Book Review: Kansas City: A Food Biography by Andrea L. Broomfield

Kansas City: A Food Biography by Andrea L Broomfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publication Date: February 25, 2016
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

While some cities owe their existence to lumber or oil, turpentine or steel, Kansas City owes its existence to food. From its earliest days, Kansas City was in the business of provisioning pioneers and traders headed west, and later with provisioning the nation with meat and wheat. Throughout its history, thousands of Kansas Citians have also made their living providing meals and hospitality to travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, be it by way of a steamboat, Conestoga wagon, train, automobile, or airplane. As Kansas City’s adopted son, Fred Harvey sagely noted, “Travel follows good food routes,” and Kansas City’s identity as a food city is largely based on that fact. Kansas City: A Food Biography explores in fascinating detail how a frontier town on the edge of wilderness grew into a major metropolis, one famous for not only great cuisine but for a crossroads hospitality that continues to define it. Kansas City: A Food Biography also explores how politics, race, culture, gender, immigration, and art have forged the city’s most iconic dishes, from chili and steak to fried chicken and barbecue. In lively detail, Andrea Broomfield brings the Kansas City food scene to life.

The theme of my public library’s Winter Reading Challenge was Missouri so my book club decided to read Kansas City: A Food Biography. I figured the book would be 80 percent BBQ and 20 percent everything else. It actually had a lot of non-BBQ related information. It started with prehistoric times, around 2500 BCE. That was a little more detail than I was looking for! I was more interested in the 20th and 21st centuries, which started about halfway through the book.

Once I made it into the chapters covering modern times, I became very interested. BBQ is, of course, covered but there were a lot of other noteworthy tidbits as well, like the history behind the famous fried chicken restaurant Stroud’s. It would be fun to reread this book after the pandemic is over and I could actually go to some of the restaurants mentioned. (Note: Do not read this book if you are hungry.)

If you’re from Kansas City, I think you’ll enjoy this book, especially if you just focus on reading the chapters that pique your interest and skim the rest.