Evolution of Food Culture

Evolution of Food Culture

WHO: Dana Cowin, longtime former Editor in Chief of Food & Wine

WHAT: Cowin’s History of the Modern food movement

WHEN: Saturday December 7 4:00 pm

WHERE: Scoville Memorial Library, Salisbury CT

WHY: Understanding the causes and effect of the  American food culture

Dana Cowin’s View of The Evolution of Food Culture from Star Chef to Activism, presented by Dana Cowin

SALISBURY  Thirty years ago it was almost impossible to buy an heirloom tomato or turkey, or source local food at a nearby farmers market. The food movement grew out of a renewed interest in the land, farming, cooking and food. While there were a few food shows and star chefs the gourmet passion for food wasn’t a full blown  movement and was largely confined to “continental cooking”. Yet in last few decades there has been an explosion of cuisines new and reinvented, restaurants, chefs, farms, products, cookbooks and more.

Dana Cowin, spent two decades as the Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine Magazine until 2016. In 2014  she published “Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen: Learning to Cook with 65 Great Chefs and Over 100 Delicious Recipes”. She discusses the rise of foodie culture in America, starting with the obsession with chefs in the 90s, moving through reality TV, ingredient trends, and arriving more recently as a power for global change. She was at the forefront of the food movement, spotting and reporting on trends, and being instrumental in promoting them. Cowin’s will interweave her own stories of cajoling now-famous chefs often happy to perform their magic hidden in the cramped confines of the kitchen to step into the spotlight, her turns as a Top Chef judge and her experience as part of a larger movement to create a more equitable and inclusive food world.  Cowin’s journey in the food world recounts a profound shift in culture that has been creative, regenerative, and sometimes excessive.

Cowin quips that “it is no longer sufficient to have good food available to a smaller per centage of the population that can afford it, but it’s now paramount that the food movement touches everyone through  improved food quality and consumption”. Cowin serves on the board of the Food Education Fund, the Food Council of City Harvest, a hunger-relief organization, and Hot Bread Kitchen, a workforce development group. She was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Drink. She will  be speaking at the Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury, CT on December 7 at 4:00 pm