Whether refried, baked, falafelled, or complementing a nice Chianti, the humble bean has long been a part of gourmet and everyday food culture aro...
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Mar 19, 2008
Just nominated for an IACP award in the food reference category. Plus I like beans.
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Jul 16, 2008
Pancha
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Albala explores the political, cultural, and linguistic history of our friend the bean. Each chapter focuses on a different type of bean, from the lentil (thought to be the first legume cultivated) to the soy bean (a much later edition to our tables, only having been cultivated a few thousand years ago), including a chapter on poison beans and cryptobeans. Interspersed with the history are quotes from medical texts, novels, songs, memoirs, travelogues, poems, and of course cookbooks. There are e
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Mar 19, 2008
Chana
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Beans have represented many different things over the centuries: daily staple for the whole society, particularly in India; reliable food for the poor; gassy embarrassment for the upwardly-mobile; symbol of primordial hardihood for the ancient Romans. In this book, Albala does a fine job investigating the social and botanical history of the bean family, including many of its lesser-known members. I recommend this book to all foodies, and to anyone who might be amused to know that Fabio, the Ital
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May 04, 2011
Gabrielle
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One of the perks of volunteering in the high school library, you come across odd books like this one, written by a food historian. He realized that there had not been a thorough history of the bean and so he wrote one. (Yes, I could almost say that with a straight face.)
If you are foodie, it may interest you. It would actually make a good magazine article, as some of the old recipies and writings on beans were a little dry and could be cut out, but overall the info was interesting.
If you are foodie, it may interest you. It would actually make a good magazine article, as some of the old recipies and writings on beans were a little dry and could be cut out, but overall the info was interesting.
Nov 01, 2011
Sesana
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I think this may be the first non-Reaktion food history I've read this year. Very enjoyable. It made me hungry for chili, which is good in a book about beans. And I did make chili, and it was good. (Let's not get into whether or not beans belong in chili, strictly speaking. They go in my chili, and that's all that counts to me.) At any rate, it's divided into chapters based on type of bean, which means that some chapters were way longer than others. Probably the best way to do it, though. There
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Apr 04, 2009
Nick
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I eat so many beans that I felt I had to read this book. I did learn some interesting facts and got really hungry for fresh broad beans, split pea soup and hummus. The writing was a bit to informal and repetitive for my tastes so I gave it a 3.
Aug 09, 2011
For the food class, a social history of beans--early domestication as a farmer protein source (and one of the three sisters of American native foods with corn and squash), fava beans and malaria, Pythagoras and beans as the seat of the soul, St. Jerome worried about flatulent nuns to the industrialization of soy.
Jul 07, 2009
Wendy
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Casual at times, more like a textbook at others, but interesting nonetheless.
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