{"title":"Michael Symons","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichael Symons offers a fresh perspective on cooking, exploring the cultural and historical significance of food alongside practical recipes. His writing invites readers to consider the deeper meaning behind meals and the ways they shape our lives and societies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a thoughtful and engaging style, Symons blends culinary insight with storytelling, making his works essential for anyone interested in the art and impact of cooking. His books are a celebration of food as both nourishment and expression.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"meals-matter-by-michael-symons-9780231196024","title":"Meals Matter","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUntil the early nineteenth century, political philosophy and economics were dining companions. Both took up fundamental questions of how we should feed one another. But with the rise of corporate capitalism, modern economics lost sight of its primary task and turned away from the complexities of real people's sustenance in favour of the single-minded pursuit of money.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eMeals Matter\u003c\/em\u003e, Michael Symons returns economics to its roots in the distribution of food and the labour required. Setting the table with vivid descriptions of conviviality, he offers a gastronomic rebuttal to the narrow worldview of mainstream economics. Engaging with a wide variety of thinkers—including Epicurus, Enlightenment philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the gastronomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, and economic theorists from François Quesnay and Adam Smith through the neoliberals—Symons traces how we went astray and how we can find our way back to a more caring, sustainable way of life. He finds hope for shared \"table pleasure\" in institutions like community gardens, street markets, and banquets and in eating fresh, local, and \"slow\" food.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn innovative, historically based argument at the intersection of food history and social thought, \u003cem\u003eMeals Matter\u003c\/em\u003e challenges us to reject the economics of greed in favour of a community-based economics of sharing and gastronomic enjoyment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50519517790444,"sku":"9780231196024","price":66.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780231196024-meals-matter-1.jpg?v=1790160549"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/michael-symons.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}