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The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food
University of California Press
August 2012
On Sale: August 8, 2012
242 pages
ISBN: 0520261844
EAN: 9780520261846
Kindle: B008I6EPRW
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
In a lively account of the American tuna industry over the
past century, celebrated food writer and scholar Andrew F.
Smith relates how tuna went from being sold primarily as a
fertilizer to becoming the most commonly consumed fish in
the country. In American Tuna, the so-called "chicken of the
sea" is both the subject and the backdrop for other facets
of American history: U.S. foreign policy, immigration and
environmental politics, and dietary trends. Smith recounts how tuna became a popular low-cost
high-protein food beginning in 1903, when the first can
rolled off the assembly line. By 1918, skyrocketing sales
made it one of America's most popular seafoods. In the
decades that followed, the American tuna industry employed
thousands, yet at at mid-century production started to fade.
Concerns about toxic levels of methylmercury, by-catch
issues, and over-harvesting all contributed to the demise of
the industry today, when only three major canned tuna brands
exist in the United States, all foreign owned. A remarkable cast of characters-- fishermen, advertisers,
immigrants, epicures, and environmentalists, among many
others--populate this fascinating chronicle of American
tastes and the forces that influence them.
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