Introduction: Yalies who cook, grow, serve, and think about food

Mark Zurolo ’01MFA

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Whether you eat to live or live to eat, you’ve surely noticed a growing sophistication in the United States about what we eat. As history professor Paul Freedman points out in his essay “How Food Became Chic,” his students these days display both “a seriousness of purpose about food” and “a kind of lively pleasure in accumulating knowledge of and experiences related to food.”

We’ve been watching this new attitude play out on Yale’s campus, where students are served fresh, healthy, and more-sustainable cuisine, and some till the soil at an on-campus farm; in New Haven, where the multinational array of restaurants is staggering to those of us who remember more homogeneous fare; and of course in the doings of alumni. Some time back, we started saving stories of alumni who are making food and drink their business: restaurateurs, farmers, entrepreneurs, and more. You’ll find profiles of 16 of them here. It is no exaggeration to say that we could easily have filled another two issues with stories of innovative alumni. We hope to tell more of their stories in the future.

Please enjoy this farm-to-table survey of food at Yale and Yalies in food. You’ll find all the food features in the left column of the contents page for this issue. Feel free to pick and choose, tapas style, or to consume at one sitting.

And don’t worry—we haven’t forgotten about New Haven pizza. That’s coming up in another issue.—The Editors