The American Way of Eating

BOOK-popup New York Times bestseller

WinnerSidney Hillman Prize
WinnerBooks for a Better Life
FinalistJames Beard Journalism Award*
FinalistInvestigative Reporters and Editors
FinalistInternational Association of Culinary Professionals

“The book Ms. McMillan’s most resembles is Barbara Ehrenreich’s bestseller Nickel and Dimed. Like Ms. Ehrenreich, Ms. McMillan goes undercover amid this country’s working poor…This is a voice the food world needs.”

– Dwight Garner, The New York Times
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“Every time I find evidence of a massive forthcoming event to take away our freedom, I am going to warn you, And so now we have a book by Tracie McMillan. What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated — doesn’t mean intelligent.”

—Rush Limbaugh
Read the first attack
Check out the second attack

Continue reading “The American Way of Eating”

Local Food Environments: Food Access in America

LocalFoodEnvironments-BookCoverI wrote the foreword for this thoughtful collection of academic work examining food access in America, edited by the wonderful Kimberly Morland.

Local Food Environments: Food Access in America provides information on the complex nature of food delivery systems as well as the historical and political trends that have shaped them over time. The book presents the empirical evidence demonstrating disparities in access to healthy affordable foods across the United States and how these disparities may explain food consumption patterns for some Americans as well as potential risks for diet-related illness.

The Detroit Anthology

DetroitAnthologyMy essay, “Hungry Days in Detroit,” an homage to the year I spent living there while working on The American Way of Eating, has been included in this lovely new anthology, edited by the uber talented Anna Clark. 

While much is written about our city these hard days, it is typically meant to explain Detroit to those who live elsewhere. Much of this writing is brilliant, but our anthology, this anthology, is different: it is a collection of Detroit stories for Detroiters. Through essays, photographs, poetry, and art, this anthology collects the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical “you”—with the ratcheted up language that comes with it—and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate. We may be lifelong residents, newcomers, or former Detroiters; we may be activists, workers, teachers, artists, healers, or students. But a common undercurrent alights our work that is collected here: we are a city moving through the fire of transformation. We are afire. Continue reading “The Detroit Anthology”

Best Food Writing 2013

BookCover_BestFoodWriting2013My Slate essay “Cooking Isn’t Fun” has been selected for the Best Food Writing 2013 anthology edited by Holly Hughes.

For thirteen years now—a baker’s dozen!—the annual Best Food Writing anthology has become known as THE place where readers and food writers meet to celebrate the most delicious prose of the year, from a dynamic mix of seasoned food writing stars and intriguing new voices. You’ll find every course served up, from entertaining blogs to provocative journalism, from richly detailed profiles to tender memoirs. Best Food Writing 2013 offers one-stop shopping for the foodie in all of us.