Book cover of Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry

Book description

2019 James Beard Foundation Book Award winner: Reference, History, and Scholarship

A century and a half ago, when the food industry was first taking root, few consumers trusted packaged foods. Americans had just begun to shift away from eating foods that they grew themselves or purchased from neighbors. With the…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Canned as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Today most foods American consumers purchase are packaged. A hundred years ago this wasn’t so.

This is a dramatic change in how we get our food, what we know about it, and what we even think food is. Zeide’s book is an important read because she takes us through this with one of the earliest forms of packaged food: canned foods.

Her discussions of how the canning industry overcame food safety concerns with canned products and consumer resistance to the idea of canned as less fresh, less palatable, and cheap helped me to rethink the different ways a packaged food…

If you love Canned...

Ad

Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Want books like Canned?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 48 books like Canned.

Browse books like Canned

Book cover of Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Book cover of Visualizing Taste: How Business Changed the Look of What You Eat
Book cover of Building a Housewife's Paradise: Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the Twentieth Century

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,210

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Canned, you might also like...

Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Lane and the Inventor

Lane and the Inventor by Amy Q. Barker,

A grumpy-sunshine, slow-burn, sweet-and-steamy romance set in wild and beautiful small-town Colorado. Lane Gravers is a wanderer, adventurer, yoga instructor, and social butterfly when she meets reserved, quiet, pensive Logan Hickory, a loner inventor with a painful past.

Dive into this small-town, steamy romance between two opposites who find love…

5 book lists we think you will like!