My dad and I have both been admirers of Alicia Kennedy’s writing for a long time. She’s a talented cook and loves cooking and eating, but also cares deeply about food policy and politics, and the majority of her writing is devoted to that. I’m going to make this sound simpler than it is, but food can basically fall into two categories: the pleasurable: like eating, and for some of us, cooking—and, second, the politics of it all: how it’s grown, fair labor and wages for farmers and other people who ensure that food makes it to our tables, better practices for raising animals. And for some reason that continues to remain sort of a mystery, connecting the dots between the two remains a niche issue, one that many people don’t think about much.
Alicia has valiantly chosen to take on the task of connecting the two—something, I should say, that my dad has done over the years, as well. Much of what’s written about food policy, though, can come across as academic and is difficult to process for many of us, including me. Alicia’s writing, though, is welcoming and accessible, not to mention elegant. Last month, she released On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites, in which she shares her journey “from eater to cook,” exploring how we can eat for both joy and justice. It reads like a memoir, but as you’re reading it, you realize that you’re actually learning important lessons about food along the way. I would recommend it to anyone. And so here’s our chat with Alicia. It was such a pleasure.
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