Although we seem to spend lots of time devoted to cooking, as evidenced by all the cooking shows, magazines and classes that exist, Americans are actually cooking less than they used to. Ken Albala offers many reasons why we should get into the kitchen more.

Ken Albala is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific. He is the author or editor of 14 books on food including Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe, Beans: A History (winner of the 2008 International Association of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award), and Pancake. He has also co-edited two works, The Business of Food and Human Cuisine, and two other edited collections are forthcoming this fall: Food and Faith and A Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance. Albala was also editor of three food series for Greenwood Press with 30 volumes in print and his 4-volume Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia was just published this summer. Albala is also co-editor of the journal Food Culture and Society and general editor of the new series AltaMira Studies in Food and Gastronomy, for which he has written a textbook entitled Three World Cuisines: Italy, China, Mexico which will appear in the spring of 2012. He is currently researching a history of theological controversies surrounding fasting in the Reformation Era, and has co-authored a cookbook for Penguin /Perigee entitled The Lost Art of Real Cooking, the sequel of which will appear next year and is entitled The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx.