The Life of Cheese - (California Studies in Food and Culture) by Heather Paxson (Paperback)

About the Book

""The Life of Cheese" is the definitive work on America's artisanal food revolution. Heather Paxson's engaging stories are as rich, sharp, and well-grounded as the product she scrutinizes. A must read for anyone interested in fostering a sustainable food system." Warren Belasco, author of "Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food"
"Heather Paxson's lucid and engaging book, "The Life of Cheese," is a gift to anyone interested in exploring the wonderful and wonderfully complex realities of artisan cheesemaking in the United States. Paxson deftly integrates careful considerations of the importance of sentiment, value and craft to the work of cheesemakers with vivid stories and lush descriptions of their farms, cheese plants and cheese caves. While she beguiles you with the stories and tastes of cheeses from Vermont, Wisconsin and California, she also asks you to envision a post-pastoral ethos in the making. This ethos reconsiders contemporary beliefs about America's food commerce and culture, reimagines our relationship to the natural world, and redefines how we make, eat, and appreciate food. For cheese aficionados, food activists, anthropologists and food scholars alike, reading "The Life of Cheese" will be a transformative experience." Amy Trubek, author of "The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir"

Book Synopsis

Cheese is alive, and alive with meaning. Heather Paxson's beautifully written anthropological study of American artisanal cheesemaking tells the story of how craftwork has become a new source of cultural and economic value for producers as well as consumers. Dairy farmers and artisans inhabit a world in which their colleagues and collaborators are a wild cast of characters, including plants, animals, microorganisms, family members, employees, and customers. As "unfinished" commodities, living products whose qualities are not fully settled, handmade cheeses embody a mix of new and old ideas about taste and value. By exploring the life of cheese, Paxson helps rethink the politics of food, land, and labor today.

From the Back Cover

"Paxson's book, like her subject matter, is lively, evocative, and masterfully crafted."--Susanne Freidberg, author of Fresh: A Perishable History

"Through vivid storytelling, Heather Paxson advances a post-pastoral food ethos that reconsiders contemporary beliefs about America's food commerce and culture, reimagines our relationship to the natural world, and redefines how we make, eat, and appreciate food. For cheese aficionados, activists, and food scholars alike, reading The Life of Cheese will be a transformative experience."--Amy Trubek, author of The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir

"The Life of Cheese is the definitive work on America's artisanal food revolution. Heather Paxson's engaging stories are as rich, sharp, and well-grounded as the product she scrutinizes. A must read for anyone interested in fostering a sustainable food system."--Warren Belasco, author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food

"This vivid ethnography of contemporary artisan cheesemakers explores both the labor of hand crafting and the moral overtones of this calling. For those who participate, 'the life of cheese' is indeed a calling in the spiritual or philosophic sense, entailing a journey through the biopolitical world of agribusiness, bacterial cultures, and the FDA. After reading this book, visiting a cheese counter will never be the same!"--Theodore C. Bestor, author of Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World

"Anyone who loves cheese will find The Life of Cheese a fascinating read, illuminating layers of meaning in the artisan cheese revival that are rich and complex, like the flavors and textures of cheese itself. Heather Paxson is simultaneously documentarian and theoretician in her explorations of cheesemaking and its values, culture, socio-economics, and 'microbiopolitics.'"--Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation

Review Quotes

"[The Life of Cheese] offers a unique glimpse of people who have taken food-making into their own hands. "-- "Mit-Ejmes" (1/2/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"A first rate read in understanding how and where our food comes from, and the artisanal life."-- "Gothic Epicures Writing" (4/2/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"Both scholarly and accessible, the book profiles people who make cheese and delves into the science, art, politics, and culture, as it were, of these artisan products."-- "Boston Globe Book Section" (3/19/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"For those who are true cheese aficionados and fascinated by its culture, this is the book for you."--Aron Row "City Book Review" (2/21/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"The Life of Cheese is one way to better understand that food is never just a thing to put in your mouth."-- "Scientific American" (1/2/2013 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Heather Paxson, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece (UC Press).