Food: How We Hunt and Gather It, How We Grow and Eat It, How We Buy and Sell It, How We Preserve and Waste It and How Some Have Too Much and Others Have too

by Milton Meltzer

Discusses the social, political, and economic aspects of food

96 pages, Library Binding

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

Milton Meltzer wrote 110 books, five of which were nominated for the National Book Award. With Langston Hughes, he co-authored A Pictorial History of Black Americans, now in its sixth edition. He received the 2001 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contribution to children's literature, the 1986 Jane Addams Peace Association Children's Book Award, and the 2000 Regina Medal. He died in New York City of esophageal cancer at age 94.

Reviews

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle of Food pretty much encompasses everything this slim little book tries to talk about. The history (from prehistoric times to the late 1990s), geography, science, politics, marketing, ethos and more, of food. Over the course of many essays, Milton Meltzer discusses everything from the ghastly way in which beef and chickens are now raised, to the decadent feasts of Ancient Rome; from agriculture in the flood plains of the Nile in ancient Egypt, to how canny advertising helps push Americans (and others, in an increasingly global economy) towards buying particular foods. He talks about chocolate in Mexico and tea in China, about famine and cannibalism and the horrific working conditions in sugar plantations and meat factories. He discusses Jason and the Golden Fleece (in which, frankly, I found the connection with food veyr tenuous).

And more. Much more.

All of which, of course, could have made for a pretty much definitive guide to the length and breadth and depth of food. If only this guide wasn't a mere 95 pages long, each essay no more than two pages at the most. What happens as a result is that everything is very summarily discussed, in a snapshot that's so brief, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Facts are rattled off very quickly, and while some of the trivia is admittedly interesting (if fairly commonly known to anybody who's interested in food history), it's all too superficial. At the end of most of these essays, I found myself wondering why Meltzer hadn't talked of this, or hadn't touched upon that—and then admitting to myself that it was probably because of the lack of space.

And yes, this is by no means an account of global food. Though the book makes a half-hearted attempt to venture a little bit beyond American and Western Europe, it falls quite flat on that front. China, for instance, is discussed mainly in terms of horrible famines, oppression, rice and tea, and Russia too is highlighted pretty much to reflect the sorry state of affairs when it came to food shortages, whether caused by communists or by besieging Nazis.

An okay book if you've never read anything in-depth about food. If you have, this can safely be given a wide berth.

[Rachel Heaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skimmed it. Some outdated information.