Best of
Food-History

2012

International Cuisine and Food Production Management


Parvinder S. Bali - 2012
    The book explores key concepts and illustrates them through numerous figures, photographs, and tables.Divided into four parts, the first part elaborates Western cuisine (cold section) and covers larder, charcuterie and pates, appetizers and garnishes, sandwiches, use of herbs and wines in cooking. The second part throws light on a variety of international cuisines such as Italian, Mediterranean, Mexican, French, British, Scandinavian, German, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, and also discusses Western plated food and health food. The third part discusses advance confectionary and includes cakes and pastries, chocolates, desserts, sauces and coulis, cookies and biscuits. The final part discusses production management and research & new product development.The book would be very useful to hotel management students in understanding international food production and bakery. It will also serve as a handy tool for chefs with its coverage of topics and the various recipes.

Food and Beverage Service


R. Singaravelavan - 2012
    The illustration of concepts with the help of photographs, charts, layouts, activities and side notes make the book user-friendly.The book contains 48 chapters, divided under six sections- Introduction to F & B Service, Menu knowledge and Planning, Food Service, Beverages and Tobacco, Cellar and Bar Operations, and Ancillary Functions. The first section begins with an introduction to the industry and includes discussion on equipments used and types of service. It is followed by a section on menu knowledge and planning. Food Service includes the methods and procedures of service as well as how to take orders and process the bills. The section on Beverages includes both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, their service and preparations. Cellar and Bar Operations elucidates the service operations in a cellar and a bar, their staff and control procedures. The last section is Ancillary Functions which discusses function catering, supervisory functions, customer relations, food safety among other topics.This textbook has been designed to cater to the needs of degree/diploma students of all three years of hotel management. It will also be helpful to professionals for carrying out training programmes in the industry.

Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking


Laura Taxel - 2012
    In continuous use since it opened in 1912, the market is among the oldest municipally owned and operated retail food arcades and one of only a handful of such places left in the country. The book chronicles the history of this notable landmark and all it offers consumers and culinary aficionados. Written by two well-known Cleveland food writers, the book takes readers on a nostalgic tour of the market building, outdoor arcades, and into the lives of many vendors and market families who are the true foundation of this historic public space. The volume is rich with many rare, and until now unpublished, vintage and contemporary photographs, and images that provide a delightful armchair tour of this magnificent landmark, which is a must-see destination for food lovers.

Cornbread Nation 6


Brett Anderson - 2012
    The modern South serves up a groaning board of international cuisines virtually unknown to previous generations of Southerners, notes Brett Anderson in his introduction. Southern food, like the increasingly globalized South, shows an open and cosmopolitan attitude toward ethnic diversity. But fully appreciating Southern food still requires fluency with the region’s history, warts and all. The essays, memoirs, poetry, and profiles in this book are informed by that fluency, revealing topics and people traditional as well as avant garde, down home as well as urbane.The book is organized into six chapters: “Menu Items” shares ruminations on iconic dishes; “Messing with Mother Nature” looks at the relationship between food and the natural environment; “Southern Characters” profiles an eclectic mix of food notables; “Southern Drinkways” distills libations, hard and soft; “Identity in Motion” examines change in the Southern food world; and “The Global South” leaves readers with some final thoughts on the cross-cultural influences wafting from the Southern kitchen. Gathered here are enough prominent food writers to muster the liveliest of dinner parties: Molly O’Neill, Calvin Trillin, Michael Pollan, Kim Severson, Martha Foose, Jessica Harris, Bill Addison, Matt and Ted Lee, and Lolis Eric Elie, among others. Two classic pieces—Frederick Douglass’s account of the sustenance of slaves and Edward Behr’s 1995 profile of Cajun cook Eula Mae Doré—are included. A photo essay on the Collins Oyster Company family of Louisiana rounds out Cornbread Nation 6.Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts


Mary Isin - 2012
    . . the stories behind Turkey's huge variety of sweets and puddings, valued not only for their taste but as symbols of happiness, good fortune, and goodwill, are as fascinating as their flavor. This riveting exploration of their history and role in Turkish culture is a voyage of adventure, taking us from the sultan's palace to the homes of ordinary people in Turkey's villages and towns, and beyond to Central Asia, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt.

Kitchen Garden Estate: Self-Sufficiency Inspired by Kitchen Gardens of the Past


Helene Gammack - 2012
    From traditional walled kitchen gardens and their—sometimes surprising—fruit and vegetables to keeping bees, chickens, or even livestock, traditional methods and crafts have been in use since medieval times and have much to teach anyone who wishes to make their own outdoor space a model of self-sufficiency. Covering fruit and vegetables, herbs, orchards, beekeeping, fish ponds and lakes, dovecotes and poultry, dairy and the farmyard, the deer park and game, and hops and vineyards, there is something in this book for everyone, whether one has acres of land, an allotment, or even simply a windowsill for growing herbs.

Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe


Paulina BrenJill Massino - 2012
    These everyday experiences, the editors and contributors argue, were central to the way that communismwas lived in its widely varied contexts in the region. From design, to production, to retail sales and black market exchange, Communism Unwrapped follows communist goods from producer to consumer, tracing their circuitous routes. In the communist world this journey was rife with its own meanings, shaped by the special political and social circumstances of these societies. In examining consumption behind the Iron Curtain, this volume brings dimension and nuance to understandings of the communist period and the history of consumerism.

Balkan Smoke


Mary Neuburger - 2012
    She reveals how a remote country was drawn into global economic networks through tobacco production and consumption and in the process became modern. In writing the life of tobacco in Bulgaria from the late Ottoman period through the years of Communist rule, Neuburger gives us much more than the cultural history of a commodity; she provides a fresh perspective on the genesis of modern Bulgaria itself.The tobacco trade comes to shape most of Bulgaria's international relations; it drew Bulgaria into its fateful alliance with Nazi Germany and in the postwar period Bulgaria was the primary supplier of smokes (the famed Bulgarian Gold) for the USSR and its satellites. By the late 1960s Bulgaria was the number one exporter of tobacco in the world, with roughly one eighth of its population involved in production.Through the pages of this book we visit the places where tobacco is grown and meet the merchants, the workers, and the peasant growers, most of whom are Muslim by the postwar period. Along the way, we learn how smoking and anti-smoking impulses influenced perceptions of luxury and necessity, questions of novelty, imitation, value, taste, and gender-based respectability. While the scope is often global, Neuburger also explores the politics of tobacco within Bulgaria. Among the book's surprises are the ways in which conflicts over the tobacco industry (and smoking) help to clarify the forbidding quagmire of Bulgarian politics.

Cheese for Dummies


Laurel Miller - 2012
    With the rise of artisanal cheeses, this once humble foodmade from curdled milk is now haute cuisine. And to make the newworld of cheese less intimidating, Laurel Miller and ThalassaSkinner have created a handy primer to selecting cheese, pairingcheese with wine, cooking with cheese, and making cheese. InCheese For Dummies, everyday cheese lovers will learn how tobecome true cheese connoisseurs.Not only will readers get a look at how different cheeses aremade around the world, in Cheese For Dummies, they'lldevelop enough of a palate to discern which cheese is right forthem.Explains how to assemble the perfect cheese plateIncludes recipes for cooking with cheeseDetails how to make five cheeses, including Mozzarella, Chevre, and RicottaSupplemented with a 16-page photo insertWith artisanal and imported cheeses now common to mainstreamgrocery stores, the everyday cheese lover needs more than simplyhis nose to make the best choice. Offering wise (and delicious!)advice on every page, Cheese For Dummies is a guide foranyone interested in making every mealtime with cheese a specialoccasion.

101 Classic Cookbooks: 501 Classic Recipes


Marion Nestle - 2012
    Any cook will tell you that in every cookbook there are a handful of recipes that rise to the top—the earmarked and most-stained pages. In this marvelous collection, 501 of these signature recipes have been carefully selected from 101 great cookbooks of the twentieth century—beloved tomes passed down through generations. The list of masterworks was chosen by an expert advisory committee that includes Jonathan Gold, Michael Pollan, and Ruth Reichl. It is like having a library of culinary classics condensed into one volume. You’ll discover so many timeless gems, such as Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon, Elizabeth David’s Bouillabaisse, Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Ragu, Jacques Pepin’s Brioche, James Beard’s Pig Hamburgers, and Irma Rombauer’s Devil’s Food Cake Cockaigne. But you’ll also read about how these books and recipes revolutionized the way we eat. Interspersed throughout are nostalgic images from the vintage first editions. It is a fascinating culinary tour that in whole tells much of the story of American culture at large.

Oxford Handbook of Food History


Jeffrey M. Pilcher - 2012
    Recent scholarship on the subject draws from both a pathbreaking body of secondary literature and an inexhaustible wealth of primary sources--from ancient Chinese philosophical tracts to McDonald's menus--contributing new perspectives to the historical study of food, culture, and society, and challenging the limits of history itself. The Oxford Handbook of Food History places existing works in historiographical context, crossing disciplinary, chronological, and geographic boundaries while also suggesting new routes for future research. The twenty-seven essays in this book are organized into five sections: historiography, disciplinary approaches, production, circulation, and consumption of food. The first two sections examine the foundations of food history, not only in relation to key developments in the discipline of history itself--such as the French Annales school and the cultural turn--but also in anthropology, sociology, geography, pedagogy, and the emerging Critical Nutrition Studies. The following three sections sketch various trajectories of food as it travels from farm to table, factory to eatery, nature to society. Each section balances material, cultural, and intellectual concerns, whether juxtaposing questions of agriculture and the environment with the notion of cookbooks as historical documents; early human migrations with modern culinary tourism; or religious customs with social activism. In its vast, interdisciplinary scope, this handbook brings students and scholars an authoritative guide to a field with fresh insights into one of the most fundamental human concerns.

Soft Soil, Black Grapes: The Birth of Italian Winemaking in California


Simone Cinotto - 2012
    More than any other group, Italian immigrants and their families have made California viticulture one of America's most distinctive and vibrant achievements, from boutique vineyards in the Sonoma hills to the massive industrial wineries of the Central Valley. But how did a small group of nineteenth-century immigrants plant the roots that flourished into a world-class industry? Was there something particularly "Italian"in their success? In this fresh, fascinating account of the ethnic origins of California wine, Simone Cinotto rewrites a century-old triumphalist story. He demonstrates that these Italian visionaries were not skilled winemakers transplanting an immemorial agricultural tradition, even if California did resemble the rolling Italian countryside of their native Piedmont. Instead, Cinotto argues that it was the wine-makers' access to "social capital," or the ethnic and familial ties that bound them to their rich wine-growing heritage, and not financial leverage or direct enological experience, that enabled them to develop such a successful and influential wine business. Focusing on some of the most important names in wine history—particularly Pietro Carlo Rossi, Secondo Guasti, and the Gallos—he chronicles a story driven by ambition and creativity but realized in a complicated tangle of immigrant entrepreneurship, class struggle, racial inequality, and a new world of consumer culture. Skillfully blending regional, social, and immigration history, Soft Soil, Black Grapes takes us on an original journey into the cultural construction of ethnic economies and markets, the social dynamics of American race, and the fully transnational history of American wine.

Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese


Ken Albala - 2012
    It also compares the internal logic of the cooking style and techniques in a way that will resonate with students. The meat of the text compares and contrasts the three cuisines in chapters on grains and starches; vegetables; fruits and nuts; meat, poultry, and dairy products; fish and shellfish; fats and flavorings; and beverages. Readers are taken on a fascinating journey of discovery, where the background story of mis-transmission, adaptation, and evolution of cooking as it spreads around the globe with trade and immigration is revealed. It answers the big questions, such as, why did the wok prevail in China, while the sautee pan and comal were used in Italy and Mexico, respectively? Why is bread baked in the Mediterranean but more often steamed in the Far East? How are certain ingredients used in completely different ways by different cultures and why? Why is corn transformed into tortillas and tamales in one place and into polenta in another? Why do we find tomato salsa in the Americas, long-cooked sauces in Italy, and tomatoes mixed with scrambled eggs in China? Albala also challenges the notion of authenticity, providing ample evidence that cuisines are constantly evolving, adapting over time according to ingredients and cooking technologies. More than 150 of Albala's recipes complete the instruction, inspiring readers to learn how to cook in a fundamental way.