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Despite a lackluster economic climate and determined competition from large commercial retailers, farm direct markets continue to increase in number throughout the United States. Although this trend has been widely acknowledged in the literature, there has been little attempt to explain the forces behind it. This study examines the recent flood of popular and alternative media sources that have popularized local and direct food markets. While acknowledging the clear influence of these sources, the article uses both empirical and interdisciplinary qualitative analysis to critically examine tile trend. Building upon Frederick Kirschenmann's discussion of the "conversational marketplace." this study investigates the ways in which consumers engage and reciprocate the dominant narratives of consumer food culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A culinary revolution in America and elsewhere has recently been pinpointed to around 1963. Three important New Zealand cookery books were published that year, and these are investigated to characterize the worldwide shift. Was "grandma's cooking" lost or "gourmet cooking" gained? Seemingly contradictory evaluations might be reconciled in the light of major changes in the food industry. Good domestic cooks embraced successive modes and also resisted them, primarily by continuing to grow and preserve some of their own food, and then by keeping up the cooking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]