Michael Pollan: Cooking as a Political Act

Event information

A Bristol Festival of Ideas event

Many people now spend a lot more time watching other people cook on TV than doing it themselves. But the outsourcing of this work to corporations has had disastrous effects on our health, our family life, and even on our agriculture. To reverse the trend in his own life, Pollan apprenticed himself to a series of gifted chefs, pitmasters, bakers, brewers, cheesemakers and picklers. Using his own kitchen adventures as the thread, Pollan makes a compelling case that cooking is one of the simplest and most important steps people can take to improve their family's health and well-being, build community, help fix our broken food system, and break our growing dependence on corporations. Approached in the proper spirit, Pollan suggests, cooking becomes a political act.