Jones notes that by the 1930s(!) the average distance between field and fork was already the apocryphal fifteen hundred miles that still get called up every time a locavore gets interviewed. Even before World War I, according to Jones, lettuce, asparagus, watermelons, cantaloupes, and tomatoes grown in California were transported three thousand miles by refrigerated cars across the continent. For him, a stranger to the idea of transportation’s relationship to global warming, these technological advancements were achievements to celebrate rather than lament. Jones evokes, for example, the quaint days when New York housewives had to pay $1.50 a quart for strawberries, while housewives in Baltimore could stuff themselves with berries at ten cents a quart. No wonder everybody was so excited when the railroads were laid.

Jones does, however, turn a frowning eye to America’s increasingly juvenile palate, quoting novelist Vance Bourjaily’s comment that to the American people, “eating is just something done in response to advertising.” And in this he joins ferocious American critic Karen Hess, who co-wrote The Taste of America, first published in 1977, with her husband, John Hess. Most famous for their lambasting of previously unimpeachable American food heroes like Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, and James Beard, the Hess’s book today still reads as one of the most hard-hitting—and relevant—critiques of the American food system. They open the book with “How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs?” and follow with nineteen chapters of bilious vexation.

Although at times the Hesses are feebly hopeful, ultimately, they believe that good food in America is little more than a memory. “We were one of the best-fed countries in the world; we have become one of the poorest,” they write sadly. They were well known for their misanthropic, nearly apocalyptic visions; let’s hope this one won’t hold true.