RaveRefinery 29... her ability to write the horrors of being a body and a writer in a capitalist world crystallizes, becomes sharper. It was mainly written in the pandemic and the second half chronicles the world shutting down, and feeling that the world is also closing in on her is palpable ... a book that questions the point of writing, and proves the point that we need writers to explain what the hell is going on inside and outside of them, how these things impact each other, all the jagged edges of being alive and dedicated to thinking about what that means. There’s also the honesty of pettiness that exists in all creative worlds, the points of comparison that are fair and unfair, that gives the text the hiss of gossip that provides instant intimacy. Reading all Zambreno feels like the jolt one gets from a surprise cut or burn in the kitchen, that sudden recognition that you’re in a body and the body can be hurt ... I’m reminded again how writing can bring me back into my body. That it’s at its best when it does.
Deborah Madison
MixedThe BafflerWhile Madison could not have known that her book would be published into a world changed by a pandemic, reading it in this context makes the frustration ever more urgent: If the person who has most famously advocated for a vegetarian diet can’t wholeheartedly endorse it, then what hope is there for significant change to the American obsession with meat? ... she provides a clear, thorough, and loving model for how to center vegetables on the plate and the ways in which that cooking practice allows us to be mindful, to appreciate those seventy-two labors, and to remember that it is the soil that gives us our food. That is why it’s so disheartening that she can’t argue against the taint of vegetarianism—that she would rather accept it, despite all the work she’s done showing us that it doesn’t have to be this way. What would an American food landscape in which vegetarianism is not considered a punishing alternative look like? Despite her work lighting the path from a bland idea of meatless cuisine to the plant-based bounty of today, it won’t be Madison who shows us.
Joshua Specht
PositiveThe BafflerWhat Specht’s book reveals about beef...is that its extraordinary success has always had little to do with its taste and everything to do with its ubiquity, increasing cheapness, and cultural status. Red Meat Republic doesn’t bring the reader up to date with innovations in plant-based beef, but it doesn’t have to. By laying down the political and economic history of beef production and culture in the United States, he demonstrates why the tech-meat industry isn’t spending time, money, or marketing dollars on chicken and goat. Beef is more American than fried chicken, apple pie, and turkey on Thanksgiving. And it has always been political, as Specht chronicles.