The History Book Club discussion
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Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief
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May 26, 2011 06:45AM
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Food in History
Reay TannahillPublisher's Synopsis:
An enthralling world history of food from prehistoric times to the present. A favorite of gastronomes and history buffs alike, Food in History is packed with intriguing information, lore, and startling insights—like what cinnamon had to do with the discovery of America, and how food has influenced population growth and urban expansion
Mod
Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States
Andrew CoePublisher's Synopsis:
In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States—by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.
It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York "Bohemians" discovered Chinese cuisine—and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences.
Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.
Found this gem on Gutenberg. Its been providing hours of entertainment.
on Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8...1391 AD cookbook. Its excellent. An excerpt:
"OYSTERS IN GRAVEY. XX.VI. I.
Schyl Oysters and seeþ hem in wyne and in hare own broth. cole the broth thurgh a cloth. take almandes blaunched, grynde hem and drawe hem up with the self broth. & alye it wiþ flour of Rys. and do the oysters þerinne, cast in powdour of gyngur, sugur, macys. seeþ it not to stondyng and serue forth."
Actually I found a whole number of interesting texts on Gutenberg pertaining to food and household management. Its a mix between being horrified and fascinated.
Becky wrote: "Actually I found a whole number of interesting texts on Gutenberg pertaining to food and household management. Its a mix between being horrified and fascinated. ..."What!? You messed up the larks tongues! Tut tut! :)
Happy New Year Everyone!!!!!!!!!! XXXXXXXXXX
Mod
Thanks Bentley, hope its a good one all round!
Michelle Berriedale-Johnson is a good read by the way!
Richard Tapper is also good and covers a fair amount of history of 'my' part of the world - been dividing Christmas/New Year between the table, trying to find out what Mughal artillery looked like and Latvian War of Liberation Air Force uniforms looked like! Oh... and the odd bevvy!
Becky wrote: "Found this gem on Gutenberg. Its been providing hours of entertainment. on Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8...1391 AD cookbook..."
Becky, looks like you found quite the treasure trove with that link! Your description makes me laugh.
Remember to add the author link when posting a book.
Samuel PeggeThanks!
Wow, who would have thought that virgin olive oil has both a sublime and scandalous past?
This book may not be a total fit in this thread.....but for those of us who love food and love London, this is a great little book to have. It is small enough to fit in your pocket and has pop-out maps to 6,000 restaurants in Central London and the West End and covers every type of cuisine that you may crave. It is essential for the food lover in London.
by Marie Peyre
This looks good. A recent release:
by Harvey LevensteinThere may be no greater source of anxiety for Americans today than the question of what to eat and drink. Are eggs the perfect protein, or are they cholesterol bombs? Is red wine good for my heart or bad for my liver? Will pesticides, additives, and processed foods kill me? Here with some very rare and very welcome advice is food historian Harvey Levenstein: Stop worryin...moreThere may be no greater source of anxiety for Americans today than the question of what to eat and drink. Are eggs the perfect protein, or are they cholesterol bombs? Is red wine good for my heart or bad for my liver? Will pesticides, additives, and processed foods kill me? Here with some very rare and very welcome advice is food historian Harvey Levenstein: Stop worrying!In Fear of Food Levenstein reveals the people and interests who have created and exploited these worries, causing an extraordinary number of Americans to allow fear to trump pleasure in dictating their food choices. He tells of the prominent scientists who first warned about deadly germs and poisons in foods, and their successors who charged that processing foods robs them of life-giving vitamins and minerals. These include Nobel Prize–winner Eli Metchnikoff, who advised that yogurt would enable people to live to be 140 by killing the life-threatening germs in their intestines, and Elmer McCollum, the “discoverer” of vitamins, who tailored his warnings about vitamin deficiencies to suit the food producers who funded him. Levenstein also highlights how large food companies have taken advantage of these concerns by marketing their products to combat the fear of the moment. Such examples include the co-opting of the “natural foods” movement, which grew out of the belief that inhabitants of a remote Himalayan Shangri-la enjoyed remarkable health and longevity by avoiding the very kinds of processed food these corporations produced, and the physiologist Ancel Keys, originator of the Mediterranean Diet, who provided the basis for a powerful coalition of scientists, doctors, food producers, and others to convince Americans that high-fat foods were deadly.In Fear of Food, Levenstein offers a much-needed voice of reason; he expertly questions these stories of constantly changing advice to reveal that there are no hard-and-fast facts when it comes to eating. With this book, he hopes to free us from the fears that cloud so many of our food choices and allow us to finally rediscover the joys of eating something just because it tastes good.
Mod
Andrew F. SmithInfo:
rom the Americas to Australasia, from northern Europe to southern Africa, the tomato tickles the world's taste buds. Americans along devour more than twelve million tons annually of this peculiar fruit, variously considered poisonous, curative, and aphrodisiacal. In this first concerted study of the tomato in America, Andrew F. Smith separates myth from historical fact, beginning with the Salem, New Jersey, man who, in 1820, allegedly attracted spectators from hundreds of miles to watch him eat a tomato on the courthouse steps (the legend says they expected to see him die a painful death). Later, hucksters such as Dr. John Cook Bennett and the Amazing Archibald Miles peddled the tomato's purported medicinal benefits. The competition was so fierce that the Tomato Pill War broke out in 1838. "The Tomato in America" traces the early cultivation of the tomato, its infiltration of American cooking practices, the early manufacture of preserved tomatoes and ketchup (soon hailed as "the national condiment of the United States"), and the "great tomato mania" of the 1820s and 1830s. The book also includes tomato recipes from the pre-Civil War period, covering everything from sauces, soups, and main dishes to desserts and sweets. Now available for the first time in paperback, "The Tomato in America" provides a piquant and entertaining look at a versatile and storied figure in culinary history.
Mod
The great tomato manie of the 1820s and 1830s? Who knew? I love stuff like this, will have to add this to the list.
This little book will make you smile as one of the world's great trenchermen writes about his overindulgence in good food.The Joys of Excess
by
Samuel PepysSynopsis
The most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater, and epicure, and indulged in every pleasure of 17th century London. Whether he is feasting on barrels of oysters, braces of carps, larks' tongues, and copious amounts of wine, or merrymaking in taverns until the early hours, these selections from Pepys' diaries provide a frank and spirited picture of the joys of overindulgence. This book is not for the dieter!!!
Set for release in April:A Natural History of Transformation
by
Michael PollanSynopsis
Fire, water, air, earth—our most trusted food expert recounts the story of his culinary education
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.
Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.
The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume huge quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.
New release:Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
by
Michael PollanSynopsis
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.
Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.
The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.
This is getting a lot of attention. I wonder if any of our members have read this yet?Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
by
Michael MossSynopsis
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.
In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world’s largest processed food companies—from Coca-Cola to Nabisco—gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it.
Increasingly, the salt-, sugar-, and fat-laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made. This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation—114 slides in all—making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster.
When he was done, the most powerful person in the room—the CEO of General Mills—stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over.
Since that day, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, the situation has only grown more dire. Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year.
In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century—including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more—Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research.
Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.
In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food
by Stewart Lee AllenSynopsis
Deliciously organized by the Seven Deadly Sins, here is a scintillating history of forbidden foods through the ages—and how these mouth-watering taboos have defined cultures around the world.
From the lusciously tempting fruit in the Garden of Eden to the divine foie gras, Stewart Lee Allen engagingly illustrates that when a pleasure as primal as eating is criminalized, there is often an astonishing tale to tell. Among the foods thought to encourage Lust, the love apple (now known as the tomato) was thought to possess demonic spirits until the nineteenth century. The Gluttony “course” invites the reader to an ancient Roman dinner party where nearly every dish served—from poppy-crusted rodents to “Trojan Pork”—was considered a crime against the state. While the vice known as Sloth introduces the sad story of “The Lazy Root” (the potato), whose popularity in Ireland led British moralists to claim that the Great Famine was God’s way of punishing the Irish for eating a food that bred degeneracy and idleness.
Filled with incredible food history and the author’s travels to many of these exotic locales, In the Devil’s Garden also features recipes like the matzo-ball stews outlawed by the Spanish Inquisition and the forbidden “chocolate champagnes” of the Aztecs. This is truly a delectable book that will be consumed by food lovers, culinary historians, amateur anthropologists, and armchair travelers alike. Bon appétit!
Mod
One of my pet peeves is people talking about the evils of food just as you are about to eat something evil. Its better to eat than not to eat. Eating right is important also; but not as important as living right. Id like to hear from others.
Mod
Has anyone read Thomas Jefferson's creme brulee: how a founding father and his slave James Hemings introduced French cuisine to America
by Thomas J. Craughwell (no photo available)? I just wrapped it up myself and found it to be a very interesting, if not very in-depth, study of TJ's adventures with and thoughts on food.
Mod
I have not, Charles, TJ did love the French cooking.
The Taste Of War: World War Two And The Battle For Food
by Lizzie CollinghamSynopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of 2012
Food, and in particular the lack of it, was central to the experience of World War II. In this richly detailed and engaging history, Lizzie Collingham establishes how control of food and its production is crucial to total war. How were the imperial ambitions of Germany and Japan - ambitions which sowed the seeds of war - informed by a desire for self-sufficiency in food production? How was the outcome of the war affected by the decisions that the Allies and the Axis took over how to feed their troops? And how did the distinctive ideologies of the different combatant countries determine their attitudes towards those they had to feed?
Tracing the interaction between food and strategy, on both the military and home fronts, this gripping, original account demonstrates how the issue of access to food was a driving force within Nazi policy and contributed to the decision to murder hundreds of thousands of 'useless eaters' in Europe. Focusing on both the winners and losers in the battle for food, The Taste of War brings to light the striking fact that war-related hunger and famine was not only caused by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, but was also the result of Allied mismanagement and neglect, particularly in India, Africa and China.
American dominance both during and after the war was not only a result of the United States' immense industrial production but also of its abundance of food. This book traces the establishment of a global pattern of food production and distribution and shows how the war subsequently promoted the pervasive influence of American food habits and tastes in the post-war world. A work of great scope, The Taste of War connects the broad sweep of history to its intimate impact upon the lives of individuals.
Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History
by Sidney W. Mintz (no photo)Synopsis
Traces the history of sugar production and consumption, examines its relationship with slavery, class ambitions, and industrialization, and describes sugar's impact on modern diet and eating habits.
Charles wrote: "Has anyone read Thomas Jefferson's creme brulee: how a founding father and his slave James Hemings introduced French cuisine to America[bookcover:Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee: How a Founding F..."
I just picked this one up from the library and hope to get to it soon.
The one food I find impossible to resist: cheese. Who is with me on this? The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese
by
Kathe LisonSynopsis
The French, sans doute, love their fromages. And there’s much to love: hundreds of gloriously pungent varieties—crumbly, creamy, buttery, even shot through with bottle-green mold. So many varieties, in fact, that the aspiring gourmand may wonder: How does one make sense of it all?
In The Whole Fromage, Kathe Lison sets out to learn what makes French cheese so remarkable—why France is the “Cheese Mother Ship,” in the words of one American expert. Her journey takes her to cheese caves tucked within the craggy volcanic rock of Auvergne, to a centuries-old monastery in the French Alps, and to the farmlands that keep cheese making traditions alive. She meets the dairy scientists, shepherds, and affineurs who make up the world of modern French cheese, and whose lifestyles and philosophies are as varied and flavorful as the delicacies they produce. Most delicious of all, she meets the cheeses themselves—from spruce-wrapped Mont d’Or, so gooey it’s best eaten with a spoon; to luminous Beaufort, redolent of Alpine grasses and wildflowers, a single round of which can weigh as much as a St. Bernard; to Camembert, invented in Normandy but imitated and beloved across the world.
With writing as piquant and rich as a well-aged Roquefort, charming as a tender springtime chèvre, and yet unsentimental as a stinky Maroilles, The Whole Fromage is a tasty exploration of one of the great culinary treasures of France.
If you have ever watched Andrew Zimmern's television program, you know he will eat anything although I did see him gag over stinky tofu and the durian fruit. Otherwise, he is game for anything. This is a fun book.Andrew Zimmern's Field Guide to Exceptionally Weird, Wild, and Wonderful Foods
by Andrew Zimmern (no photo)Synopsis:
Andrew Zimmern loves food. In fact, there's practically nothing he won't try--at least once. As host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods America on the Travel Channel, Andrew's passion is exploring how different foods are important to different cultures.
Now, Andrew is sharing his most hilarious culinary experiences--as well as fun facts about culture, geography, art, and history, to name a few--with readers of all ages. Don't like broccoli? Well, what if you were served up a plate of brains, instead? From alligator meat to wildebeest, this digest of Andrew's most memorable weird, wild, and wonderful foods will fascinate and delight eaters of all ages, intrepid and...not so much.
Oh, this goes on my TBR pile for sure. I've eaten brains and alligator. Never had wildebeest.
You scream, I scream, we all scream for . . . Ice Cream: A Global History
by
Laura B. WeissSynopsis:
'It’s a MUST read this summer . . . with ice-cream in-hand of course! :)”—Food Network Magazine.
“In Ice Cream: A Global History, food writer Laura B. Weiss tells the fascinating story of a popular, mass-produced frozen treat that began life thousands of years ago as the dessert of kings.”—Wall Street Journal
In this rollicking history, you'll also learn about Chinese emperors who feasted on an ice cream made with dragon eyeballs, donkeys wooed with ice cream cones, Good Humor-loving Nazis, and sundaes with names like “Over the Top." You'll find out why Howard Johnson came up with 28 flavors, and which American First Lady was a huge ice cream fan. There are also recipes for new and vintage ice cream treats like corn ice cream and the Purple Cow.
I am intrigued by these tales of the obscure, particularly as it relates to food. The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese
by
Michael PaternitiSynopsis:
In the fall of 1991, while working at a gourmet deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michael Paterniti encountered a piece of cheese. Not just any cheese. This was Paramo de Guzman, a rare Spanish queso reputed to be the finest, and most expensive, in the world. The cheese carried its own legend: Made from an ancient family recipe in the medieval Castilian village of Guzman (pop. 80), the cheese was submerged in olive oil and aged in a cave where it gained magical qualities-if you ate it, some said, you might recover long-lost memories. Too broke to actually buy the cheese, Paterniti made a quixotic vow: that he would meet this cheese again someday. Flash forward ten years, when Paterniti has finally found his way-family in tow-to that tiny hilltop village to meet the famous cheesemaker himself, a voluble, magnetic, heartbroken genius named Ambrosio. What Paterniti discovers in Guzman is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he has imagined. Instead, he wanders into-and eventually becomes deeply implicated in-the heart of an unfolding mystery, in which a village begins to spill its long-held secrets, and nothing is quite what it seems.
Bullets and Bread: The Story of Sacrifice in American Homes to Feed the Troops in World War II
by
Kent WhitakerSynopsis:
The U.S., a collection of cities serviced by outlying farms and producers, is amazingly transformed into a nation serviced by a national food production industry to meet the needs of fighting World War II. The armed services, 350,000 strong at the war’s start, quickly grew to 11,000,000 men and women who had to be fed, along with the millions more on the home front.
This is the story of the transformation to meet those needs and the interesting stories about the people, prominent and not-so prominent, of the era; and the food they liked to eat, and more frequently, what they had to eat.
Spice: The History of a Temptation
by Jack Turner(no photo)I recall hearing in history stuff about the spice trade and spice routes, and the exotic spice islands. I remember hearing this in school and often wondered, are we talking about that stuff that my Mom uses to cook that's in the cupboard? In those bottles that cost a few bucks? That pepper shaker? What was so great about black pepper anyway? Why is that so important? Then I read this book! I found it interesting linking history in several of the other books I've read, be it Salt, Extra Virginity (olive oil), Uncommon Grounds (Coffee), and other food-history, to regular history of the middle east, India, Europe, and the islands of the Pacific/Indian oceans as cities/nations sparred with each other trying to control the trade routes and distribution points, and new routes/sources for spices.
Synopsis
Spice covers the history of the spice trade, the ups and downs of the spices, as they were discovered, as nations tried to corner the market, and uses of spices, including medicine, magic, religion, and sex. It talks of where particular spices came from, sometimes how they are harvested, and some interesting uses of particular spices like cinnamon, cloves, pepper, etc. It lastly discusses what I think of as the fall of spices at least in terms of economic/political importance, from the exotic and rare to the common place.
Looks like an interesting book, thanks for the addition Marc.Make sure to add the citations to the other books you mention at the end of your post.
Thanks.
Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal
by
Abigail CarrollSynopsis:
We are what we eat, as the saying goes, but we are also how we eat, and when, and where. Our eating habits reveal as much about our society as the food on our plates, and our national identity is written in the eating schedules we follow and the customs we observe at the table and on the go.
In Three Squares, food historian Abigail Carroll upends the popular understanding of our most cherished mealtime traditions, revealing that our eating habits have never been stable—far from it, in fact. The eating patterns and ideals we’ve inherited are relatively recent inventions, the products of complex social and economic forces, as well as the efforts of ambitious inventors, scientists and health gurus. Whether we’re pouring ourselves a bowl of cereal, grabbing a quick sandwich, or congregating for a family dinner, our mealtime habits are living artifacts of our collective history—and represent only the latest stage in the evolution of the American meal. Our early meals, Carroll explains, were rustic affairs, often eaten hastily, without utensils, and standing up. Only in the nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution upset work schedules and drastically reduced the amount of time Americans could spend on the midday meal, did the shape of our modern “three squares” emerge: quick, simple, and cold breakfasts and lunches and larger, sit-down dinners. Since evening was the only part of the day when families could come together, dinner became a ritual—as American as apple pie. But with the rise of processed foods, snacking has become faster, cheaper, and easier than ever, and many fear for the fate of the cherished family meal as a result.
The story of how the simple gruel of our forefathers gave way to snack fixes and fast food, Three Squares also explains how Americans’ eating habits may change in the years to come. Only by understanding the history of the American meal can we can help determine its future.
I'm not ignoring you Alisa!! I am going to add these books to the list this weekend (Salt, Uncommon Grounds, and Extra Virgin). Just got busy trying to finish a couple of non-food books, plus work and real life...
Anyone have anything about salt. As a person with HBP. I have reduced my salt intake by as much as I can. When I go to fast food mainly mcdonalds I say no salt and sometimes I say "No Salt if I find salt I will be one mad customer." I've honestly done it a few times. Instead of salt use while we cook we use Mrs.Dash which contains No MSG. I know some food are naturally salty but if I can at least control some of it.I'm good.
Mod
Uncommon Grounds: The history of Coffee and how it Transformed the World
Mark PendergrastSynopsis:
As a coffee-lover who enjoys seeking out new coffee shops, sipping new coffees, buying new beans, and enjoying fresh-ground coffee, I was quite interested in this book! I remember growing up, my Dad opening a new tin of Folgers coffee, and getting that fresh smell of coffee aroma, then tasting the coffee and thinking, where did that delicious smell go to?
Mark Pendergrast details in a quite enjoyable manner, the history of coffee. He starts of with the origin of coffee, a bit about the legend of the dancing goats of Ethiopia, but leaps a thousand years, and by page 20, coffee is growing in the Americas.
The vast bulk of the book is about coffee in the last 300 years or so, mostly focused from the American perspective. Coffee in the frontier days, the American civil war, the jazz years, the rise of the big coffee makers at the expense of local roasters, their influence on the Brazilian coffee beans (quantity over quality), the boom/bust cycles, and yes, the deliberate adding of aroma to those big ground coffee tins that I recall from my childhood. He describes the deliberate and successful operation to get Americans to settle for bad but cheap coffee. It reminds me of the American auto industry of the 1970/1980's, where we had crap cars, until the Japanese introduced better made cars.
Going back to the book, the author describes the rise of Starbucks and other specialty coffee roasters and coffeeshops. In addition, he describes the horrible conditions that coffee harvesters undergo, the hard backbreaking work for such little pay, and the rise of 'fair trade' coffee in response. Lastly, he describes 'coffee tours' where people can actually help harvest the beans. Personally, I would love to do this!
Consider the Fork: How Technology Transforms the Way We Cook and Eat
by Bee Wilson (no photo)Synopsis:
Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious—or at least edible. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson takes readers on a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of objects we often take for granted. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide machines of the modern kitchen, but also the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. Blending history, science, and personal anecdotes, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be and how their influence has shaped food culture today. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, CONSIDER THE FORK is truly a book to savor.
Mod
Mod
by Matthew Warner Osborn (no photo)Synopsis:
Edgar Allan Poe vividly recalls standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate and dismember the body of his mother. That memory, however graphic and horrifying, was not real. It was a hallucination, one of many suffered by the writer, caused by his addiction to alcohol.
In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn reveals how and why pathological drinking became a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in the early American republic. At the heart of that story is the disease that Poe suffered: delirium tremens. First described in 1813, delirium tremens and its characteristic hallucinations inspired sweeping changes in how the medical profession saw and treated the problems of alcohol abuse. Based on new theories of pathological anatomy, human physiology, and mental illness, the new diagnosis founded the medical conviction and popular belief that habitual drinking could become a psychological and physiological disease. By midcentury, delirium tremens had inspired a wide range of popular theater, poetry, fiction, and illustration. This romantic fascination endured into the twentieth century, most notably in the classic Disney cartoon Dumbo, in which a pink pachyderm marching band haunts a drunken young elephant. Rum Maniacs reveals just how delirium tremens shaped the modern experience of alcohol addiction as a psychic struggle with inner demons.
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An interesting look inside the kitchen and what we are eating.On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
by Harold McGee(no photo)Synopsis:
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.
On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.
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The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Staple to Superfood: A Global History of the Sweet Potato (other topics)Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States (other topics)
Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean (other topics)
Food of the Cods: The story of Britain’s fish and chips obsession (other topics)
Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Q. Edward Wang (other topics)Michelle Craig McDonald (other topics)
Eric T. Jennings (other topics)
Daniel Gray (other topics)
Fuchsia Dunlop (other topics)
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