Combat-Ready Kitchen

Praise

“A well-researched effort that will undoubtedly add to general readers’ knowledge about the food they consume on a daily basis.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“Combat-Ready Kitchen reveals in abundant detail how military necessity has spawned food-technological invention and many of the processed foods that crowd our supermarket and kitchen shelves.”
—HAROLD MCGEE, author of On Food & Cooking and Keys to Good Cooking

“A fascinating book that will make us reconsider the origins of modern industrial food. Who could have guessed that so many of our common conveniences were first developed for war? This book will make an enormous impact in the field of food history.”
—KEN ALBALA, director of food studies, University of the Pacific

“This is an excellent book on an important subject that readers will find fascinating for its relevance to their everyday lives and health. It also makes an important contribution to military history with its analysis of field rations from antiquity to the present. With Combat-Ready Kitchen, which is well written in an enjoyable style and exhaustively researched, Marx de Salcedo has done the American public a great service in bringing this important subject to our attention. Highly recommended.”
—RICHARD A. GABRIEL, historian; author of The Madness of Alexander the Great: And the Myth of Military Genius

“The book that makes us realize that the military is basically a R&D lab for what ends up in our kitchens.”
—Bon Appétit, recommended reading for summer 2015

“[An] engaging, wide-ranging investigation”
—Discover Magazine, recommended reading for September 2015
 
“…An ambitious book: Marx de Salcedo weaves military history into a discussion of the food industry and modern health policy, all filtered through her own family’s experiences.”
—Military.com

“…A rollicking, yet encyclopedic, look at the Army’s role in everything from industrialized meats to energy bars.”
—Vox.com
 
“Meticulous… exhaustive… and fair-minded. Marx de Salcedo may be critical of how much highly processed food has entered our diets this way, but her narrative helps us understand just how it happened. If anything, she simply wants us to stop and consider the realities of our food supply.”
—PRI The World

“[I]nsightful…”
—Mother Jones
 
“Ever wonder why you can buy frozen pizza that stays “fresh” for five-plus months? Thank the U.S. military, which has outsize influence on the contents of our modern-day grocery carts, writes Anastacia Marx de Salcedo.” 
—Time

“We wouldn’t eat the way we do, Anastacia Marx de Salcedo argues, if it weren’t for the Army, and we shouldn’t (she believes) eat the way we do… [S]he has a fascinating tale to tell—of technology and ingenuity—before arriving at her doubts…. The reader of Ms. Salcedo’s chronicle… is likely to look at our daily fare with a… fresh sense of appreciation.”
—The Wall Street Journal