Beginnings of a California Counter-Cuisine

Abstract

During the decades of the 1950s through 1970s agribusiness and industrial food became the norm and satiated the consumer hunger of most Americans. Yet, as early as the 1950s many Americans worried about the new consumer excesses and responded with anti-big-government and anti-big-business concerns. Their worries resulted in deep societal divides and a general societal angst over economic equality in political and social institutions. Change was around the corner and agribusiness and industrial food would not escape being targets of the revolution. Political food activists began a decades-long quest to bring women, families, farmers, and politicians back to the communal table for a “Delicious Revolution.”