Hippie Food

Sprouts, tofu, granola, brown rice, whole-grain bread: suspect foods fifty years ago, omnipresent today. Journey back a half century in time—to the 1960s and 1970s—with food writer Jonathan Kauffman, who tells the story of how a coterie of unusual men and women embraced an alternative diet that would change how modern Americans eat. Impeccably researched, Hippie Food chronicles how the longhairs, revolutionaries, and back-to-the-landers rejected the square establishment of President Richard Nixon’s America and turned to a more idealistic, wholesome, and communal way of eating.

From the mystical rock-and-roll cult known as the Source Family and their legendary vegetarian Hollywood restaurant, to the free brown bread served by activists known as the Diggers in Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, to the rise of food co-ops and the origins of organic farming, Kauffman reveals how hippie food became part of our diets. He tracks its journey from California to Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Vermont, and from a niche oddity to a cuisine eaten in every corner of this country.

A slick mix of gonzo playfulness, evocative detail, and elegant writing, Hippie Food is a lively and informative read that deepens our understanding of our culture and our lives today.