugar were produced by slaves in the Caribbean under conditions far worse than the terrible conditions of the American South. Cotton was not the only American industry that relied on slaves, just the one that did so most obviously. Naturally, the sugar barons of New York opposed the Civil War, fearing disruption of their economic interests, both from the disruption of trade and from slavery potentially ending. The Roosevelt family made its fortune on sugar, beginning prior to the Revolutionary War and going through the Civil War, which they opposed, of course—something that is ignored today, since they are liberal heroes. But it is good to remember that Franklin Roosevelt’s jaunty mien had foundations of slave bones.
Santlofer also covers the common problem of maltreatment of workers by owners. Of course, when owners maltreated workers, it was in order to get money, and what money would buy, including social acceptance. That doesn’t mean that owners were necessarily, or even often, rich. In many instances, they were barely surviving themselves—one thing that comes through very clearly in Santlofer’s book is how intensely competitive all aspects of food manufacturing have always been in New York. An owner might have to work grueling hours himself, living in squalor himself, while his employees did the same, just to stay in business. But, of course, there were those businessmen who, especially as factories got bigger (some Manhattan factories occupied entire city blocks), divorced themselves from manual labor and from the actual operation of their businesses, and lived in luxury, yet still demanded that the workers compete among themselves, and against lower-priced labor if it could be found, to accept the lowest possible wages.
The book ends with the decline and fall of food manufacturing in New York, as the high costs of real estate and taxes, along with snooty locals no longer desiring manufacturing in their proximity, combined to drive manufacturing farther and farther out, eventually away from the city and the area entirely. Santlofer concludes on a positive note, focusing on the rebirth of artisanal food manufacturing, from bread to pickles—although, of course, those foods are sold to the same wealthy people who drove out old-style manufacturing, which provided jobs and decent lives to hundreds of thousands of people who did not and do not eat artisanal bread. A little research does show that after decades of steep decline, manufacturing is on the uptick in New York City, with several thousand jobs having been added in recent years—all in small manufacturing businesses of various types. But in 2016, only 79,000 people worked in manufacturing in the entire NYC metro area. One can never tell, though—perhaps there will be a wholesale renaissance of manufacturing in America, and perhaps it will once again be led by New York.
April 10, 2020
Santlofer's book was finished after her death, so as such there is a sense of unfinshedness about it. It is still a very good book about food in NYC. The book is divided into food types as opposed to straight historical era. It is an engrossing and at times funny read.
May 14, 2017
Good nonfiction book all about the history of food manufacturing in New York City.
It is dry history, but I found it consistently interesting anyway due to the combination of food obsession and my ceaseless fascination with NYC. Every time I go, I revel in the sheer variety and internationality of the food that's so easily available. I visit Chelsea Market, which I know used to be a Nabisco factory and the meatpacking district, and wonder at all the happenings and commerce that occurred in the same spot that I'm currently sitting in and enjoying my vegan ramen.
The book starts centuries ago, and covers various food industries: coffee, meat, milk, bread, beer, etc. There used to be quite a bit of actual food manufacturing, butchery, brewing, etc., going on in what is now one of the ritziest places on the planet. The city has transformed so much, and I thought it was interesting to read about.
It is dry history, but I found it consistently interesting anyway due to the combination of food obsession and my ceaseless fascination with NYC. Every time I go, I revel in the sheer variety and internationality of the food that's so easily available. I visit Chelsea Market, which I know used to be a Nabisco factory and the meatpacking district, and wonder at all the happenings and commerce that occurred in the same spot that I'm currently sitting in and enjoying my vegan ramen.
The book starts centuries ago, and covers various food industries: coffee, meat, milk, bread, beer, etc. There used to be quite a bit of actual food manufacturing, butchery, brewing, etc., going on in what is now one of the ritziest places on the planet. The city has transformed so much, and I thought it was interesting to read about.
January 23, 2017
Full of interesting stories, detailing the rise (and fall and reinvigoration) of the food industry in New York City; this book is really less about food and more about industry. Enjoyable, if not a bit long.
2017 Book Challenge: A Book About Food
Could also be:
A Book with a Subtitle
A Book Published in 2017
A Book Set in Two Different Time Periods
Read a Nonfiction Book About Technology
A Non-Fiction Book
A Book By A Female Author
A Book with a Number in the Title
2017 Book Challenge: A Book About Food
Could also be:
A Book with a Subtitle
A Book Published in 2017
A Book Set in Two Different Time Periods
Read a Nonfiction Book About Technology
A Non-Fiction Book
A Book By A Female Author
A Book with a Number in the Title
May 11, 2017
This was fun! I love food history. I joked with my wife that I was reading a history of crackers, but it was so much more than crackers. Beer too! And hot dogs and bread and candy.
In a broad sense, this is about how New York City became the greatest food manufacturing city in the world, and then how it all disappeared. And at the very end, Santlofer describes how the jobs are coming back, very very slowly, through artisanal chocolate and microbreweries and pickle shops.
I hadn't really thought much about it before...I always tended to just think "greed" every time a big factory left the city, but reading this you realize that it isn't always greed. It is sometimes. But a big factory in the middle of a city is not always sustainable. The neighbors complain, pests are a huge problem, big century-old buildings are hard to keep clean...it solves a lot of problems to move to a new building off in middle America somewhere. Of course, there are other issues to think about too - if you want your beer to be the freshest available for 8 million potential customers, it helps to be in NYC.
Santlofer had so much information here that she had to throw a lot of it into little "sidebar" sub-chapters. I loved all the little anecdotes, I thought it made the book more fun to read, but I think some readers might get a little irritated. It does break up the text a bit.
In a broad sense, this is about how New York City became the greatest food manufacturing city in the world, and then how it all disappeared. And at the very end, Santlofer describes how the jobs are coming back, very very slowly, through artisanal chocolate and microbreweries and pickle shops.
I hadn't really thought much about it before...I always tended to just think "greed" every time a big factory left the city, but reading this you realize that it isn't always greed. It is sometimes. But a big factory in the middle of a city is not always sustainable. The neighbors complain, pests are a huge problem, big century-old buildings are hard to keep clean...it solves a lot of problems to move to a new building off in middle America somewhere. Of course, there are other issues to think about too - if you want your beer to be the freshest available for 8 million potential customers, it helps to be in NYC.
Santlofer had so much information here that she had to throw a lot of it into little "sidebar" sub-chapters. I loved all the little anecdotes, I thought it made the book more fun to read, but I think some readers might get a little irritated. It does break up the text a bit.
December 31, 2017
Loved the content of the book - it provides a wonderful, broad view of how food manufacturing arose in NYC from the time of Dutch settlement onwards, and dives a bit deeper into four specific industries that had a strong base at one point in NYC. As someone who has lived in NYC for almost my entire life, it was eye-opening to see how some of the neighborhoods that I know so well today used to have such a different character. Also eye-opening to realize how much of NY used to be dependent on manufacturing - that is absolutely no longer the NYC that I grew up in. Loved the obvious depth of research that was done for the book, and the very clear references throughout to modern-day NYC neighborhoods/addresses/landmarks to ground the reader. Only downside was the somewhat choppy nature of how some sections were put together, an unfortunate side effect, I think, of the wealth of material and the choice to go broad rather than deep in covering the topic.
August 2, 2023
i just read "the widower's notebook" in which the author repeatedly refers to his wife's ongoing research and writing of a book about food. his wife dies unexpectedly before the book is 100% complete, but he is able to find help in finishing the book and getting it published. well, of course, i now had to read the wife's book -- "food city". this history of preparing and selling food in nyc from the 17th century until the present day is fascinating and disturbing. food prep/sales have been both unsafe and unsanitary for much of our history. there are very good reasons for government inspection and regulation. it takes a long book to report on four centuries of food, but this is worth reading from beginning to end.
July 17, 2017
I love any food-related title, and this was not a disappointment. It was an easy read, even spanning four hundred years, and I learned a lot about how critical food and the food industry was to the economic development of the country. It was fascinating to read about the impact war had on food (and vice versa). I also learned a LOT about unionization, which was unexpected, but really great. And I loved all the little stories sprinkled through (especially about Jewish foods!) I really struggled through the meat section (just because it was gross to read), but overall I thought the book was excellent.
September 4, 2017
Interesting history not just of New York as the main producer of foodstuffs in America for much of the country's history, but of some brands we all know and love. My issues with the book are twofold. First, to be an editor, I don't like the lack of in-text citations. While obviously well researched, the end notes appear only at the end with no numeric citation in the text. More importantly, I had issues with the writing. The book is loaded with anecdotes and paths that look like the start of something but lead nowhere. Dead ends, or better yet, MacGuffins.
That said, a nice diversion of a read.
That said, a nice diversion of a read.
February 19, 2017
Although I didn't check out this book for myself, I read it anyway. What an impressive work! It covers commodity production (sugar, coffee), meat, confectionery, and beverages (brewing and soda). Perhaps I wouldn't have organized it the same way: it hovers between chronology and commodity in a somewhat illogical manner. Some of the issue comes from the death of the primary author, and her husband's desire to finish her magnum opus.
I only wish that Chicago's food history was covered so well.
I only wish that Chicago's food history was covered so well.
August 17, 2018
Interesting overview of food manufacturing in NYC. Hard to imagine cows walking down the streets of Manhattan in the not so distant past. This is definitely one of those topics that I can find fascinating for about 100 pages and then it just starts to feel repetitive and dull. Took me a while to finish.
November 26, 2017
Must read for anyone interested in New York City, and in the history of food. Physically easy and satisfying to read - type size, binding, weight and white space; photos, extensive notes, index
January 12, 2018
History of food in New York City.
September 4, 2019
Learned quite a bit from this one.
Read
November 15, 2024Marg's book
March 20, 2025
Super interesting book but so so heavy, you can really tell it was written by a professor. Learned a lot tho!
August 22, 2025
Really interesting intertwining of nyc and food and manufacturing
March 12, 2017
While individual parts of the book were good, and there was a wealth of interesting information, there was no cohesive flow to the writing. Instead, the author presented one set of facts after another, with not unifying narrative or idea. I admit, I didn't finish and gave up after 75 pages of unconnected factoids presented as historical narrative.
March 15, 2017
I enjoyed this book, but unless you are a fan of food history, you probably won't be fascinated by it.
February 15, 2017
There are some interesting facts in the pages of Food City.
Diehard textbook fans, this one’s for you....
Diehard textbook fans, this one’s for you....
February 19, 2017
I was browsing the shelves in the library, and this book caught my eye. It was interesting, up to a point - Santlofer covered a lot of ground, providing at times almost too thorough of a history. Food City was dense with facts, which made it hard to absorb as a book I had intended to read for fun. Also, there were many pull-out text boxes/stories that, while interesting, interrupted the flow of the main body of the text too many times. There were elements I found particularly interesting, like how sugar is processed, what food producers got away with before regulations were put in place (it's pretty gross, actually, but interesting all the same), the transition from production by workers to production using machines, and the introduction of pasteurization to milk.
That said, if you are interested in the history of food production, and especially in such an urban center as New York, this book is perfect for you.
That said, if you are interested in the history of food production, and especially in such an urban center as New York, this book is perfect for you.
August 23, 2020
Another find from the Book Culture remainder table.
Not written for the foodie crowd. Rather than name-checking shops, restaurants, and neighborhoods, this book focuses on New York City food and beverage industries overall. There is, for instance, no talk of knishes. No mentions of the Zabar family, H&H bagels, or the revered Russ & Daughters.
You'll probably learn a lot about sugar and sausage production, and you'll enjoy it. A fast, fun read.
Not written for the foodie crowd. Rather than name-checking shops, restaurants, and neighborhoods, this book focuses on New York City food and beverage industries overall. There is, for instance, no talk of knishes. No mentions of the Zabar family, H&H bagels, or the revered Russ & Daughters.
You'll probably learn a lot about sugar and sausage production, and you'll enjoy it. A fast, fun read.
April 5, 2017
A history of food and New York since the founding of New Amsterdam. The book covers the cultures of bread, drink and meat over the centuries with the wins and losses and the change of American culture and industry. Follows the rise and fall of food production in New York with a hint towards the future.
April 17, 2017
fascinating!
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews