Richmond author Matt Siegel (Photo by Kenzie Flinchum)
In his first book, "The Secret History of Food,” which releases Aug. 31, Richmond author Matt Siegel delves into the chewy bits of food history that time forgot, from the origins of breakfast cereals to the role of comfort food in warfare. The former English professor takes an irreverent tone toward his subject, balancing dense research with snarky wit. We sat down with Siegel to learn more about "The Secret History of Food," with its dinner party fodder and gross-but-interesting facts about even the most mundane-seeming meals.
"The Secret History of Food" will be released Aug. 31. (Image courtesy Matt Siegel)
Richmond magazine: Tell us a bit about yourself and how “The Secret History of Food” came to be.
Matt Siegel: I was an English professor with a background in creative writing. My real passion is storytelling and research and narrative — looking way too closely and critically at texts. It just so happens that food is an equal passion for me. So they just sort of aligned, and I just started to write more and more about food, even if it was fiction.
I didn’t set out to write this book. This book is just a product of the fact that, for years, I spent my weekends and nights and holidays just reading about food. I’d go to the library basement, check out books by the duffel bag-full, go down rabbit holes — just my own interests in food. Eventually it hit me that no one was really talking about the stories I was finding. I think a lot of people assume that the past has already been told. They assume that people have already covered this. In some cases, people have covered it, but they covered it 100 years ago, and it’s been forgotten again.
RM: There are a lot of different points of departure for writing about food. What is it about the history of food that appeals to you?
Siegel: History is in the title of the book, and there are a lot of dates in the book, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a history book. I talk a lot about present-day issues. I think going back is interesting to see where we came from, and there’s a lot of intersection between food and society. It’s not like humans evolved and grew and food stayed the same; we co-evolved together. It’s interesting to see the effect that we’ve had on food and the effect that food has had on us.
RM: How long were you working on the book? How did you accomplish all the research?
Siegel: Really, it took me probably two years, nights and weekends, to figure out what the book was about. I would start out reading about ice cream, and the next thing I’m reading about wartime rations and the psychology of comfort foods and breast milk. So, two years mapping all that out.
Finally, I just stepped back and tried to figure out what the narratives were and what stories I wanted to tell. I sold the proposal for it in one day. It was preempted by [publishing executive] Dan Halpern. That was a crazy dream come true. I quit my job as soon as I got off the phone with him. Writing it was a blast. I spent just over a year writing full time and spent my days reading about food and laughing and writing the thing I wanted to write, one chapter at a time.
RM: Who are some food writers who inspire you?
Siegel: [Anthony] Bourdain is a big influence for me — his irreverence for the bullshit in the industry. David Foster Wallace was a huge influence as well. While he only wrote one food essay ["Consider the Lobster"], I think it's probably the best food essay ever written, and it definitely gave me confidence that there was room to go a lot deeper into the narratives of everyday foods.
RM: What were some of the stories that stood out to you in the research as particularly surprising?
Siegel: In terms of a surprising takeaway from the book, it kills me that people call “vanilla” ordinary when really it’s anything but. For starters, it’s the only edible fruit to come from orchids, despite their being the largest family of flowers; gets its name from Spanish conquistadors, who named it after a female body part; has to be pollinated by hand using a technique developed by an enslaved 12-year-old; and is the world’s second most expensive spice behind saffron. Most people who call vanilla ordinary have probably never tasted it, as up to 99% of the vanilla flavoring in foods is artificial, derived from things like wood pulp and tree bark.
The role of food in war is also really fascinating to me. We don’t realize that food is a natural resource, so, going all the way back in history, it’s kind of crazy to think how food was used in war, as projectiles and poison honey, making grenades from hot peppers.
It’s equally surprising to think of the modern world of food and war, the whole strategy behind food logistically, not just calories for soldiers but also the role of comfort. I write about this a lot in the ice cream chapter. I think there’s a lot of beauty there in the American comfort of ice cream breaking through into war. In that chapter, I also write a lot about the civilian sacrifices. I think seeing civilians willingly sacrifice food and seeing manufacturers donate food and use their advertising dollars to urge consumers to eat less and buy less is definitely surprising and interesting to look at juxtaposed with today. I don’t want to say it’s hard to imagine people doing that. I would hope, if push came to shove, we could summon that spirit again, but it’s not something we see in the news now.
RM: I’m curious if there are examples where you see things in the modern food world, and you think that it echoes something you’ve written about in the book — any connection between something that happened in the past and something that’s going on currently.
Siegel: There’s a deep parallel in today’s health movement. If you go back in time, people have been intermittently obsessed with health. Sadly, I think the greatest parallel is misinformation. It’s really comical to go back and think about some of these practices that people believed in. It’s easy to look back and think those people were so crazy, but if you look at the state of things today, there’s just as much misinformation.
People used to think that potatoes caused syphilis and that cinnamon came from giant bird nests. And that sounds absolutely ridiculous, but our knowledge of food today isn’t that much better. You need decoder glasses to make sense of the USDA’s dietary guidelines, which are wrought with conflicts of interest and political influence; food experts are still arguing whether or not eggs are good for us; and we’re led to believe certain foods are healthy or natural because they’re plugged by paid influencers or have heart symbols on them.
