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433rd out of 470 books
—
988 voters
Words to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language
English food words tell a remarkable story about the evolution of our language and culinary history, revealing a collision of cultures from the time Caesar first arrived on British shores to the present day. Words to Eat By explores the stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal our powerful associations with certain foods. Using sources that rang...more
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published
July 5th 2011
by St. Martin's Press
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This was my favorite of the library new arrivals food trilogy. Lipkowitz writes about language that describes what we eat and the history behind these words. Usually there ends up being a barbarian/native influence (in what we now call England on the language that has become English) which is countered by a foreign (Roman, Christian, then Norman) influence. These foreign influences come from Mediterranean regions with richer food traditions than the barbaric north. The richer tradition includes...more
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Library.
This was one of those books that was on the 14 day shelf and looked pretty interesting from the title and cover. It was OK.
I enjoyed the ideas presented. The tracing of words. The connection of food words to two separate linguistic pasts: Germanic and Latin. The comparison between our "public" foods to our "private" foods, what we eat when out and what we eat when home, what is "special" and what is "comfort." The dichotomy in the fledgling Christian religion between the Mediterranean,...more
This was one of those books that was on the 14 day shelf and looked pretty interesting from the title and cover. It was OK.
I enjoyed the ideas presented. The tracing of words. The connection of food words to two separate linguistic pasts: Germanic and Latin. The comparison between our "public" foods to our "private" foods, what we eat when out and what we eat when home, what is "special" and what is "comfort." The dichotomy in the fledgling Christian religion between the Mediterranean,...more
This is a somewhat repetitive but often enlightening history of food and language (not just the English language, despite the subtitle!).
Lipkowitz excels in combining disparate threads from a mostly European past, contrasting the British Isles and the Mediterranean, Romans and Celts, and haute cuisine and peasant food. I enjoyed the interweaving of Christianity's role in our modern American & English food preferences, too.
Apples, leeks, milk, meat and bread are featured, but these topics a...more
Lipkowitz excels in combining disparate threads from a mostly European past, contrasting the British Isles and the Mediterranean, Romans and Celts, and haute cuisine and peasant food. I enjoyed the interweaving of Christianity's role in our modern American & English food preferences, too.
Apples, leeks, milk, meat and bread are featured, but these topics a...more
A good idea but it could have been executed better. Parts were amateurly written, and others needed some better editing - there was a lot of superficial analysis and repetitive assertions. But some fun and interesting facts nonetheless.
The first essay is tremendous -- a lovely overview of how culinary words are made. The next essays are also wonderful, tho I found myself hearing the same patterns over and over.
Lovel history, well written.
Lovel history, well written.
Gastronomy meets linguistics in this interesting exploration of English food words and food preferences from Roman to modern times.
"Words to Eat By" is a fascinating, well-researched account of five words used in modern English to identify food: apple, leek, milk, meat, bread. Exploring the history of both the food and the word used to name it, author Ina Lipkowitz carries readers through the invasion-laden history of England, and by extension the English language, and strikes at the heart of why the words we use use to describe are food find their origins and their cultural implications in multiple languages and histories,...more
Not badly written, but for etymologists only.
A lot of etymology, which I like.
That was a tremendous disappointment.
I am somewhat interested in etymology and very interested in food history but I don't really know much about either subject. Almost all of the information in this book was new to me. It was a great lesson in cultural exchange and how conquest and colonization influenced the foods we eat and what we call our food.
The author is quite repetitive in her writing but there are some fascinating anecdotes about food name origins. I think her writing in the last two chapters was more relaxed and thus more enjoyable.
Fun for anyone interested in food, Western European history, and etymology.
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