Near a Thousand Tables: A History of FoodCritically acclaimed as a landmark in culinary writing, this savory and engrossing account by a New York Times Notable author leaves no placemat unturned as it chronicles the fascinating story of food across the centuries. We are what we eat; every ingredient of our past and present identities may be divined from the food on our tables. In this ambitious and brilliantly achieved work, world-renowned historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto charts the eventful course of humankind's relationship to food through the ages. Fernandez-Armesto leads readers through the eight great revolutions in the world history of food: the origins of cooking, which set us on a course apart from other species; the ritualization of eating, which brought meaning to our relationships with what we ate; the inceptions of herding and agriculture, perhaps the two greatest revolutions of all; the rise of social inequality, which made food a status symbol and led to the development of haute cuisine; the long-range trade in food, which did much to break down all cultural barriers; the ecological exchanges, which revolutionized the distribution of plants and livestock; and, finally, the globalization of mass-produced food. Revealing everything from what vegetarians have in common with cannibals to what the Aztec derivation is for "avocado, " Near a Thousand Tables is superb--a narrative history of the highest order. |
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A. J. Liebling Africa agriculture American animals became beef boiled bread breeding Brillat-Savarin cannibalism cassava century cheese chicken Chinese chocolate civilization Columbian Exchange cookery cooking crop cuisine culinary cultivated cultures developed diet dishes Dutch early eaten eaters ecological edible effect empire environment Europe European famine farming feast feed Fiji fire fish flavor flesh foodstuffs fruit garlic grains grasses Green Revolution haute cuisine herding history of food human hunters hunting Ibid imperial Indian Indian Ocean industry ingredients islands juice kitchen land Levenstein London M. F. K. Fisher magic maize meal meat menu milk millennium B.C. modern native nature nineteenth numbers nutrition oyster Paleolithic pepper plant pork production protein recipes reindeer revolution rice roast salt sauce scurvy seeds seems social societies species spices staple sugar supply sweet potatoes Sylvester Graham taste thousand tion trade traditional transhumant varieties vegetables vitamin voyage West Western wheat wild