A Mini-Symposium on New Publications

Abstract

There was a lively response to our announcement in PPC 51 that we were confronted by two books that were too difficult for us to review and our invitation to readers to volunteer for this task. Thank you very much to everyone who stepped forward in response to the appeal. What resulted is printed below in the form of a review by Josef Konvitz of the book by T. Sarah Peterson; a short essay by Rachel Laudan which was inspired by that same book and opens a door onto a potential new area of research; and a review by Lesley Chamberlain of the book by Jocelyne Kolb.  In addition, we were contemplating the first issue of a new publication called Slow, and wondering whether any of us could compose a short piece about it which would do justice to its unusual character and far-reaching ambitions. Happily, Jane Levi, to whom we are already indebted for the unusual ice cream recipe in this issue (see p 20), caught us in the act of contemplation and volunteered to do the job.  Here, then, is our mini-symposium, the constituents of which are linked by the fact that they all deal with items which fall outside the usual run of publications on food.