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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Year of Plenty

Amazing New Google Books Ngram Search Tool - Foodie Index, Fast Food Index and More

The geniuses at Google have put together a search tool that allows you to search through a good portion of the books they've scanned into Google Books. Here is how it works:

The service draws on the absolutely massive Google Books corpus. Google estimates they've scanned and OCR'd more than 10 percent of all the books ever published, and they use about a third of the total books in the tool.

Language and book publishing trends are tricky things to nail down. For example, just because a word comes into more frequent use does not necessarily mean that the concrete realities we attach to those words in today's language have become more important or popular. But they do provide fascinating data points to consider when assessing cultural trends.

I did a few searches related to the content of this blog:

Below is the meat index comparing usage of the words chicken, beef, pork, and turkey (1900-2008):

Screen shot 2010-12-18 at 9.09.08 AM

 

Here's an "industrial agriculture" vs. "organic agriculture" throwdown (1940-2008):

Industrial ag vs organic ag

 

Below is the fast food index showing the rise of pizza, hamburger, and fast food (1940-2008):

Screen shot 2010-12-18 at 9.22.13 AM

 

Here's what I'll call the foodie index showing community garden, farmers market, and csa (1900-2008):

Screen shot 2010-12-18 at 9.56.33 AM

 Finally the ag index showing frequency of farm, farmer, and agriculture books (1900-2008):

Screen shot 2010-12-18 at 9.48.56 AM



Year of Plenty

The Year of Plenty blog was created by Craig Goodwin in the winter of 2008 to chronicle the experiences of his family as they sought to consume everything local, used, homegrown or homemade. That journey was a wonderful introduction to people and movements in the Spokane area who are seeking the welfare of the community through local foods, farmers markets, community gardens, sustainable transportation, and more fulfilling and just patterns of consumption. In 2009 and beyond the blog will continue to report on these relationships and practices, all through the eyes of a family with young children. Craig manages the Millwood Farmers' Market, is a Master Food Preserver and Pastor at Millwood Presbyterian Church. Craig can be reached at goody2230@gmail.com