Mark Bittman Cooked Everything. Now He Wants to Change Everything.
b'Mark Bittman taught me to cook. I read his New York Times cooking column, \\u201cThe Minimalist,\\u201d religiously. I bought \\u201cHow to Cook Everything,\\u201d that red brick of a cookbook, and then, when I gave up meat, I bought its green companion, \\u201cHow to Cook Everything Vegetarian.\\u201d He was like my cranky, no-B.S. food uncle.\\n\\nBut now Bittman wants to do more than teach me, or you, how to cook. He wants to convince us that the whole food system has fallen into calamity. His new book, "Animal, Vegetable, Junk" is a stunning reinterpretation of humanity\\u2019s relationship to the food it forages, grows and, nowadays, concocts. It\\u2019s about the marvel of the modern food system, which feeds more than seven billion people and offers more food, with more variety, at less cost, than ever before. But even more so, it\\u2019s about the malignancy of that food system, which is sickening us, poisoning the planet and inflicting so much suffering on other creatures that the mind breaks contemplating it.\\n\\nEven as someone who is fairly critical of our modern food system, I wasn\\u2019t prepared for the scale or sweep of Bittman\\u2019s indictment. And I\\u2019m not sure I\\u2019ve bought into every piece of it. But it is bracing. And it raises profound questions about the relationship among humans, animals, plants, capitalism, technology and morality. So I asked him on the show to discuss it.\\n\\nRecommendations: \\n\\n"Classic Indian Cooking" by Julie Sahni\\n\\n"How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman\\n\\n"Lord Emsworth" by P.G. Wodehouse\\n\\n"The New Book of Middle Eastern Food" by Claudia Roden\\n\\n"The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking" by Elisabeth Luard\\n\\n"The Optimist\'s Telescope" by Bina Venkataraman\\n\\n"The Wuggie Norple Story" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater and Tomie dePaola\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Rog\\xe9 Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.'