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Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat
Today the average meal has traveled thousands of miles before reaching the dinner table. How on earth did this happen? In fact, long-distance food is nothing new and, since the earliest times, the things we eat and drink have crossed countries and continents. Through delightful anecdotes and astonishing facts, Moveable Feasts tells their stories. For the ancient Romans, the amphora---a torpedo-shaped pot that fitted snugly into the ship’s hold---was the answer to moving millions of tons of olive oil from Spain to Italy. Napoleon offered a reward to anyone who could devise a way of preserving and transporting food for soldiers. (What he got was the tin can.) Today temperature-controlled shipping containers allow companies to send their frozen salmon to China, where it’s thawed, filleted, refrozen, and sent back to the United States for sale in supermarkets as “fresh” Atlantic salmon. Combining history, science, and politics, Financial Times writer Sarah Murray provides a fascinating glimpse into the extraordinary odysseys of food from farm to fork. She encounters everything from American grain falling from United Nations planes in Sudan to Mumbai’s tiffin men who, using only bicycles, carts, and their feet, deliver more than 170,000 lunches a day. Following the items on a grocery store shopping list, Murray shows how the journeys of food have brought about seismic shifts in economics, politics, and even art. By flying food into Berlin during the 1948 airlift, the Allies kept a city of more than two million alive for more than a year and secured their first Cold War victory, appealing to German hearts and minds---and stomachs. In nineteenth-century Buffalo, the grain elevator (a giant mechanical scooping machine) not only turned the city into one of America’s wealthiest, but it also had a profound influence on modern architecture, giving Bauhaus designers an important source of inspiration. In a thought-provoking and highly entertaining account, Moveable Feasts brings an entirely fresh perspective to the subject of food. And today, as global warming makes headlines and concerns mount about the “food miles” clocked by our dinners, Murray poses a contentious Is buying local always the most sustainable, ethical choice?
272 pages, Hardcover
First published May 3, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
May 15, 2009
Well-researched and full of interesting information, but awkwardly written and strangely disorganized - you can see why ideas are clumped together into chapters, but within the chapters, things jump around in a disorienting way. Murray seems to be avoiding certain topics, particularly when it comes to the environmental and nutritional effects of food movement and processing. Then, in the conclusion, she provides a very balanced summary of at least the environmental issues that just reinforces the feeling that the book would have been stronger if she had held back less in the body of the text.
Also, wish there were footnotes - I mean, if you have a 10-page bibliography? It's time for footnotes.
Also, wish there were footnotes - I mean, if you have a 10-page bibliography? It's time for footnotes.
April 5, 2009
I only made it through 2 chapters, but I feel compelled to bring down the rating. For a book dealing with the movement of food, published in 2007, marketed as following in the tradition of Kurlansky and Pollan, I'd call this not just irrelevant but irresponsible.
The writing and research are uneven. There is little compelling history or food writing. Confusingly, I found no attempt to address any of the current hot topics surrounding hyper food mobility - local eating/food safety/public health/oil/sustainability. And when the author did venture into political territory, it was to spout all kinds of tangential conservative talking points about free trade, market creation, and cheap consumer goods!! Get off my bookshelf!
It's hard to think of a topic less obviously related to sweeping changes in global culture. And yet... I spent the whole first chapter on the Roman olive oil trade squinting for any context, let alone deep or insightful analysis. Finally my jaw dropped at this..
"While oil merchants talked money in the Square of Guilds, these slaves were out on the docks, their backs glistening with beads of sweat as they unloaded pot after pot of olive oil beneath the fiery Italian sun. And those pots were extremely heavy. An amphora weighed about sixty-six pounds when empty. When full, carrying about six gallons, it weighed more than double that. For the slaves, then, the amphora was a heavy burden. For the men and donkeys lugging broken shards up the slopes of Monte Testaccio, the amphora was a chore. But for the olive merchants of Baetica, it was something quite different - an extraordinarily efficient ceramic vessel at the heart of an international trade that thrived many centuries before the word globalization had been coined."
OK. Did she just casually mention that the entire system was based on SLAVE LABOR and then CASUALLY BRUSH IT OFF in favor of the TRADE BENEFITS?? Also, does she have ANY IDEA what globalization IS? Also, is she extremely preoccupied with innovations in the technology of food transportation containers?
The answer, unfortunately, is YES.
I persevered for one more chapter, on the modern use of standardized shipping containers. Specifically, the refrigerated ones used to send fish from American fisheries to China in giant tankers. Where women make nothing doing the dirty work of prepping the fish and then ship them BACK to the American consumer, months later. Naturally, the author thinks this is a FABULOUS idea! At least she addresses one of the social consequences full on. Well, she quotes Dickens and carries on about how grand it is to eliminate the dirty back-breaking labor of the dock workers. But, wait for it... "The container has arguably been one of history's greatest agents of change - and not just for the 'wharfies' who lost their jobs. Containers brought consumers new and exciting goods from remote places... Americans and Europeans could acquire cheap television sets and washing machines. Rattan furniture became fashionable. People bought things they previously would have never dreamed of possessing as the container helped foster the consumer revolution." Yay for buying shit we don't need! Yay for more random container technology! (And, oops, did I just let slip that this system is super susceptible to terrorism? Don't worry, we're throwing lots of money at a technological solution! Military-industrial complex to the rescue!)
She makes ZERO mention of the environmental/health costs of pointlessly shipping the fish around the world. She also claims that consumers just aren't interested in the human rights violations of the fish-boning women abroad! And even if they were... "Globalization has side effects that are harsh - whether for poorly treated workers on one side of the world or those who have lost their job on the other... Yet these are problems best addressed on land, through retraining programs, financial safety nets, and tough measures to prevent labor abuses. They are not reasons for halting the passage across the ocean of traveling T-shirts or moveable feasts." Ah yes, government gets to clean up the mess, but how dare they regulate. Thank you for THAT old song and dance. Because we aren't hearing it enough these days.
Then the chapter veers into a rather incoherent rant against critics of globalization, complete with a litany of torn-from-the-decade-old-headlines examples of violent protests by misguided peasants and anarchists. Did you know that developing nations and protesters are hypocrites and corporations their victims? Poor Nike, etc. I barely paraphrase.
This is about where I threw the book down with disgust, drawing stares from my fellow Southwest passengers.
Dude. Publish your right-wing agendas to your heart's content, but why bother to hide it in a book masquerading as something relevant to the current discussion of food politics? How can this be the same Sarah Murray that apparently blogs about sustainability for the Huffington Post????
The writing and research are uneven. There is little compelling history or food writing. Confusingly, I found no attempt to address any of the current hot topics surrounding hyper food mobility - local eating/food safety/public health/oil/sustainability. And when the author did venture into political territory, it was to spout all kinds of tangential conservative talking points about free trade, market creation, and cheap consumer goods!! Get off my bookshelf!
It's hard to think of a topic less obviously related to sweeping changes in global culture. And yet... I spent the whole first chapter on the Roman olive oil trade squinting for any context, let alone deep or insightful analysis. Finally my jaw dropped at this..
"While oil merchants talked money in the Square of Guilds, these slaves were out on the docks, their backs glistening with beads of sweat as they unloaded pot after pot of olive oil beneath the fiery Italian sun. And those pots were extremely heavy. An amphora weighed about sixty-six pounds when empty. When full, carrying about six gallons, it weighed more than double that. For the slaves, then, the amphora was a heavy burden. For the men and donkeys lugging broken shards up the slopes of Monte Testaccio, the amphora was a chore. But for the olive merchants of Baetica, it was something quite different - an extraordinarily efficient ceramic vessel at the heart of an international trade that thrived many centuries before the word globalization had been coined."
OK. Did she just casually mention that the entire system was based on SLAVE LABOR and then CASUALLY BRUSH IT OFF in favor of the TRADE BENEFITS?? Also, does she have ANY IDEA what globalization IS? Also, is she extremely preoccupied with innovations in the technology of food transportation containers?
The answer, unfortunately, is YES.
I persevered for one more chapter, on the modern use of standardized shipping containers. Specifically, the refrigerated ones used to send fish from American fisheries to China in giant tankers. Where women make nothing doing the dirty work of prepping the fish and then ship them BACK to the American consumer, months later. Naturally, the author thinks this is a FABULOUS idea! At least she addresses one of the social consequences full on. Well, she quotes Dickens and carries on about how grand it is to eliminate the dirty back-breaking labor of the dock workers. But, wait for it... "The container has arguably been one of history's greatest agents of change - and not just for the 'wharfies' who lost their jobs. Containers brought consumers new and exciting goods from remote places... Americans and Europeans could acquire cheap television sets and washing machines. Rattan furniture became fashionable. People bought things they previously would have never dreamed of possessing as the container helped foster the consumer revolution." Yay for buying shit we don't need! Yay for more random container technology! (And, oops, did I just let slip that this system is super susceptible to terrorism? Don't worry, we're throwing lots of money at a technological solution! Military-industrial complex to the rescue!)
She makes ZERO mention of the environmental/health costs of pointlessly shipping the fish around the world. She also claims that consumers just aren't interested in the human rights violations of the fish-boning women abroad! And even if they were... "Globalization has side effects that are harsh - whether for poorly treated workers on one side of the world or those who have lost their job on the other... Yet these are problems best addressed on land, through retraining programs, financial safety nets, and tough measures to prevent labor abuses. They are not reasons for halting the passage across the ocean of traveling T-shirts or moveable feasts." Ah yes, government gets to clean up the mess, but how dare they regulate. Thank you for THAT old song and dance. Because we aren't hearing it enough these days.
Then the chapter veers into a rather incoherent rant against critics of globalization, complete with a litany of torn-from-the-decade-old-headlines examples of violent protests by misguided peasants and anarchists. Did you know that developing nations and protesters are hypocrites and corporations their victims? Poor Nike, etc. I barely paraphrase.
This is about where I threw the book down with disgust, drawing stares from my fellow Southwest passengers.
Dude. Publish your right-wing agendas to your heart's content, but why bother to hide it in a book masquerading as something relevant to the current discussion of food politics? How can this be the same Sarah Murray that apparently blogs about sustainability for the Huffington Post????
April 13, 2008
I thought this book started strong and got weaker towards the end. It's as if the author had about 5 interesting chapters, but that wasn't quite enough for a whole book, and the rest is sort of filler. My favorite chapters were the first one, on ancient Rome and their importing of olive oil, the chapter on the food airlift to West Berlin after WWII, the chapter on shipping containers, and the chapter on the tiffin transporters in India. The rest of the book was less compelling, and became a bit of a slog.
BUT. But but but, the author raises a lot of interesting questions about the locavore movement, and the complexity of the global food question that are really useful to think about if you're reexamining your eating patterns. For instance -- eating locally doesn't necessarily mean eating with the smallest carbon footprint... if you drive your car to the farmers market to buy a small bag of groceries that include hothouse tomatoes, you may be netting more carbon than buying tomatoes grown overseas in a sunny climate. Carbon footprint isn't the only reason I try to eat local, but I think the point is valid, especially when you look at the impact to the economy of developing nations who export their produce. Very thought provoking, and as I said, the first half was EXTREMELY engaging.
BUT. But but but, the author raises a lot of interesting questions about the locavore movement, and the complexity of the global food question that are really useful to think about if you're reexamining your eating patterns. For instance -- eating locally doesn't necessarily mean eating with the smallest carbon footprint... if you drive your car to the farmers market to buy a small bag of groceries that include hothouse tomatoes, you may be netting more carbon than buying tomatoes grown overseas in a sunny climate. Carbon footprint isn't the only reason I try to eat local, but I think the point is valid, especially when you look at the impact to the economy of developing nations who export their produce. Very thought provoking, and as I said, the first half was EXTREMELY engaging.
March 6, 2015
I enjoyed this book and for the first few chapters didn't mind that each chapter stood alone with no real overall cohesion but by the end it was hard to finish, although I'm glad I stuck it out as the final chapter and epilogue were good. With no real common thread or story line to pull you along this book was easy to put down and forget about. Well researched and interesting but I feel that a few of the chapters could have been axed or combined with others to make it flow better as well as cut out a lot of the needless wandering information. Least favorite chapter by far was 11, don't see how grain elevators and modern architecture fit into the overall theme of the book but it was also near the end of the book when I had lost interest and was trying to force myself to keep reading. Had this been near the beginning I might not feel the same about it. A few of the chapters were obvious standouts and as I said initially I did enjoy this book despite the randomness and overall lack of a plot or consistent theme.
October 23, 2014
A book that goes all over the map -- which is a good thing, in this case, considering the subject matter. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a way to jam the content into some artificial structure such as chronological, subject, or geographic order. This is a survey, not a straight history.
It's one heck of a survey, though, shedding light on the ways of moving food around has affected not just the obvious but the hidden -- say, for example, how wooden barrels are not only good ways of transporting wine or whiskey but have profoundly affected the product themselves. Murray even manages to find new things to say about the standard and well-known "containerized shipping has changed the world" story.
At least one reviewer complained about Murray paid insufficient attention to certain environmental issues; I say, that's wishing for a different book, and if that's what you want call up Greenpeace and have them write it for you.
It's one heck of a survey, though, shedding light on the ways of moving food around has affected not just the obvious but the hidden -- say, for example, how wooden barrels are not only good ways of transporting wine or whiskey but have profoundly affected the product themselves. Murray even manages to find new things to say about the standard and well-known "containerized shipping has changed the world" story.
At least one reviewer complained about Murray paid insufficient attention to certain environmental issues; I say, that's wishing for a different book, and if that's what you want call up Greenpeace and have them write it for you.
February 1, 2017
Less a coherent book than a collection of essays puffed up to chapters - you can easily put it down for a few weeks and pick it up again later without missing a beat. (I did. I'd honestly forgotten about it until I realized I needed to return it to the library.) The author skips about from topic to topic, with no apparent rhyme or reason, and along the way casually pooh-poohs concerns about food miles, sustainability, and any worry that nations might have about being dependent on food imports. (Murray also waves off American intervention in Central America in the bananas chapter in a single sentence.) While there were a few interesting bits thrown in here and there, I found I had seen much of what I read better covered elsewhere, usually in books that didn't take a grab-bag approach to their topic.
June 14, 2013
This was a really interesting exploration of food supply and delivery. Many diverse topics are covered such as the advent of canning, the use of refrigeration and clipper ship races. The growth and repercussions of the movement of foods around the world, allowing for previously seasonal foods to be available all year round, is discussed, particularly in terms of food miles and the environment, worldwide jobs and food quality issues. A chapter on the World Food Programme's delivery of food in 2005 to ninety-seven million people was particularly interesting discussing some of the logistical difficulties of the programme plus the political ramifications to be faced by aid agencies and governments.
November 5, 2008
A very interesting book that is well researched and nicely presented. I especially appreciate her point on the importance of food transportation and how it has helped sustain growth in population, increase diversity in the foods we eat (the flip side of which means a better balanced diet), and feed the hungry during times of war and famine. Despite the recent hype of reducing food miles and eating within a 100-mile radius, I, for one, feel that it is unrealistic and unsustainable. Unless one is willing to give up every food that is not native, a 100-mile diet can ultimately mean an even larger carbon footprint. Lard for olive oil, anyone?
February 5, 2013
This is a pretty interesting description of the way foodstuffs have moved, and do move now, between where they originate and where they are eaten. It's an excuse for lots of stories about shipping containers, grain elevators, barrels, etc. Each chapter focuses on one kind of food--olive oil, tea, curry--and then launches into a free-ranging discussion of all kinds of things. Includes some new (to me) arguments in the "carbon footprint of food" and "eat local" discussions. This was a Christmas gift from my son, who always picks out nonfiction books I would never have discovered on my own. Not every one is an eventual favorite of mine, but this is one I'm very glad to have read.
June 5, 2015
This title was too perfect not to read while on a cruise ship, which is a movable feast. This was an entertaining and educational look at the foods we eat, where they come from (in history and geography), and just how long humans have been importing foods from far away lands. There were some interesting points here about carbon footprints, and whether moving tons of food via container ship is really a larger releaser of carbon dioxide than driving one's car to the local farm to buy a single local item of produce. Of course, the other socio-economic aspects of buying local were not discussed, but I suppose that was considered outside the scope of this book.
January 25, 2009
While this was an interesting variation on the social history of food, the author goes a bit overboard in trying to justify the current state of food transport. In doing so, she frequently lost my attention -- I agree that we need a more nuanced look at food-miles than just assuming local is better, but she completely ignores the injunction to eat local in season food. This would have been a more fascinating book if she had stuck to comparing and elucidating food transport throughout human history.
June 19, 2009
For those of us who love the work of Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, Sarah Murray's argument might be difficult to take. Her book explores the ways food is packaged and transported and questions whether buying locally is the best option. She raises some interesting points. However, she avoids some important issues. For example, she doesn't say much about the environmental impact of the packaging of the foods we eat. Overall, an informative and insightful alternative view of the local food craze, even if I’m not completely convinced.
March 23, 2008
There were a couple of interesting chapters in this book. The one that talked about the Berlin Airlift, not just the logistics but even how candy was dropped from the planes for the German children by some of the pilots. Even more fascinating was the chapter on lunch deliveries in India. I also liked the chapter about battlefield food.
Since I really only enjoyed three out of twelve chapters, it got just two stars. Other reader results may vary. Go ahead, try this at home.
Since I really only enjoyed three out of twelve chapters, it got just two stars. Other reader results may vary. Go ahead, try this at home.
March 14, 2009
I assumed this book was going to be mainly about how our food is transported from farm or field to market -- but it is actually a series of food-centric essays whose theme is very broad: food moves in interesting ways before it gets to us. Each essay is interesting, but the book does not read as a unified whole. Sometimes the concept of "moveability" is stretched far in order to retain this theme.
April 29, 2010
Interesting, and I learned some things--perhaps most importantly, Murray does a godo job of pointing out that the distance our food travels may be considerably less ecology destructive than trying to grow non-seasonable things in inclement conditions closer to home. I never felt fully engaged, though, and I so wanted to be. Ah well.
June 7, 2012
The author started with a great idea; though she didn't lose track of the concept, the research for later chapters was thin, and the reading became repetitive and tiresome. Better to read excerpts than tackle the whole book.
August 8, 2011
Interesting exploration of how diet, culture and history have been shaped by food - particularly in relation to how food is and has been moved from one place to another in the course of production through consumption.
April 2, 2012
Fascinating series of pop-history essays on just how that food got to this plate. Reads a bit like Bill Bryson, if Bill Bryson suddenly got interested in bananas. Not scholarly in the least, but I don't think I'd have read it if it was!
May 12, 2014
Liking the tone and direction of the Epilogue the most. Her research into Monte Testaccio and dabbawalla system was fun and fascinating for me, but then my enthusiasm lost some momentum reading about shipping containers, the Berlin Airlift, Banana republics, and grain elevators.
November 19, 2014
In many ways very interesting. The problem with this book was that the author seemed caught between writing a book about food and its transportation, and randomly throwing in philosophical opinions on the subject.
October 22, 2007
If only food has frequent flyer mileage.
January 7, 2009
Pretty interesting. Would have liked more opinions from the author in the main part of the book. Many were in the last chapter.
August 11, 2009
Very interesting view on food and how it moves around the globe, both historically and now. An alternate view to the now popular "locavore" movement.
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May 19, 2011I'm really digging this book- thanks, Kelly and Jason! It ties in with my job in the logistics field as well as my passions for food and history.
January 19, 2011
Reading this book has made me want to make my own yogurt at home.
December 1, 2010
Interesting, I didn't have time to finish it but read the chapters that caught my eye. Good chapter on Berlin airlift. Military food was very informative.
February 13, 2013
Very interesting.
September 9, 2013
Interesting study on the journey of foods we consume. It definitely made me think about the 'seasonal' foods in the market that we take for granted.
July 23, 2016
3.5. Interesting well-researched and quite light for what could have been a dry read. Somehow it seemed older than it was- are food fads moving that fast?
August 5, 2019
It may be said fairly that the author is perhaps the exact opposite in her views to that of the locavore movement. There are of course a great many people who celebrate the idea that people should grow food locally as much as possible because of the supposed negative effects of the transportation of food, but the author reminds the reader that transportation expenses are far from the only ways that food has an effect on energy, and that using excessive water for irrigation is by no means an advantage over shipping one's food from a long way away. And in looking at the ways that food has been shipped, the author puts attention on some of the most important aspects of logistics in terms of the preservation of food as well as the way that food storage had an impact on the way that areas were able to develop their agricultural resources as well as their trade, and also shape the way we eat to this present day. As someone who cares a great deal about logistics and is interested in the movement of food, it is obvious this book had a lot of interest for me.
In a bit more than 200 pages the author discusses some of the essential aspects of food transport in twelve chapters. After an introduction the author begins by talking about how the amphorae helped deliver olive oil to Rome and allow it to feed its hungry populace (1). After that the author looks at the travel of Norwegian salmon to China (2) and also the way that battlefield food (namely the tin can) fueled packaging technology (3). The author looks at the plain/plane fair of the Berlin Airlift (4) and then examines the travels of curry (5) in India. The relationship between bananas and the politics of Central America (6) is then explored, as is the biochemistry of fermentation in Mongolia (7) and the importance of the oak barrel in wine production (8). The author then looks at tea clippers (9) and the travel of strawberries on jet planes (10). Finally, the author concludes the book with a discussion of buffalo grain and its impact on architecture (11), the use of old war weaponry in food development (12), along with an epilogue, acknowledgments, select bibliography, a note on sources, as well as an index.
There is a great deal of interest in this particular volume, not least the fact that the author demonstrates the importance of food storage and transportation technologies to our daily life in ways that are immensely complex and that are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Whether that involves making wine and artificially putting oak sticks inside the wine to give it the proper bouquet to transporting fruit in container ships or airplanes and examining what food gets tagged by people on plane trips, the author has a distinctly interesting and varied interest in the transportation of food from the ancient world to today. Indeed, the author ponders how it was that the amphorae were able to transport olive oil without having it spoil on the ships of the time given the lack of sealing that was present in the ancient world's transportation items. The author's profound respect for the ways that food is transported leads her to be generally optimistic about the way that foods will likely to continue to be imported, whether that means Spanish oil growing regions starting to cooperate so that people are happy to buy Spanish olive oil instead of having it shipped to Italy first to borrow Italy's (often undeserved) reputation for olive oil quality, or whether it means pondering over the 1954 removal of Arbenz as president of Guatemala and its relationship to United Fruit.
In a bit more than 200 pages the author discusses some of the essential aspects of food transport in twelve chapters. After an introduction the author begins by talking about how the amphorae helped deliver olive oil to Rome and allow it to feed its hungry populace (1). After that the author looks at the travel of Norwegian salmon to China (2) and also the way that battlefield food (namely the tin can) fueled packaging technology (3). The author looks at the plain/plane fair of the Berlin Airlift (4) and then examines the travels of curry (5) in India. The relationship between bananas and the politics of Central America (6) is then explored, as is the biochemistry of fermentation in Mongolia (7) and the importance of the oak barrel in wine production (8). The author then looks at tea clippers (9) and the travel of strawberries on jet planes (10). Finally, the author concludes the book with a discussion of buffalo grain and its impact on architecture (11), the use of old war weaponry in food development (12), along with an epilogue, acknowledgments, select bibliography, a note on sources, as well as an index.
There is a great deal of interest in this particular volume, not least the fact that the author demonstrates the importance of food storage and transportation technologies to our daily life in ways that are immensely complex and that are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Whether that involves making wine and artificially putting oak sticks inside the wine to give it the proper bouquet to transporting fruit in container ships or airplanes and examining what food gets tagged by people on plane trips, the author has a distinctly interesting and varied interest in the transportation of food from the ancient world to today. Indeed, the author ponders how it was that the amphorae were able to transport olive oil without having it spoil on the ships of the time given the lack of sealing that was present in the ancient world's transportation items. The author's profound respect for the ways that food is transported leads her to be generally optimistic about the way that foods will likely to continue to be imported, whether that means Spanish oil growing regions starting to cooperate so that people are happy to buy Spanish olive oil instead of having it shipped to Italy first to borrow Italy's (often undeserved) reputation for olive oil quality, or whether it means pondering over the 1954 removal of Arbenz as president of Guatemala and its relationship to United Fruit.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews