That Grocery is an ode - even a love letter - to grocery stores is clear from opening lines. The surprising and lovely twist is that it is also a love letter to Ruhlman's father.
Many books - The Food of a Younger Land; Salt, Sugar, Fat; Genius Foods - have been written about food in American and, more to the point, how much of it is merely "food product" that we're better off avoiding. Ruhlman, whom I first encountered in grad school as the author of the exquisite Walk on Water: The Miracle of Saving Children's Lives, manages to largely stay out of those weeds.
With an almost-laser-focus on Heinen's, a Cleveland-based grocer, he's able to hone in on the place of the grocery store in society: its history and evolution, the push-pull factors of marketing and manufacturers, and the sheer variety and abundance that is nearly every grocery store in America.
As I was growing up, in the years before Costco and Carrefour had proliferated across Europe and beyond, my family regularly hosted exchange students. One of the highlights - and horrors - for these students was always a trip to the local Meijer, where the aforementioned abundance overwhelmed the senses and left them a sense of awe at the number of cereals available - as well as puzzled by who would need so many choices.
Ruhlman brings the same wide-eyed-wonder to grocery store operations, though he takes it a step further by visiting the lamb farms, the wineries, the carrot farmers, and many others along the journey of keeping grocery shelves stocked. That he does all of this with a light touch, and the narrative of his father's love of grocery shopping and cooking woven throughout, is a testament to both his writing and story telling abilities. He leaves the reader with more questions than answers as to the future of food, and with quite a few products to look for in the grocery aisles.
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