The United States of Arugula

The wickedly entertaining hunger-inducing behind-the-scenes story of the revolution in American food that has made exotic ingredients celebrity chefs rarefied cooking tools and destination restaurants familiar aspects of our everyday lives.. Amazingly enough just twenty years ago eating sushi was a daring novelty and many Americans had never even heard of salsa. Today we don't bat an eye at a construction worker dipping a croissant into robust specialty coffee city dwellers buying just-picked farmstand produce or suburbanites stocking up on artisanal cheeses and extra virgin oils at supermarkets. The United States of Arugula is a rollicking revealing stew of culinary innovation food politics and kitchen confidences chronicling how gourmet eating in America went from obscure to pervasive—and became the cultural success story of our era.