A profusely illustrated, gracefully written social history of the florist, from its Victorian heyday to present-day Britain.

    'tis very fine, but where d'ye sleep, or where d'ye dine? Blenheim Palace was still being built when this verse was composed in 1714. The author - possibly Alexander Pope or Jonathan Swift - was attacking the grandiloquent baroque style of architecture which placed dining rooms far from kitchens, making food stone cold before it even reached the table. The question posed is one that fascinates visitors to historic houses - in England and elsewhere. Sleeping habits and arrangements have changed comparatively little over the centuries, but cooking and eating have undergone revolution after revolution. Behind the curious ingredients and mysterious language of old cookbooks lies a completely different world, where the foods that we take for granted were often not available, food preparation, cooking and preservation were laborious tasks, and the art of dining reflected social attitudes far removed from modern practice. Sara Paston-Williams has used the great wealth of Britain's National Trust houses and records to produce this carefully researched book. She has tackled the huge subject chronologically, from the cavernous kitchens and great halls of medieval houses like Cotehele in Cornwall to the ingenious technology of late Victorian service areas such as that at Cragside in Northumberland, which produced food for ornate dining rooms and intimate parlors. Each chapter of The Art of Dining includes historical recipes, together with their modern adaptations. The result is a feast for the eye as well as a fascinating guide to all the arts of dining.

    Dining by Rail tells how that experience was created, recapturing the lively history of eating on the train and presenting several hundred wonderful recipes that entertained and fortified the hungry traveler from coast to coast. The year 1930 marked the high point of passenger food service as practiced by the great American railroads. Over 1,700 dining cars on 63 railroads served upwards of 80 million meals - nearly a quarter million meals each day - on steel wheels. And what meals they were! Among the award-winning dishes in Dining by Rail: Melon Mint cocktail on the Pennsylvania's Broadway Limited; Roquefort Dressing on the Great Northern's Salads; Fillet of Sole as You Like It from the Southern Pacific; Fresh Asparagus Delmonico on the Rock Island Rockets; Old-Fashioned Raisin Pudding from the Illinois Central; French Toast from the Santa Fe Super Chief. Menus featured consistently unique items made of fresh, natural, native American ingredients available today in stores everywhere. The recipes require only ordinary kitchen tools, and because they were designed to be cooked quickly in a small kitchen, they allow today's cook to turn out a gourmet meal in record time - truly high-speed cuisine. Dining by Rail also serves up the rich and colorful history of "the golden age of American railroading." Discover how railroads went from tolerating vendors hawkingsoot-covered hotcakes, eggs soaked in lime water, and gritty black coffee, to providing meals that won awards in international competition. Learn how chefs on forty-eight railroads prepared such unique and tasty dishes as canteloupe pie, cream of sweet potato soup, and a hot straw

    145 halftones throughout.

    Recreating all phases of the journey, she shows how supplies were selected in the beginning and used up on the way.

    John Cooper explores the traditional foods-the everyday diets as well as the specialties for the Sabbath and festivals-of both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic cuisines. He discusses the often debated question of what makes certain foods "Jewish" and details the evolution of such traditional dishes as cholent and gefilte fish.

    The focus on consumption changes the whole emphasis and structure of historical enquiry. While human beings usually work within a single trade or industry as producers, as, say, farmers or industrial workers, as consumers they are active in many different markets or networks. And while history written from a production viewpoint has, by chance or design, largely been centred on the work of men, consumption history helps to restore women o the mainstream.The history of consumption demands a wide range of skills. It calls upon the methods and techniques of many other disciplines, including archaeology, sociology, social and economic history, anthropology and art criticism. But it is not simply a melting-pot of techniques and skills, brought to bear on a past epoch. Its objectives amount to a new description of a past culture in its totality, as perceived through its patterns of consumption in goods and services.Consumption and the World of Goods is the first of three volumes to examine history from this perspective, and is a unique collaboration between twenty-six leading subject specialists from Europe and North America. The outcome is a new interpretation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one that shapes a new historical landscape based on the consumption of goods and services.