The Secret History of Food Quotes

“As Christianity spread across Europe, the Church basically adopted these various pagan, Norse, Roman, and Celtic traditions as their own, choosing to celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25,31 for example, because it was already associated with feasting, sacrament, and rebirth.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“In fact, McDonald’s cares so much about uniformity and efficiency that they add a silicon-based polymer to the fryer oil to reduce splatter,15 which cuts down on cleaning time; called dimethylpolysiloxane, the same chemical is also used in head lice treatments, condom lubricants,16 and breast implants.17 How neat is that?”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“Similarly, our sensitivity to bitter foods is largely associated with a gene called TAS2R38,40 and you can measure yours at home by picking up some paper test strips saturated with a chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil41 (PROP), which are widely available online. About half the population finds these strips moderately bitter42 (“tasters”), while a quarter finds them unpalatably bitter (“supertasters”), and another quarter describes them as having no taste at all (“nontasters”). Supertasters also tend to have a higher density of taste buds,43 and although this might sound like a coveted foodie superpower, supertasters are likely to be pickier eaters44 and avoid things like coffee, wine, spirits, dark chocolate, and various fruits and vegetables (e.g., grapefruit, broccoli, kale) because they find them too bitter.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“Whereas individual human beings can go through life without participating in political acts and without personal liberty and can survive without forming a family or having sex, none of us can go without food. It is the absolute biological necessity of food that makes it so central to cultural history and so inclusive of all peoples in all times.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“This isn’t to suggest that the modern Christmas doesn’t have wholesome and nostalgic comforts of its own; it’s just that “Christmastime” was associated with presents, vacation days, and gluttonous feasts of carved meats, stuffed birds, and decorative pastries long before the advent of Christianity, Santa, or even Christ, for purposes that were both practical and primal. Ever since the onset of farming and stock raising, December has been peak comfort food season because it meant winter was coming, which meant livestock had to be slaughtered before snow covered the seasonal grasses that made up their food supply and fresh meat and vegetables had to be either eaten or preserved before the winter frost.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“Plus, having land and resources meant people suddenly had to defend themselves from outsiders, so they had to erect fences and raise armies and create political structures and start paying taxes to fund all of this and put up with neighbors moving in across the street—all those buzzkills Epicurus warned us about.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“It’s tempting to picture these early foragers as savage and uncivilized, because they were too ignorant to, say, live in overcrowded cities, fill oceans with single-use plastic containers, and breed animals in dark, crowded cages amid their own feces after cutting off their beaks, horns, and testicles without anesthetics.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“For example, potatoes, as we’ll read in chapter 10, used to be associated with witchcraft and Devil worship; before they were America’s most popular vegetable (owing largely to their use as French fries), people called them “the Devil’s apples,” blamed them for causing syphilis, and literally burned them at the stake.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“companionship—a word that, poignantly, comes from the Latin com (“together”)82 and pānis (“bread”)”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“People with a gene called OR6A2,34 which correlates to aldehyde receptors, tend to think cilantro (also known as coriander)35 tastes like soap or smells like “bug-infested bedclothes.”36 In fact, there’s evidence that the name coriander comes from the Greek koris (“bedbug”),37 and aldehydes similar or identical to those found in cilantro are found in soap38 and certain bug excretions, including those of bedbugs.39”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

“Starbucks’ drink menu reads a lot like an Egyptian medicine book; all that’s missing is the cat hair and penis water.”
― Matt Siegel, The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat