Benjamin Cohen, chair of engineering studies and associate professor, is one of the editors of the newly released Acquired Tastes: Stories about the Origins of Modern Food (MIT Press, 2021), which explores how modern food helped make modern society between 1870 and 1930.
Cohen, whose research interests include food and agrarian studies, is interviewed on a podcast on New Books Network along with the other editors, Michael S. Kideckel, who teaches history at Princeton Day School, and Anna Zeide, associate professor of history and director of Food Studies at Virginia Tech.
In his critically acclaimed book Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food (Chicago, 2019), Cohen explores the environmental and cultural history of the pure food crusades and how Americans struggled with perceptions of pure versus adulterated food.
