The Food Book Fair: Where Food Systems and Culture Collide

Food is intertwined with goodness. Our planet is hungry for a better food system. One that is more viable for the future and treats our world more respectfully. Food is also cool. People devour restaurant openings like they bought cassettes in the 80s. And, food is about people. The restaurant industry provides an exceptionally large number of jobs, many of which do not treat their workers adequately. Food is about what it means to be authentic: to cultural roots, to the land, and to our bodies. Food is about home and outside, cultural and technological evolution, art and literature, and the economy. At the risk of sounding grandiose, food is a lens through which we can understand our astoundingly complex and beautiful, yet often callous world.

The Food Book Fair aims to explore all of these ideas, and so many more, from May 2-5. It's an event where food systems and food culture meet, with the hope of creating a scintillating dialogue around what food means in our society. Over three days it will feature over 200 food books in Brooklyn's Wythe Hotel, sixty visionaries from the food space, thirty independent food publications, eight cooking demonstrations, eight panel discussions, a coffee crawl and an entrepreneurial pitch competition. We hope that the Food Book Fair will educate and inspire those who attend, and that those who attend will in turn educate and inspire others. Our hope is that the Food Book Fair will help people think more deeply about where their food comes from, the history of their food traditions, and how food can inspire change.

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The event, now in its second year, will commence on Thursday, May 2nd with a fundraiser for Veggie Island, a community hub for locally-grown products that improved access to fresh produce in Rockaway Beach, which suffered tremendously from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The proceeds of the benefit will help the organization rebuild and thrive. Veggie Island plans to provide increased outreach to their community in the form of gardening, cooking, and youth internships. A compelling cast of culinary characters will bring their novel cuisine to the event. Chefs include Melia Marden, Nancy S. Hachisu, Raquel Pelzel, and many others. The weekend will wind down with a resource fair that will bring helpful information to small food start-ups. Book publishers, investors, educators, activists and entrepreneurs will give start-ups the resources they need to blossom.

The Food Book Fair is so much more than its name may suggest. Sure, eating and reading play a role, but the real crux of the event is to inspire change and goodness in our society through thinking and talking about food and all that food symbolizes.

For more information about the weekend, visit: www.foodbookfair.com; Purchase here: www.kitchit.com/tickets/FBF