Photo by Amy Mills, amymills.net
Greetings and salutations!
I'm a James Beard award-winning food writer and historian. I write about science, technology, and culture, mostly in the context of food. My specialty is flavor: flavor science, the flavor industry, and the ways that flavor additives have shaped the history of food and our own appetites and palates. I'm a total nerd for supply chains, production processes, chemical reactions, and industrial R&D. I get maximum satisfaction from prying open the black box of "big food" and figuring out how the things we eat get made. I have a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (in History & Sociology of Science), and I love it when people call me "Doctor," but I'm only qualified to treat metaphysical ailments. Right now, I'm working on a book about synthetic flavors and the people and companies who make them. My working title is Flavor: An Artificial History. It's based on my PhD dissertation.
Sometimes, I take a swing at episodes in the history of flavor/science/technology/food/culture with a big plastic whiffleball bat, and I post those essays here on my blog. Sometimes, my writing appears in other places. I was also an advisor to the Museum of Food and Drink, for their inaugural exhibit, "Flavor: Making It And Faking It." Go visit MoFAD next time you're in Brooklyn!
I love speaking about food and flavor history, to all kinds of audiences: academic, non-academic, trade/professional organizations, people at parties who are too polite to exit the conversation.... Get in touch if you'd like me to speak to your group.
And if you're into that sort of thing, follow me on Twitter @thebirdisgone
Photo by Amy Mills, amymills.net