“America Eats” aimed to be, in Kurlansky’s words, “a book about the varied food and eating traditions throughout America, an examination of what and how Americans ate”. As Kurlansky explains, the WPA hoped to build on the success of its series of regional guidebooks by creating a similar collection of regional writing about food. The Food of a Younger Land has its origins in the Great Depression, when the Works Progress Administration was creating projects to keep out-of-work American authors busy. While the recipes and essays collected within do depict a time “when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional,” they also reveal an America many modern diners might find quite a bit less palatable than the present one. The eponymous land described in Mark Kurlansky’s The Food of a Younger Land is not as idyllic a place as the book’s romantic title might suggest.
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