My friend Brad Edmonds–a libertarian with expertise in music, cooking, and psychology, about to be a newly-minted attorney–published a delightful book in 2004, There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It. I reviewed it in Eat This Book: Review of Brad Edmonds’s There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It. As I wrote there:
Some pairings don’t seem like they would go together – melons and prosciutto, pineapple on pizza, dark chocolate and bourbon – but pleasantly surprise you when they do. So it is with Brad Edmonds’s recent book, There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It, which combines food and politics to yield a mighty fun read.
This book will proudly grace your coffee table or make excellent bedtime reading (full disclosure: Edmonds and I are buds). Edmonds – whose work will be well known to LewRockwell.com readers – draws on his experience as a libertarian writer, scholar-musician (he has a doctorate in music), and cooking expertise to combine a mouthwatering yet intellectually stimulating gumbo of interwoven advice, recipes, related economic-political analysis, and fascinating vignettes.
As the Mises Institute store‘s blurb says:
“Government in Your Soup is a revealing, often funny, and sometimes shocking exposi of government intrusions into your kitchen.
Author Brad Edmonds brings his economic background together with his love of food to show how government mucks up the food industry, and what can be done about it. “Government in Your Soup” covers a diverse range of topics, including:
- How regulations raise prices and hurt American businesses and consumers
- How government involvement can slow developments in food safety
- The brilliance of chefs, home cooks, and free markets in overcoming government interference to bring great food to the table
- The beauty and variety of regional and traditional cuisines, and what these cuisines tell us about free markets in food”Government in Your Soup” includes easy ways you can reduce government nannying and snooping into your food, fun, shopping, and living, and is a useful resource for those who want to reduce the size and cost of government.
Brad has given me permission to post it online: here it is. Enjoy! And buy a copy from Amazon or the Mises Institute store.
