Our guest at Repast this month is Austin Frerick, author, and expert on agricultural and antitrust policy, talking with us about his new book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry (March 2024). In Barons, Frerick depicts the structure of the American food system by telling the story of seven food industry tycoons, delving into the monopolization of the food system and the resulting corruption. Here, Austin, Michael, and Diana discuss the problems with industry concentration, when strange bedfellows can make meaningful reforms, and how all roads eventually lead to Arkansas.

You can buy Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry here.

You can read about Austin Frerick and more about Barons here.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

This month, Repast welcomes Sarah Lohman, culinary historian, author, and speaker, about her new book, Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods. In this book, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Food & Wine Best Book of 2023, and an Eater Best Food Book, Fall 2023, Lohman explores the history and present of certain ingredients from the Ark of Taste, a list put together by Slow Food of important regional foods. She is also the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine, which explores the cultural history behind eight particularly American flavors. Over her career, Sarah’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and more.

You can buy Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods here.

You can read about Sarah Lohman and her other work here.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana were delighted to talk with Xaq Frohlich, Professor of History at Auburn University and author of From Label to Table: Regulating Food in the Information Age, recently published by the University of California Press. From Label to Table is a fascinating dive into the historical development of the food label from a multi-faceted perspective. Michael, Diana, and Xaq discuss the historical development of the label, the use of information in regulation, the intersection of power and food, and more.

You can find Xaq Frohlich’s bio here.

https://cla.auburn.edu/directory/xaq-frohlich

You can find From Label to Table here.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298811/from-label-to-table

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/michael-t-roberts

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/diana-r-h-winters