Best-Selling Author Michael Pollan to Speak at UM

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi’s Southern Foodways Alliance and Square Books will host an evening with Michael Pollan at 6:30 p.m. May 21 in Nutt Auditorium. Pollan will discuss his latest book, “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,” in which he explores the power of controlling the food chain by preparing food in his own kitchen.

The event is open to the public and tickets are free with the purchase of a paperback copy of Pollan’s “Cooked” (2013, Penguin Press) from Square Books on the Oxford Square. UM students, faculty and staff can attend without purchasing a book, but must email info@southernfoodways.org to reserve a seat.

Pollan is one of contemporary journalism’s preeminent voices on the intersections between nature and culture on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment. In “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,” Pollan utilized Southern Foodways Alliance films and oral histories as source materials.

Pollan is the author of four New York Times bestsellers: “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual” (2009, Penguin Press), “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” (2008, Penguin Press), “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” (2006, Penguin Press) and “The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World” (2001, Random House). “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” was named one of the 10 best books of 2006 by both The New York Times and The Washington Post. It also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award and the James Beard Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. It is a member-supported nonprofit based at the university. SFA oral historians have gathered more than 900 oral histories across the region and beyond.

To access the SFA’s oral history archive, documentary films and other projects, visit http://www.southernfoodways.org. Follow the SFA on Twitter at @Potlikker and on Instagram at @SouthernFoodways.