Investigative Food Journalist Estabrook to Visit University of Mississippi

photo by Giving Table Book Club

Southern Foodways Alliance and the University of Mississippi’s Center for Writing and Rhetoric joined to bring investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook to Oxford to speak at 7 p.m. March 25 at the Ford Center.

This lecture was originally scheduled for February but had to be cancelled due to inclement weather. The event is free and open to the public.

Barry Estabrook

Barry Estabrook was a contributing editor of the Gourmet magazine before it folded. Now he is a celebrated author with Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit (2011) as his most recent publication, an expansion of his James Beard award-winning article on the agribusiness of tomatoes.

In the book he looked into the factory farms and slave labor of high-production tomato farms in South Florida. His endeavor was highly-received with an average of four stars from Barnes & Noble to Goodreads.com to Google Books.

Dwight Garner wrote in The New York Times of the book: “Tomatoland is at its most potent and scathing in its portrayal of South Florida’s tomato growers and their tactics over the past half-century. It’s infuriating to read of their lack of regard for the taste of their product. Historically, when a farmer has learned to grow a tasty variety, that farmer has actually been scorned and prevented from shipping it.”

Before the Tomatoland he wrote a novel, Girl in Landscape (1998), where he described a new world where humans grew meals within potatoes that could be harvested.

On top of his books Estabrook has a blog that had recognition from James Beard Award foundation for the best food blog in 2011.

He is currently writing a new book, Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Guide to Sustainable Meat which will be published this June by W. W. Norton.

Callie Daniels is a staff writer for HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at callie.daniels@hottytoddy.com.