White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf - Aaron Bobrow-Strain

Written by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
Format: MP3

Written by: Aaron Bobrow-Strain
Narrated by: Kris Koscheski
Length: 8 hrs

Format: Unabridged

Release Date:01-10-13
Publisher’s Summary

How did white bread, once an icon of American progress, become “white trash”? In this lively history of bakers, dietary crusaders, and social reformers, Aaron Bobrow-Strain shows us that what we think about the humble, puffy loaf says a lot about who we are and what we want our society to look like.

White Bread teaches us that when Americans debate what one should eat, they are also wrestling with larger questions of race, class, immigration, and gender. As Bobrow-Strain traces the story of bread, from the first factory loaf to the latest gourmet pain au levain, he shows how efforts to champion “good food” reflect dreams of a better society - even as they reinforce stark social hierarchies.

In the early 20th century, the factory-baked loaf heralded a bright new future, a world away from the hot, dusty, “dirty” bakeries run by immigrants. Fortified with vitamins, this bread was considered the original “superfood” and even marketed as patriotic - while food reformers painted white bread as a symbol of all that was wrong with America. The history of America’s 100-year-long love-hate relationship with white bread reveals a lot about contemporary efforts to change the way we eat.

Today, the alternative food movement favors foods deemed ethical and environmentally correct to eat, and fluffy industrial loaves are about as far from slow, local, and organic as you can get. Still, the beliefs of early twentieth-century food experts and diet gurus, that getting people to eat a certain food could restore the nation’s decaying physical, moral, and social fabric, will sound surprisingly familiar. Given that open disdain for “unhealthy” eaters and discrimination on the basis of eating habits grow increasingly acceptable, White Bread is a timely and important examination of what we talk about when we talk about food.

©2012 Aaron Bobrow-Strain (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story of White Bread - Innovations - Benefits, March 11, 2012

By

fastreader - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf (Hardcover)
As the author explains, he had a major task just finding documentation about a food item that we all mostly take for granted and has been around for what seems like forever. He didn’t find other books about white bread, there are not extensive newspaper coverage or scholarly papers, but there is definitely an interesting story here.

As with many items bread was just sitting in the background of our consciousness as it was in plain site but other than the odd hiccup it was a benign object.

As with many other products industrialization of the production process pushed this to the forefront. The Ward family created a demand for bread produced “Untouched by Human Hands”. This was in the 1920’s and 30’s and just like today we didn’t know we wanted it until the advertising told us we did.

With an ever increasing spread of their bread factories the Wards just about created a USA monopoly but were stopped at the final stages when they tried to merge their… Read more
5.0 out of 5 stars You may never think of bread in quite the same way again., March 22, 2012

By

Paul Tognetti “The real world is so much more… (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf (Hardcover)
“Modern industrialism has ruined American bread…It’s so soft and spongy you can contract it with your hands, mold it any shape you have a mind to….The soft fluffy center is like a mouthful of powder puff. The more you eat it the hungrier you get. This is what America’s staff of life has come to.”

Such were the observations of Christian Science Monitor critic Horace Reynolds in the 1950’s about the bland industrial white bread that most Americans were consuming in those days. Did you ever wonder how the American people came to be hooked on mass-produced white bread? Likewise, would it ever occur to you that the story of white bread might actually be a subject worthy of a serious book? Aaron Bobrow-Strain, an associate professor of politics at Whitman College in Washington and an avid baker himself studied the matter and decided that indeed there was a book here and that he was the guy to write it. “White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf” is the… Read more

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Creation Date:	Wed, 14 May 2014 04:08:48 -0400
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