Moveable Feasts

From the first to the twenty-first centuries, the things we eat and drink have crossed countries and continents before reaching our tables. They have travelled inside everything from wooden barrels and nineteenth-century tea clippers to refrigerated shipping containers and jet planes travelling at 500 miles an hour. In Moveable Feasts, writer and journalist Sarah Murray travels the globe to uncover the amazing journeys food has made from farm to fork.

Aurum Press, London 2007
St Martin’s Press, New York 2007
Picador, New York 2008

Buy This Book

“Sarah Murray has an engagingly oblique way into a story, and leads us perkily through food history and politics with journalistic flair and an eye for a memorable anecdote.” - The Guardian

“As Sarah Murray argues in her brilliantly researched book, food miles are centuries old.” - The Sunday Times

“Murray’s enthralling account … is both carefully and colorfully reported. Consume with relish.” - Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist

“This bright, energetic and fact-packed book reveals that food miles are by no means an invention of modern times.” - The Independent

“Erudite and thoroughly researched, this is a fascinating read for both foodies and those who love how the minutiae of life often provide a fresh lens with which to view the world.” - Publishers Weekly

About The Author

Sarah Murray is a journalist, author and book editor. A former staffer and regular contributor for the Financial Times, she also writes for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Economist Group and others, specialising in sustainable development, philanthropy and global health. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Forbes, and The Economist. In 2014, she was awarded a Boehm Media Fellowship.

In 2008, Moveable Feasts was selected from 450 submissions as one of JPMorgan Private Bank’s 10 summer “must read” books (with writers including Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and best-selling author Simon Winchester).

Sarah Murray, author of Moveable Feasts

More About This Book

In Moveable Feasts, Sarah shows how food’s journeys have left a trail of footprints in their wake, stirring economic, social and political change. Along the way, she collects a series of astonishing facts and vivid accounts, from American grain falling from a United Nations plane in Sudan to barbequed Memphis ribs flying FedEx to Wall Street traders. And such journeys date back millennia, from Roman olive oil to the Eastern spice trade.