Short Synopsis
New Yorker writer Dana Goodyear combines the style of Mary Roach with the on-the-ground food savvy of Anthony Bourdain in a rollicking narrative look at the shocking extremes of the contemporary American food world.

Full Synopsis
A new American cuisine is forming. Animals never before considered or long since forgotten are emerging as delicacies. Parts that used to be for scrap are centerpieces. Ash and hay are fashionable ingredients, and you pay handsomely to breathe flavored air. Going out to a nice dinner now often precipitates a confrontation with a fundamental question: Is that food?

Anything That Moves, a behind-the-scenes look at foodie culture, is simultaneously a humorous adventure and a serious attempt to understand the implications of the way we eat. This is a universe populated by insect-eaters and blood drinkers, avant-garde chefs who make food out of roadside leaves and wood, and others who serve endangered species, pets, and Schedule I drugs—a cast of characters, in other words, who flirt with danger, taboo, and disgust in pursuit of the sublime. Behind them is an intricate network of scavengers, dealers, and pitchmen responsible for introducing rare and exotic ingredients into the marketplace and, ultimately, bringing them to the family table. Highly entertaining and deeply revelatory, Anything That Moves explores the raucous, strange, fascinatingly complex world of contemporary American food culture, and the places where the extreme is bleeding into the mainstream.

"Goodyear's exploration of this engrossing and morally complex topic provides a solid footing for hearty conversations." ---Kirkus Starred Review

"In Anything That Moves, Dana Goodyear takes as her subject the outer edges and extremes of American food culture, and shows us, with grace, quiet humor, and poetic precision, how closely the weird mirrors the typical." ---Adam Gopnik

"Combining serious thought and intelligent perspective with writing that is entertaining and inspiring, this is an important book and a delightfully fun read. I loved it." ---Andrew Zimmerman

Amazon Bestseller

Kirkus Review