Review of Gastropolis: Food and New York City, edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deustch

*Gastropolis: Food and New York City* edited by Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deustch (2008). Published by Columbia University Press.

I love food. While human beings are made to want to consume food as a part of their natural biological needs, as an academic and budding scholar I’m highly interested in how food adapts to sociocultural trends.

One of my core interests tends to be how food can be a mechanism of power and punishment, or an extension of colonialism. Naturally, I tend to read a lot about food and its history, and one of the places I have a tendency to reside in is New York. I crash on a lot of people’s couches when in New York since that’s where I did my undergrad.

Anyways, when I originally saw that Gastropolis was an actual book, somewhere on the Internet, I picked up a used copy immediately online. That was back during the pandemic, and like so many other things in my life, I said I would get to it soon.

Spoiler: I did not. It ended up taking me about two years before I actually ended up reading this book, and at this point I was already in graduate school off doing my academic research. Which, naturally, tends to include food. But not New York. This is an academic-minded book; not sure if the average person would want to read this unless they’re extremely into food culture.

Onwards with the review!

A guide through the culinary and landscape history of New York City.

Each of the pieces written in this text are from different authors; hence why the title of the book includes the edited part. Gastropolis is essentially broken down into thematic sections that tend to go into chronological order, but don’t always do so.

Some of the earlier highlights include how the Lenape lived on the land and ended up using it for its resources, but when the Dutch and English arrived, more and more of those natural resources began to disappear. We start with the Lenape and move into the Dutch settlers, who, at first, sought out the comfort foods that they had back home.

As New York City begins to evolve throughout the centuries, the essays show how these different elements began to be woven into the food scene of the city.

We have an essay that’s purely about the open air markets and who could sell in them, which often meant that others, specifically new immigrants, were forced to peddle on the streets. That’s where we have the concept of vendors selling like hot dogs on the street. No matter how hard the authorities tried to crack down on these vendors, they always come back. This is a problem we’re seeing today with government in New York and vendors, which demonstrates some things never truly change.

The essays then begin to weave in the concept of restaurants, which are relatively new to the American food scene when they’re first brought in during the late 1800s.

We see the influence a tad in these essays, but I think if you’re looking for more on restaurants, you might want to pick up the books on that specific subject matter. There are some brilliant books I’ve read in the past about the American restaurant industry and how it was created in New York City, so an easy Google search will lead you there.

But some of the most fascinating essays to me where the ones born in contemporary New York; the authors were natives. One of the essays is by a native Park Slope resident who grew up in a family that deeply appreciated food, especially fresh resources, and would go out foraging and fishing.

I find that absolutely fascinating because of how polluted the waters are today. I wonder if it’s still the norm to go out into Prospect Park in search of herbs and edible food products and then eat it straight off the ground. I’ve never seen anyone do that, but the author of the piece is also referring to an earlier period than now (I believe it was the seventies).

The 7 Train and Queens, specifically Jackson Heights, were some of my favorite parts as well. I’m a big Jackson Heights girl, and I make sure to go there every time I’m in town, as well as Flushing. Queens is my favorite borough due to the diversity that exists there, and I enjoyed reading about that and people who grew up eating all kinds of foods despite being Desi or Latina. It even convinced me to visit my friends in Jackson Heights to hit up the food spots!

Overall Thoughts

All in all, I found this a great informational read. I can admit it’s not for everyone, which is okay. It was published by an academic press so that makes sense—it’s very academic focused. If you’re really into this subject, though, I think this is the book for you. I was highlighting a lot of information and checking out the footnotes because of how fascinated I was.

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