Kara
Newman is the author of The Secret Financial Life of Food: from
commodities markets to supermarkets (Columbia University Press), as
well as two cocktail books, Spice & Ice and the
forthcomingCocktails for a Crowd. She is the spirits editor of Wine
Enthusiast magazine, and the former VP of Strategic Research at Thomson
Reuters. This past week the Washington Post reviewed her book: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-secret-financial-life-of-foodby-kara-newman/2013/01/29/1596ff66-658b-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html.
1.
What
inspired you to write your new book, The Secret Financial Life of Food? Although I’m a food and beverage writer now, I
started my career as a financial writer, and the inspiration for the book
started way back then. It all began with two little words in the financial
newsweekly Barron’s. Jim Rogers, a noted commodities expert, gave the
following advice: “Buy breakfast.” He was talking about pork belly
futures (which no longer trade) and frozen orange juice futures, and that one
little comment snapped into focus the point that agricultural commodities
aren’t abstract financial concepts – at heart, they’re about food. Pork bellies
become the bacon on your plate; frozen orange juice becomes the OJ in your
glass. In the end, it’s all about food.
2.
What
are some interesting things readers will learn when reading your book? I think it’s fascinating to see what foodstuffs
trade (corn, cattle, cocoa, sugar) as well as what used to trade here in the
U.S. (peppercorns, eggs, potatoes, onions). The scandals that have taken place
over the years are always entertaining too – such as the story of Tino De
Angelis, who called himself “The King of Salad Oil” and nearly brought down the
soybean and cottonseed oil industries in the 1960s. He had a warehouse out in
Bayonne, NJ, where the oil was kept in enormous tanks, and trades would be
based on later delivery of that inventory. But the great scandal was that there
was no inventory – instead of oil, the tanks were full of seawater, with a few
feet of oil floated on top. De Angelis even used a complex maze of
interconnecting pipes to transfer oil to different tanks. When the hoax was
discovered and the bubble burst, it bankrupted 20 banks and commodities and
securities firms, including a unit of American Express.
3.
As
you researched and explored the relationship of food and commerce, what
surprised you the most? How
the ups and downs of the commodities market influence what we eat and what we
pay for food. For example, many farmers study commodities prices to decide what
and how much to plant. Chain restaurants use them to manage costs – if the
price of beef is expected to spike, does it make sense to raise menu prices, or
find an ingredient substitution? Commodities prices set a baseline for prices
at supermarkets and greenmarkets alike -- and most people don't even realize
it.
4.
What
do you love most about the writing process? Discovery – finding a compelling fragment of information and
following it down the proverbial rabbit hole, until the full story finally
emerges.
5.
Do
you have any advice to struggling writers? Consider looking outside of
traditional venues. Although I work with a traditional publishing house
(Chronicle Books) on cookbooks, it wouldn’t have been the right venue for this
book. Instead, I found a home for it with an academic publisher (Columbia
University Press) and it’s turned out to be an excellent fit.
6.
Where
do you see book publishing is heading in five years? I suspect we’ll see a fragmented
environment: text-based books increasingly will be published in
electronic format, but photo-driven books will remain in print format, and will
be considered all the more precious because of their tangible form.
For
more information, consult: http://www.karanewman.com/ or http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15670-7/the-secret-financial-life-of-food
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