Reading.am | Chris Aldrich

🎧 Feding people is easy | Eat This Podcast

Listened to Feeding people is easy: A conversation with Colin Tudge by Jeremy Cherfas from Eat This Podcast

“Plenty of plants, not much meat and maximum variety.”

The best advice for a good diet I’ve ever heard. It’s a maxim devised by Colin Tudge, long before anything similar you may have heard from more recent writers. Tudge, more than anyone else I know, has consistently championed the idea that meat ought to be seen in a supporting role, rather than as the main attraction, a garnish, if you will.

Tudge has been thinking and writing about agriculture and food systems for a long time, and we’ve been friends for a long time too. In fact, it’s fair to say that knowing Colin has influenced my own thoughts about food and farming quite a bit. As far as Colin is concerned, we’ve been going about farming in completely the wrong way for the past 100 years or so. Instead of asking how can we grow more food, more cheaply, he thinks we should focus on what we need – good, wholesome food that doesn’t destroy the earth – and then ask how we can provide that for everybody.

He’s expanded and built on those ideas in many books since Future Cook (Future Food in the US), which contained that pithy dietary advice and which was published in 1980. And rather than reform or revolution, neither of which will do the job he thinks needs to be done, he advocates for a renaissance in real farming.

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🎧 Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 6: Balls & Sticks | Heritage Radio Network

Listened to Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 6: Balls & Sticks by Michael Harlan Turkell from Heritage Radio Network

This is Episode Six of Modernist BreadCrumbs: “Balls & Sticks,” on shapes, scoring, and semiotics.

Balls & sticks. You’ll hear this idiom over and over in this episode, as if we’re talking in circles. The two shapes’ repetitive figures have been a constant in bread’s identity over time, but why?

Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.

From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.

🎧 Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 5: Against the Grain | Heritage Radio Network

Listened to Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 5: Against the Grain by Michael Harlan Turkell from Heritage Radio Network

This is Episode Five of Modernist BreadCrumbs: “Against the Grain,” on politics.

How does bread play a part in politics you ask? Withholding grain has been part of party lines as well as a catalyst of war. Though the fight still continues to bring bread to those impoverished and underfed around the world, we urge you to chew on this: become as active as a sourdough starter, and be part of the bread revolution. Rise up!

Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.

From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.

🎧 Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 7: Thermal Mass | Heritage Radio Network

Listened to Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 7: Thermal Mass by Michael Harlan Turkell from Heritage Radio Network

This is Episode Seven of Modernist BreadCrumbs: “Thermal Mass,” on baking and ovens.

We’ll discuss “thermal mass,” or the ability to absorb and hold heat, in two-parts: within bread itself, and the ovens it’s baked in. It’s a complex physicochemical process… that’s more than just hot air.

Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.

From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.

🎧 Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 4: Milling About | Heritage Radio Network

Listened to Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 4: Milling About by Michael Harlan Turkell from Heritage Radio Network

This is Episode Four of Modernist BreadCrumbs: “Milling About,” History Part II, Pre-Industrialization.

When we look back on how modern baking came to be, it’s the same old story of craft informing art, and how the artisanal approach was replicated through the aid of mechanization. This episode picks up where Episode One left off, telling bread’s life story from All Purpose to Zopf.

Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.

From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.