(Photo: Flickr/Adam Kuban)

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Stephanie Smith went to her mom’s house for dinner, ate a hamburger, and ended up in convulsions, in a coma, paralyzed.

American food safety has come back as a big issue in public health. Leafy greens, eggs, sprouts, berries, ice cream — they can all get you.

But the story of the grindings and goo from around the country and the world that went into Stephanie Smith’s nicely-packaged hamburger is a wake-up call.

This hour, On Point: We’ll talk with the reporter who tracked it down, and look at the issue of food safety — and the problem with hamburger.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Michael Moss, investigative reporter for The New York Times. His article tracking how one woman was paralyzed by E. coli in a hamburger, and the flaws in beef inspection her story reveals, ran on the front page of last Sunday’s paper.

Update: In a followup post on the On Point blog, Moss addresses the apparent surge of hamburger E. coli outbreaks since 2007 and what experts say might be the cause.

Joining us from St. Paul, Minn., is Kirk Smith, supervisor of the Minnesota Department of Health’s Foodborne Illness Unit.

And from Issaquah, Wash., we’re joined by Craig Wilson, assistant vice president for food safety and quality assurance for Costco, one of the few big producers that tests beef “trimmings” for E. coli before they are ground into hamburger meat.

(AP Photo)

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“Born round, you don’t die square” — as food critic Frank Bruni’s grandma used to say.

She was talking about how central food is to a satisfying and successful life.

That theme is a big part of the former New York Times restaurant critic’s new memoir, “Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater.”

The young Frank Bruni loved Grandma Bruni’s little pastas, which each carried the shape of her thumb. Yet the love of food, he found, was a mixed blessing.

Bruni became, as he puts it, a “baby bulimic.” And by the time he was in college, eating disorders were taking over his life.

Bruni says his relationship with food has defined him. He’s fought with food, even wrestled with it in his dreams, and now brokered a delicate truce.

This Hour, On Point: Frank Bruni’s inner strength — and rating the perfect meal.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Guests:

Frank Bruni, restaurant critic for The New York Times from 2004 until this month. He’s the author of “Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater.” His recent article in The New York Times Magazine, “I Was a Baby Bulimic,” was adapted from the book.

Read an excerpt (PDF file) from “Born Round.”

City Farm, Chicago (Photo: Linda N./flickr.com - click photo for more.)

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It sounds idyllic. Urban farming. Artichoke feathering in the sidewalk cracks; tufts of herbs for every meal, carrots from the White House lawn.

But like many rosy dreams, we forget the thorns of hard work.

Urban farming is hotter than jalapeño right now, but it will take public support — and lobbying Congress -- if it’s going to have an impact on how we eat, and how the poorest among us get fresh food.

Our guests today are farmers who have converted city lots for everything from growing fish to heirloom pumpkins. Gurus of the city farm.

This hour, On Point: Chickens at sunrise — in the city!

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Joining us from Milwaukee is Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, an urban farm based in northwest Milwaukee. A 2008 MacArthur Fellow, he was recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine.

And from Berkeley, Calif., we’re joined by Novella Carpenter. She started Ghost Town Farm on an abandoned lot next to her home in Oakland. She writes about it in her new book, “Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.”  Read an excerpt here.

In this video, Will Allen gives a tour of his Milwaukee greenhouses:

(Photo: Flickr/robertpaulyoung; click for full image)

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Remember David Kessler back in the 1990s, when he was head of the FDA? The guy who took on Big Tobacco?

He’s on a new crusade now, and it’s not about smoking, it’s about eating — about our national culture of food. He points to a huge and profitable food industry and its legion of well-paid scientists who work hard to make their products literally irresistible, to make us eat almost non-stop.

He says we’ve got to understand our own appetites, and to change how America looks at food.

This hour, On Point: David Kessler on controlling the American appetite.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guest:

Dr. David Kessler joins us from San Francisco. He was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 1990-1997, under the first President Bush and President Clinton. During his time at the FDA, he led the campaign to regulate tobacco and the landmark lawsuit FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. He is a pediatrician and lawyer. His new book is “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.”

Read an excerpt from the book, in which Kessler goes “inside the unregulated, wild world of food processing.”

In this photograph by Russell Lee, the Faro Caudill family eats dinner in Pie Town, New Mexico, in October 1940 (Library of Congress). Click image for more info.

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In the last years of the 1930s, the last years before interstates and industry turned America into one big, homogenized market, Depression-era writers went out to see what Americans were eating.

They went North, South, East and West. Today, their report reads like a wildly diverse national potluck of very regional, very vivid cuisine.

Spoon bread and burgoo, oyster stew and chicken bog, hush puppies and possum, Johnny cake and hoecake and rabbit and grunion.

This hour, On Point: What we ate before we all ate the same. We’ll read the great American menu — and tuck in.

You can join the conversation — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us in our studio is Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of many books, including “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World” and “Salt: A World History.” His new anthology is “The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food -- from the Lost WPA files.”

Also in our studio is JJ Gonson, a personal chef with a background in short order and home cooking. Boston Magazine named her “Boston’s Best Personal Chef.” She’s founder of Cuisine En Locale, based in Cambridge, Mass., and writes an eponymous blog, where she’s just written about food shopping and economies of scale.

In this video clip, Tom and our guests sample tastes of the ’30s…

Here’s our tasting menu for this hour. These are authentic 1930s dishes taken from Mark Kurlansky’s book.

Plain Maine Chowder
from the recipe of Mabel G. Hall, a Maine historian

- Ingredients: diced salt pork, onions, potatoes, water, salt, a very little bit of milk

Kentucky Wilted Lettuce
“Throughout Kentucky, and particularly in the mountainous area, wilted lettuce is certain to appear on the table of most every household that has a garden.”

- Ingredients: fresh lettuce, fresh green onions, salt, pepper, bacon, bacon grease

Arizona Menudo
from a description of an “Arizona Menudo Party” by J. Del Castillo

- Ingredients: beef tripe, hominy, salt, pepper

Depression Cake (far western U.S.)
from an essay by Michael Kennedy and Edward B. Reynolds, a cake born out of necessity by a woman preparing for a July 4 “picnic, rodeo, and general get-together”

- No eggs, butter, or milk.
- Ingredients: raisin water, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, allspice, bacon drippings, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder.

Ruth Reichl

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Food writer and editor Ruth Reichl’s new book on her mom is not one of those cozy mother-daughter tales. This is not learning to cook and love life at mother’s elbow. On the contrary.

Reichl is editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. Her mother was anything but a gourmet. The daughter savors a larger-than-life career. The mother suffered a mid-20th-century woman’s life of frustration, cut off from career and dreams. She inspired not as example, but as counter-example.

Now the daughter looks back in appreciation. This hour, On Point: Gourmet’s Ruth Reichl and “Not Becoming My Mother.”

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Ruth Reichl joins us from Toronto. Her new memoir is “Not Becoming My Mother & Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way.” She is editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, and a former restaurant critic for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. She is a co-producer for the public television show “Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie.”

Read the first chapter of “Not Becoming My Mother.”

Mark Bittman

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Food writer and home cooking guide Mark Bittman is a hero in many American kitchens. His “How to Cook Everything” has put a lot of meals on a lot of family tables.

Now, Bittman is taking up a bigger cause than dinner: The way Americans eat, he says, is killing themselves and the planet. Too much meat. Too much junk food. Too big a footprint.

Just a little change, he says — vegan ‘til 6pm, ‘til dinner — could save our waistlines, our health, and the planet.

This hour, On Point: A save-the-Earth manifesto — with recipes — from food maven Mark Bittman.

You can join the conversation. Is Mark Bittman already your go-to-guy for recipes? For food advice? Are you ready to follow him onto earth-friendly terrain at the table?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Mark Bittman, food columnist for The New York Times. He writes “The Minimalist” column and the “Bitten” blog. His new book is “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.”

See three of Mark Bittman’s recipes from the book: Breakfast Bread Pudding, Chocolate Semolina Pudding with Raspberry Puree, and Vegetable Pancakes.

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Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid travel the world and bring home its flavors, its food. And they do it like explorers.

For the taste of Southeast Asia, they followed the Mekong River from near its source on the Tibetan plateau, down through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to the South China Sea. And that’s just for one cookbook.

They’ve been called culinary anthropologists. But these are anthropologists whose work you want to eat. Sizzling. Steamed. Stir-fried. Fragrant.

This hour, On Point: On the road and in the kitchen with the well-fed explorers, Alford and Duguid.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, award-winning cookbook authors, join us from Toronto. They’re the authors of “Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia” and, most recently, “Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China.” Their latest web venture is immersethrough.com.

Here are two of Alford and Duguid’s recipes:

DAI CARROT SALAD

1 pound large carrots
About 2 tablespoons Pickled Red Chiles or storebought pickled chiles, cut into ½-inch slices
3 scallions, smashed and sliced into ½-inch lengths
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon roasted sesame oil
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 or 3 tablespoons coriander leaves, coarsely chopped

Peel the carrots. Using a cleaver or a chef’s knife, slice them very thin (1/8 inch thick if possible) on a 45-degree angle. You should have 3 cups.

In a medium saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Toss in the carrot slices and stir to separate them. Cook just until slightly softened and no longer raw, about 3 minutes. Drain.

Transfer the carrots to a bowl and let cool slightly, then add the chiles and scallion ribbons and toss to mix.

Whisk together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Pour over the salad while the carrots are still warm. Stir or toss gently to distribute the dressing, then turn the salad out onto a serving plate or into a wide shallow bowl.

Serve the salad warm or at room temperature. Just before serving, sprinkle on the salt and toss gently, then sprinkle on the coriander and toss again.

Serves 4 as a salad or appetizer.

* * * *

MIAO PORK WITH CORN AND CHILES

1/3 pound pork loin
3 or 4 large ears corn (to yield 3 cups kernels)
1 tablespoon lard or peanut oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
¼ teaspoon coarsely ground Sichuan pepper
2 red cayenne chiles, thinly sliced, or 3 tablespoons thinly sliced Pickled Red Chiles (page 34)
1 teaspoon salt

Thinly slice the pork, then cut into small slices, about ½ inch by 1 inch. Set aside. Cut the kernels from the corncobs on a cutting board and use a cleaver or chef’s knife to slice the kernels off the cob; set aside.

Place a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the lard or oil, and when it is hot, toss in the garlic. Stir-fry for a moment, then add the pork and Sichuan pepper. Stir-fry for several minutes, then add the chiles and ½ teaspoon of the salt and stir-fry until the pork has changed color all over, another minute or so. Add the corn and stir-fry for about a minute, then add the remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Stir0fry until the corn is cooked through and tender, another 3 to 4 minutes.

Turn out and serve hot or at room temperature, with rice.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as one of several dishes with rice.

Lisa Hale, a volunteer with the Capital Area Food Bank, stocks shelves at the food bank in Washington on Oct. 27, 2008. (AP)

Here’s a sign of the times in these United States: Americans who volunteered at soup kitchens and food banks suddenly finding themselves lining up there, for a meal.

The latest report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds 36 million Americans living “food insecure.” The everyday translation of that can easily be “hungry.”

Food prices are up. So is joblessness. And hunger — in a country where obesity and hunger can live very close to one another.

This hour, On Point: Our daily bread. We’ll take a look at hard times and hunger in the United States.

You can join the conversation. What do you know about hunger in this country? Do you see it in your schools, your neighborhood? Have you lived with it? Is your town’s food bank getting cleaned out these days? Share your thoughts.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. An expert on hunger in America, he served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Clinton Administration, as Coordinator of Food Recovery and Gleaning, Coordinator of Community Food Security, and Director of National Service. His new book is “All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?”

Read an excerpt from “All You Can Eat.”

From Oakland, Calif., we’re joined by Jessica Bartholow, director of Programs for the California Association of Food Banks.

When it comes to food — good, celebratory, delicious food — many an American cook and kitchen found liberation in the pages of “The Silver Palate” cookbook.

Pesto and Dijonaise, fresh basil and walnut oil, olives and apricots and fine cheese and chiles.

Years on now, “Silver Palate” cookbook doyenne, chef, and food writer Sheila Lukins is still at it, with new recipes for beet and apple soup, lemon dill parsnip, Saigon shrimp and tango burgers.

The American palate is evolving, she says. We’ll ask how.

This hour, On Point: Sheila Lukins on the American cook and palate now.

You can join the conversation. Did you find your courage in the kitchen in the pages of “The Silver Palate”? What did you love? And where is your home-cooking turning today?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Sheila Lukins is a chef, cooking teacher, food writer, and co-author of the bestselling 1979 cookbook “The Silver Palate,” as well as “The New Basics Cookbook” and “Celebrate!” She is food editor of Parade Magazine. Her new cookbook is “Ten: All the foods we love…and ten recipes for each.”

See two recipes from the book: Carrot Ginger Soup and Buffalo Shrimp.

In 2004, author Paul Roberts came out with his book “The End of Oil,” and we’ve all seen oil’s path since then.

Now Roberts is out with a kind of follow-up: “The End of Food.” It could make a person want to hoard tuna.

Not that oil or food are literally vanishing anytime soon. But Roberts argues that when it comes to cheap, abundant food supplies — to supermarket shelves piled high with affordable, attractive groceries — we’ve been living in a golden age. And that age is about to end.

This hour, On Point: The end of food as we’ve known it.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Paul Roberts, author of “The End of Food,” and a contributor to Harper’s, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, he gained international acclaim for his 2004 book, “The End of Oil.”

Keith Agoda, founder and president of Sky Vegetables, an organization of “urban farming enthusiasts.” The company builds and runs commercial and sustainable greenhouses on the rooftops of supermarkets in the United States.

World food prices are soaring. The world’s poor are hurting. And the price hikes may pinch in a supermarket near you.

In Cameroon and Burkina Faso and Egypt and Indonesia, they’ve rallied and rioted over hunger and the high price of food. In Haiti, they’ve turned out a government.

The U.N. calls it a “silent tsunami,” but it’s loud out there now. Between global warming, high oil and fertilizer prices, rising demand, and food crops poured into ethanol, we’ve got a hungry, angry world out there. And don’t imagine you’re immune.

This hour, On Point: the food crisis, and what to do about it.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John McArthur, executive director of Millennium Promise, an organization assisting the U.N.’s anti-poverty goals, and a research associate at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Raj Patel, visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, he is author of “Stuffed and Starved.”

Joia Mukherjee, medical director for Partners in Health, an organization with initiatives in countries such as Haiti and Rwanda, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital

America has a love affair with hamburgers. From the first ones served up at White Castle in Kansas to those Golden Arches and your backyard grill, the burger has worked its way into America’s stomachs and hearts.

Its transformation from German hamburger steak to an American icon is a delicious story, and has more twists and turns than you could ever pile onto a bun. Get your napkin ready because we’re going to take a big bite.

This hour, On Point: the history of the hamburger.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Josh Ozersky, online food editor for New York Magazine and author of the new book “The Hamburger: A History.”

James McNair, author of 41 cookbooks and head judge for “Build a Better Burger.”

Michael Schlow, head chef and owner of Radius restaurant in Boston, he won the 2008 Rachael Ray South Beach “Burger Bash.”

In China, pork has become so expensive they’re stealing pigs by the truckload. In Kansas, it’s wheat. In Mexico, they’ve got tortilla riots over the cost of corn. In American supermarkets, the price of milk and eggs has soared.

All over the world, the price of food is headed up. Sometimes way up. And an era of cheap food is over.

We’re turning corn into fuel, feeding meat to new millions, paying more for oil to farm — and there are consequences.

This hour, On Point: the soaring cost, globally, of what we eat — and where we’re headed with the price of food.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John Parker, globalization correspondent for The Economist.

Bruce Babcock, professor of economics and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University.

Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains.

Lester Brown, founder and president of Earth Policy Institute and author of “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.”

We’re looking at the amazing story through history of the American stomach and the extremes of consumption and digestion.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Frederick Kaufman, author of the new book “A Short History of the American Stomach.” He’s a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and wrote the article “Wasteland: A Journey Through the American Cloaca” for the February issue.

Behold, the humble banana. It’s not as simple as you think. Its tree is not a tree. Its fruit is a giant berry — in fact, it’s the world’s largest herb.

The banana is the planet’s biggest fruit crop, but most can’t reproduce without human intervention. Until 1876, almost no one in North America had ever seen a banana. Now, if you’re 40 years old, you’ve probably eaten ten thousand. Whole governments have risen and fallen on the banana boat trade.

Now, the banana itself is in huge trouble. The fruit on your corn flakes may not survive.

Up next, On Point: Yes, we may have no bananas.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Dan Koeppel, journalist and contribuiting editor at National Geographic Adventure Magazine and author of “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.”

Adolfo Martinez, director of the Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Investigation.

Here’s a callout to American fans of Indian food. After you’ve enjoyed your samosa and chicken tikka masala, and maybe a curry and some goolab jam, Chitrita Banerji wants you to know there’s a much bigger world out there.

A universe barely touched on most Indian menus in America of rich and varied cuisine from the subcontinent. We tend to eat the flavors of the north and Punjab. Banerji wants to take you on a tour of Karnatika and Goa, Bengal and Amrtisar, to taste the food and learn a nation.

This hour, On Point: spread your banana leaf. We’re eating India — all of it — with Chitrita Bannerji.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Chitrita Banerji, author of “Eating India: An Odessey into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices”

While the fast food nation has revolutionized America’s eating habits, another, quieter revolution has taken place at the other end of the culinary spectrum. And today, if you’re a “foodie” — as devotees of good food and cooking are called — you may have Judith Jones to thank.

When Julia Child’s first manuscript, for “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” crossed her desk, Jones, one of the most influential editors of the last half century, said it was the book “[she'd] been searching for.” And with that, a culinary revolution was on.

Up next, On Point: Legendary editor Judith Jones and her life in food.

-Sheilah Kast

Guest:

Judith Jones, longtime editor at Alfred A. Knopf and author of the new memoir “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food.” She published Julia Child’s groundbreaking book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and discovered countless other famous cookbook authors.

Deep in the cocoa bean plantations of Brazil and beyond, there’s a chocolate revolution underway. Deep, dark, intense, pure chocolate — extreme chocolate — is rising up as the chocolate of choice like never before among chocolate connoisseurs and beyond.

Chocolate that lives very close to the bean. Forget milk chocolate. This is 70 percent pure cacao. 80 percent. 90 percent. 100 percent. Intense.

Food and drink super-guru Bill Buford is up to his neck in it. Literally naked in a vat of beans.

This hour, On Point: New Yorker gourmand Bill Buford takes us deep into rain forest, dark beans, and extreme chocolate.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Bill Buford, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, his article “Extreme Chocolate” appears in the current issue. He is the author of “Heat : An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.”

Diego Badaro, a cacao farmer, his family plantation lies on the banks of the Rio de Contas in the Bahia rain forest of Brazil. His ancestors, also cacao plantation owners, figure largely in the writing of famed Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado.