Book picks similar to
A Movable Feast by Kenneth F. Kiple
food
history
non-fiction
science
Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking
Kate Colquhoun - 2007
It encompasses royal feasts and street food, the skinning of eels and the making of strawberry jelly, mixing tales of culinary stars with those of the invisible hordes cooking in kitchens across the land. Beginning before Roman times, the book journeys through the ingredients, equipment, kitchens, feasts, fads, and famines of the British. It covers the piquancy of Norman cuisine, the influx of undreamed-of spices and new foods from the East and the New World, the Tudor pumpkin pie that journeyed with the founding fathers to become America's national dish, the austerity of rationing during World War II, and the birth of convenience foods and take-away, right up to the age of Nigella Lawson, Heston Blumenthal, and Jamie Oliver. The first trade book to tell the story of British cooking-which is, of course, the history that led up to American colonial cooking as well-Taste shows that kitchens are not only places of steam, oil, and sweat, but of politics, invention, cultural exchange, commerce, conflict, and play.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
Samin Nosrat - 2017
Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.
The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks
Toni Tipton-Martin - 2015
To discover the true role of black women in the creation of American, and especially southern, cuisine, Toni Tipton-Martin has spent years amassing one of the world’s largest private collections of cookbooks published by African American authors, looking for evidence of their impact on American food, families, and communities and for ways we might use that knowledge to inspire community wellness of every kind.The Jemima Code presents more than 150 black cookbooks that range from a rare 1827 house servant’s manual, the first book published by an African American in the trade, to modern classics by authors such as Edna Lewis and Vertamae Grosvenor. The books are arranged chronologically and illustrated with photos of their covers; many also display selected interior pages, including recipes. Tipton-Martin provides notes on the authors and their contributions and the significance of each book, while her chapter introductions summarize the cultural history reflected in the books that follow. These cookbooks offer firsthand evidence that African Americans cooked creative masterpieces from meager provisions, educated young chefs, operated food businesses, and nourished the African American community through the long struggle for human rights. The Jemima Code transforms America’s most maligned kitchen servant into an inspirational and powerful model of culinary wisdom and cultural authority.
Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat
Marta Zaraska - 2016
Why do we love meat to so much that we’re happy to let it kill us?In this witty tour of our love affair with meat, Zaraska takes us to India’s unusual steakhouses, animal sacrifices at temples in Benin, and labs in the Netherlands that grow meat in petri dishess. From the power of advertising to the influence of the meat lobby, and from our genetic makeup to the traditions of our foremothers, she reveals the interplay of forces that keep us hooked on animal protein.Explaining one of the most enduring features of human civilization, Zaraska shows why meat-eating will continue to shape our bodies and our world into the foreseeable future.Kirkus Reviews:"A well-researched, refreshingly optimistic look at a serious issue, free of ideological preconceptions."Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Salt and Cod :"Sometimes the secret is asking the right questions. By examining the positive and negative history of meat rather than vegetarianism Marta Zaraska leads us to a thoughtful and broad array of issues. Meathooked is a book people need to read."Richard Wrangham, Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human:"Meathooked bursts with interest all the way from Pleistocene ecology to the politics of modern food production. But Meathooked is more than just a fast-paced tour of the quirks of human carnivory. It is also a well-researched plea for nutritional sanity and ecological common-sense. Marta Zaraska's sparkling argument for a future with a reduced reliance on meat deserves wide attention."Neal D. Barnard, MD, FACCAdjunct Associate Professor of Medicine, George Washington University School of MedicinePresident, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:"This is a book to devour! Meticulously researched and written with a sense of humor, Meathooked illuminates the peculiar love affair that so many people have with meat. How did it start, why is it so pervasive, and inevitably, why does the love affair end badly--from a health standpoint--for so many people?"David Robinson Simon, Author of Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much:"We know producing and consuming it is terrible for us, the planet, and billions of farm animals, so what keeps people hooked on meat? Marta Zaraska's fascinating Meathooked provides a lively, compelling look at the many reasons humans are addicted to animal protein. Whether you're a vegan, a hardcore meat-lover, or somewhere in between, this book will help you better understand why you and your loved ones eat what you do."Hal Herzog, Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University and author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals"From the role of meat in the evolution of the human brain to the last meals of death row inmates, from vegan sexuality to why we don’t eat carnivores, Meathooked is a beautifully written and scientifically sound exploration of the complicated relationship between humans and meat. Like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, vegetarians and meat eaters alike will find this book an engaging, provocative ride. And along the way, Marta Zaraska makes an utterly convincing case that our planet cannot survive our growing addiction to animal flesh." Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket, The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business "Meathooked is a fascinating, and often surprising, exploration of the human carnivore. At every step of the way, the story of meat eating is more interesting and more complicated than you'd expect. Zaraska provides convincing, and provocative, evidence that we eat meat today for reasons that few people would imagine. It has less to do with nutrition than with culture, marketing, taste and habit. This is a book that every meat eater should read."
Diet for a Small Planet
Frances Moore Lappé - 1971
With the new emphasis on environmentalism in the 1990's, Lappe stresses how her philosophy remains valid, and how food remains the central issue through which to understand world politics.
It Must've Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything
Jeffrey Steingarten - 2002
That includes going fishing for his own supply of bluefin tuna belly; nearly incinerating his oven in pursuit of the perfect pizza crust, and spending four days boning and stuffing three different fowl—into each other-- to produce the Cajun specialty called “turducken.” It Must’ve Been Something I Ate finds Steingarten testing the virtues of chocolate and gourmet salts; debunking the mythology of lactose intolerance and Chinese Food Syndrome; roasting marrow bones for his dog , and offering recipes for everything from lobster rolls to gratin dauphinois. The result is one of those rare books that are simultaneously mouth-watering and side-splitting.
You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another
Chris Ying - 2018
In nineteen thoughtful and engaging essays and stories, You and I Eat the Same explores the ways in which cooking and eating connect us across cultural and political borders, making the case that we should think about cuisine as a collective human effort in which we all benefit from the movement of people, ingredients, and ideas. An awful lot of attention is paid to the differences and distinctions between us, especially when it comes to food. But the truth is that food is that rare thing that connects all people, slipping past real and imaginary barriers to unify humanity through deliciousness. Don’t believe it? Read on to discover more about the subtle (and not so subtle) bonds created by the ways we eat. Everybody Wraps Meat in Flatbread: From tacos to dosas to pancakes, bundling meat in an edible wrapper is a global practice. Much Depends on How You Hold Your Fork: A visit with cultural historian Margaret Visser reveals that there are more similarities between cannibalism and haute cuisine than you might think. Fried Chicken Is Common Ground: We all share the pleasure of eating crunchy fried birds. Shouldn’t we share the implications as well? If It Does Well Here, It Belongs Here: Chef René Redzepi champions the culinary value of leaving your comfort zone. There Is No Such Thing as a Nonethnic Restaurant: Exploring the American fascination with “ethnic” restaurants (and whether a nonethnic cuisine even exists). Coffee Saves Lives: Arthur Karuletwa recounts the remarkable path he took from Rwanda to Seattle and back again.
American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)
Jonathan Bloom - 2010
The topic couldn’t be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it’s time to reexamine our culture of excess.Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.
Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice
Alissa Hamilton - 2009
households buy orange juice. Its popularity crosses class, cultural, racial, and regional divides. Why do so many of us drink orange juice? How did it turn from a luxury into a staple in just a few years? More important, how is it that we don’t know the real reasons behind OJ’s popularity or understand the processes by which the juice is produced?In this enlightening book, Alissa Hamilton explores the hidden history of orange juice. She looks at the early forces that propelled orange juice to prominence, including a surplus of oranges that plagued Florida during most of the twentieth century and the army’s need to provide vitamin C to troops overseas during World War II. She tells the stories of the FDA’s decision in the early 1960s to standardize orange juice, and the juice equivalent of the cola wars that followed between Coca-Cola (which owns Minute Maid) and Pepsi (which owns Tropicana). Of particular interest to OJ drinkers will be the revelation that most orange juice comes from Brazil, not Florida, and that even “not from concentrate” orange juice is heated, stripped of flavor, stored for up to a year, and then reflavored before it is packaged and sold. The book concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of why consumers have the right to know how their food is produced.
History Lover's Cookbook
Roxe Anne Peacock - 2012
Lee stood under an apple tree to dispatch his surrender to General Grant. Do you know what he was eating when he surrendered?Prepare a picnic of lemonade, raspberry shrub, mint julep, fried chicken, ham sandwiches, potato salad with boiled dressing, cold slaw, soda biscuits and quince marmalade to observe one of the many Civil War re-enactments throughout the United States.Enjoy eating tea cakes while viewing more than 150 full-color photos of replica Civil War items, re-enactors portraying Abraham Lincoln, Generals Custer, Lee and Grant, foods and recipes inspired by the nineteenth century.Share in the Union’s Thanksgiving holiday by preparing recipes from the chapter, Siege at Petersburg.Find out what General Grant ate every morning with his breakfast.Roxe Anne Peacock brings the nineteenth century and Civil War era to life through the wonderful photography depicted throughout the book.
Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter
David Buchanan - 2012
How can we strike a balance between preserving the past, maintaining valuable agricultural and culinary traditions, and looking ahead to breed new plants? What place does a cantankerous old pear or too-delicate strawberry deserve in our gardens, farms, and markets? To what extent should growers value efficiency and uniformity over matters of taste, ecology, or regional identity?While living in Washington State in the early nineties, Buchanan learned about the heritage food movement and began growing fruit trees, grains, and vegetables. After moving home to New England, however, he left behind his plant collection and for several years stopped gardening. In 2005, inspired by the revival of interest in regional food and culinary traditions, Buchanan borrowed a few rows of growing space at a farm near his home in Portland, Maine, where he resumed collecting. By 2012 he had expanded to two acres, started a nursery and small business, and discovered creative ways to preserve rare foods. In Taste, Memory Buchanan shares stories of slightly obsessive urban gardeners, preservationists, environmentalists, farmers, and passionate cooks, and weaves anecdotes of his personal journey with profiles of leaders in the movement to defend agricultural biodiversity.Taste, Memory begins and ends with a simple premise: that a healthy food system depends on matching diverse plants and animals to the demands of land and climate. In this sense of place lies the true meaning of local food.
A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances
Laura Schenone - 2003
Here is the first book to recount how American women have gathered, cooked, and prepared food for lovers, strangers, and family throughout the ages. We find native women who pried nourishment from the wilderness, mothers who sold biscuits to buy their children's freedom, immigrant wives who cooked old foods in new homes to provide comfort. From church bake sales to microwaving moms, this book is a celebration of women's lives, homes, and communities. Over fifty recipes, from Federal Pancakes to Sweet Potato Pie, are beautifully presented along with over one hundred images from artists, photographers, and rare sources. A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove is the shared history of all American women and the perfect gift for anyone who ever put food on the table. 140 illustrations. "The profound relationship between women and food is a story admirably told by Laura Schenone in a book filled with historic insights, moving anecdotes and lively illustrations. While paying tribute to the generations of American women who have felt joy in feeding families, Schenone avoids sentimentality by recognizing that many of the kitchen chores expected of women have been tedious and repetitious. The result is a balanced and clear-eyed view of a women's history that until recently has been misunderstood and overlooked." -Barbara Haber, author of From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals "A passionate, groundbreaking book that will not only make you appreciate the culinary journey of the apronned ones who stood the heat of thecookstove for centuries, but also understand why they sometimes had an attitude! It might inspire you to put on an apron and cook some of the mouth watering, time-kissed recipes in this remarkable book." -Dr. Vertamae Grovenor, NPR cultural correspondent and author of Vibration Cooking "Cooking is a fascinating and very real lens through which to study the history of women in our culture. In this beautifully written work, Laura Schenone takes on the dual roles of historian and story teller, reminding us of how women have expressed and experienced and created so much through and with food. And she inspires us to hold onto and extend the heritage, even in the face of our modern, hectic lives." -Mollie Katzen, author of The Moosewood Cookbook "Lively, well-researched and thoroughly engrossing." -Newsday "This fascinating culinary history documents the intimate, ever-changing ties between American women and food." -Utne "[Schenone's] delicious book is truly food for thought." -Chicago Tribune "An amazing and wonderful book." -Providence Journal "Fascinating social history with a heaping helping of home cooking." -Booklist "A millennium's-worth of history, social commentary, anecdotes and recipes in one literary stewpot." -January
Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
Ben Coates - 2015
The Netherlands are a tiny nation that punch above their weight on the world stage, where prostitutes are entitled to sick pay and prisons are closing due to lack of demand. After a chance encounter, Ben Coates left behind life in London to move to the Netherlands, where he learned the language, worked for Dutch company and married a Dutch wife. He takes readers into the heart of his adopted country, going beyond the usual tourist attractions and cliches to explore what it is that makes the Dutch the Dutch, Holland not the Netherlands and the colour orange so important. A travelogue, a history and a personal account of a changing country - Ben Coates tells the tale of an Englishman who went Dutch and liked it.
Eat Wheat: A Scientific and Clinically-Proven Approach to Safely Bringing Wheat and Dairy Back Into Your Diet
John Douillard - 2016
Eat Wheat is a scientific and clinically-proven approach to addressing food intolerances. After 3.4 million years of eating wheat and only 500,000 years of hunting meat, humans are actually genetically better equipped to eat wheat than meat. This book is your guide to safely bringing wheat and dairy back into your diet. Dr. John Douillard, a former NBA nutrition expert and creator of LifeSpa.com, and author of 6 health books, addresses the underlying cause of the gluten-free epidemic. Eat Wheat explains how a breakdown in digestion has damaged the intestinal wall and leaked undigested foods and environmental toxins into the body’s lymphatic system, causing “grain brain” symptoms and food allergies. Although eliminating wheat and dairy from your diet may help your symptoms, it is a a temporary solution. Eat Wheat addresses the root cause: the inability to digest well and break down harmful pollutants and toxins that can lead to more serious health concerns. Backed by more than 600 scientific studies, Eat Wheat is a revolutionary guidebook to regaining your digestive strength. Eat Wheat will: Reveal hidden science on the benefits of wheat and dairy Help you navigate around food toxins in modern wheat and dairy Retrain your body to digest wheat and dairy again Flush congested lymphatics linked to food intolerance symptoms Teach you to follow natural digestive circadian cycles Help bring your blood sugar back into balance Teach you proven exercise and detox techniques to re-boot strong digestion and achieve optimal health and vitality
Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore, and Mystique of Mushrooms
Greg Marley - 2010
Are fungi food or medicine, beneficial decomposers or deadly toadstools ready to kill anyone foolhardy enough to eat them? In fact, there is truth in all these statements. In Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares, author Greg Marley reveals some of the wonders and mysteries of mushrooms, and our conflicting human reactions to them.With tales from around the world, Marley, a seasoned mushroom expert, explains that some cultures are mycophilic (mushroom-loving), like those of Russia and Eastern Europe, while others are intensely mycophobic (mushroom-fearing), including, the US. He shares stories from China, Japan, and Korea-where mushrooms are interwoven into the fabric of daily life as food, medicine, fable, and folklore-and from Slavic countries where whole families leave villages and cities during rainy periods of the late summer and fall and traipse into the forests for mushroom-collecting excursions.From the famous Amanita phalloides (aka the Death Cap), reputed killer of Emperor Claudius in the first century AD, to the beloved chanterelle (cantharellus cibarius) known by at least eighty-nine different common names in almost twenty-five languages, Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares explores the ways that mushrooms have shaped societies all over the globe.This fascinating and fresh look at mushrooms-their natural history, their uses and abuses, their pleasures and dangers-is a splendid introduction to both fungi themselves and to our human fascination with them. From useful descriptions of the most foolproof edible species to revealing stories about hallucinogenic or poisonous, yet often beautiful, fungi, Marley's long and passionate experience will inform and inspire readers with the stories of these dark and mysterious denizens of our forest floor.