Foodprint Project, the roving event series I co-curate with Sarah Rich, is more than two years and four cities old, and, entirely thanks to our fantastic panelists and guest moderators, the conversations we’ve had in each city have been surprising, funny, provocative, insightful, and inspiring.
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One cover and inside cover.
We’ve put video recordings of each event online in our media archive, but, given the quality of the content and the fact that Sarah and I are both writers and bibliophiles, we got excited about publishing them as edited and illustrated transcripts, too.
The Foodprint Papers were initially created as rewards for our wonderful Kickstarter supporters, whose generosity helped make Foodprint LA possible. But, after seeing Volume One: Foodprint NYC, laid out by our graphic designer, Dylan C. Lathrop, we decided we wanted to make it available as a print-on-demand pamphlet too.
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One Zoning Diet spread.
It’s just $10 for a slim, perfect-bound and beautifully designed 70-odd pages, and, even though Lulu’s print quality can often leave something to be desired, the test copy I ordered looks and feels really quite good, even if I do say so myself. What’s more, by buying it, you will be supporting future Foodprint Project events and publications!
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One in print.
The conversations at Foodprint NYC ranged from skyscraper snail farming and food in utopian urban design to the decline of the Jewish deli and the role of the Croton aqueduct in New York City’s nineteenth-century brewing explosion.
On a Saturday afternoon in February 2010, panelists Amale Androus, Sean Basinski, Joel Berg, Jonathan Bogarín, Nevin Cohen, Marcelo Coelho, Makalé Faber Cullen, Rebecca Federman, Stanley Fleishman, William Grimes, David Haskell, Annie Hauck-Lawson, Natalie Jeremijenko, Naa Oyo A. Kwate, David Sax, and Beverly Tepper, in conversation with myself, Sarah Rich, and guest moderator Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG, managed to cover bodega cartography, food stamp fingerprinting, bitter blockers, and the need for regional abattoirs — and much else besides.
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One Culinary Cartography spread.
I’ve pulled out one quote and some spreads from each panel, just to give you a taste:
You mentioned these ads they’re running where they’re going to tax “sugary sodas,” as they call them. It’s the biggest load of crap. They should be taxing every soda. If you think diet soda’s that healthy for you, you’ve got to be nuts. Every soda should be taxed, and stop jerking around. But all that will happen if only New York does it is that we’ll send the business to New Jersey. Stanley Fleischman on soda taxes, Zoning Diet.
One thing that was interesting — and it took us a while to get this out of the bodega owners — but one guy finally told us, “Look, alright, we make our money from beer. There’s beer, and then there’s the rest of the stuff.” Jonathan Bogarín on geographic variations in bodega inventory, Culinary Cartography.
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One in print.
There were very special structures in the late 1800s and early 20th-century called oyster barges, where oysters were brokered. They were two-storey boats that were docked along the East River […]. The boats would supply from the waterside and the merchants would conduct business from the quay side. Annie Hauck-Lawson on that once quintessential indigenous New York food, the oyster, Edible Archaeology.
When you think about the kinds of things you can do on your computer in terms of design — simple things, like a Photoshop blur filter, for instance — it makes you wonder what a blur filter for food would be? What would it do and taste like? I think there’s a really exciting opportunity to give people the same sort of one-button design tools they have on their computer, but for food. Marcelo Coelho on his prototype 3D food printer, Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios.
IMAGE: Foodprint Papers: Volume One Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios spread.
You can get your copy online here (thank you!). Coming soon: Volume Two: Foodprint Toronto!
Thanks again to our panelists, our guest moderator, Geoff Manaugh, our host, Studio-X NYC, and in-kind sponsors, City Bakery and Izze, our logo designer, Nikki Hiatt, our photographers, Ho Kyung Lee and Rachel Hillery, our Kickstarter supporters, and our graphic designer, Dylan C. Lathrop.
