With dozens of archival ads and original product shots of Hamburger Helper, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Minute Rice, Coffee-mate, Green Giant Canned Peas, Lipton Cup-a-Soup, Pillsbury Crescent Rolls--and many more revolutionary products--Better Than Homemade highlights the fascinating stories behind the food inventions; the histories behind the brands and icons that have become synonymous with them; the jingles that have made them such a large part of our popular culture; and the recipes that have tutored generations of homemakers and comfort food master chefs.

    A favorite of gastronomes and history buffs alike, Food in History is packed with intriguing information, lore, and startling insights--like what cinnamon had to do with the discovery of America, and how food has influenced population growth and urban expansion.

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    Before 1929, America’s relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished—shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder. In 1933, as women struggled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed longstanding biases toward government sponsored “food charity.” For the first time in American history, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were widespread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to national stature. Tapping into America’s longstanding ambivalence toward culinary enjoyment, they imposed their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine on the American dinner table. Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to instill dietary recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. At the same time, rising food conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods that gave rise to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national cuisine sparked a revival of American regional cooking. In the ensuing decades, this tension between local traditions and culinary science have defined our national cuisine—a battle that continues today.A Square Meal examines the impact of economic contraction and environmental disaster on how Americans ate then—and the lessons and insights those experiences may hold for us today.

    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

    It’s her fail-safe recipes, with easy-to-follow methods, thoughtful tips and advice that have been helping her readers over the years to make the most gorgeous cakes and bakes that work every time. Sponges, muffins, brownies, pop cakes, cheesecakes, tortes, pudding cakes, whether they are indulgent or healthy(ish), chocolaty, nutty or fruity, sweet or savoury, or gluten-free, you’ll find them all in this ultimate cake bible.Try classics such as Victoria Sponge and Carrot Cake, new bakes like Beetroot Brownies or White Chocolate and Macadamia cake, festive treats such as Caramel Yule Log or a St Patrick’s Day Guinness Cake as well as every day cakes like Raspberry Bakewell Cake or Butterscotch Banana Cake. Cake for grown-ups such as the Orange Cake with Campari Icing or children’s party favourite Cake Pops. Cakes for when you have no time as well as more adventurous wedding and birthday cakes.Rachel will show you how to bake and decorate simple special occasion cakes, then give additional instruction for making it special – or even of professional quality. Whether it is a golden anniversary, wedding or 4th birthday party, you’ll never have to buy a cake again.In this comprehensive collection you’ll find a mix of delicious easy and everyday cakes, teatime treats, classics, festive baking, hearty puddings and even some free-from and healthier cakes. And when you’ve finished baking, Rachel will show you the best tips and tricks for decorating and icing.The wait is over! Enjoy more baking from Rachel Allen in Cake.

    Not bad for a gal who never actually existed. "Born" in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to proud corporate parents, Betty Crocker has grown, over eight decades, into one of the most successful branding campaigns the world has ever known. Now, at long last, she has her own biography. Finding Betty Crocker draws on six years of research plus an unprecedented look into the General Mills archives to reveal how a fictitious spokesperson was enthusiastically welcomed into kitchens and shopping carts across the nation. The Washburn Crosby Company (one of the forerunners to General Mills) chose the cheery all-American "Betty" as a first name and paired it with Crocker, after William Crocker, a well-loved company director. Betty was to be the newest member of the Home Service Department, where she would be a "friend" to consumers in search of advice on baking -- and, in an unexpected twist, their personal lives. Soon Betty Crocker had her own national radio show, which, during the Great Depression and World War II, broadcast money-saving recipes, rationing tips, and messages of hope. Over 700,000 women joined Betty's wartime Home Legion program, while more than one million women -- and men -- registered for the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air during its twenty-seven-year run. At the height of Betty Crocker's popularity in the 1940s, she received as many as four to five thousand letters daily, care of General Mills. When her first full-scale cookbook, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, or "Big Red," as it is affectionately known, was released in 1950, first-year sales rivaled those of the Bible. Today, over two hundred products bear her name, along with thousands of recipe booklets and cookbooks, an interactive website, and a newspaper column. What is it about Betty? In answering the question of why everyone was buying what she was selling, author Susan Marks offers an entertaining, charming, and utterly unique look -- through words and images -- at an American icon situated between profound symbolism and classic kitchen kitsch.

    But the contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to determine the meaning of Mexican food is far from new. In fact, Mexican food was the product of globalization from the very beginning -- the Spanish conquest -- when European and Native American influences blended to forge the mestizo or mixed culture of Mexico. The historic struggle between globalization and the nation continued in the nineteenth century, as Mexicans searching for a national cuisine were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods, by contrast, were considered strictly d class . Yet another version of Mexican food was created in the U.S. Southwest by Mexican American cooks, including the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and tamale vendors of Los Angeles. When Mexican American dishes were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world, Mexican elites rediscovered the indigenous roots of their national cuisine among the ancient Aztecs and the Maya. Even this Nueva Cocina Mexicana was a transnational phenomenon, called "New Southwestern" by chefs in the United States. Rivalries within this present-day gourmet movement recalled the nineteenth-century struggles between Creole, Native, and French foods. Planet Taco also seeks to recover the history of people who have been ignored in the struggles to define authentic Mexican, especially those who are marginal to both nations: Indians and Mexican Americans.

    Angelo Acquista began "prescribing" them recipes for nutritious and flavorful home-cooked meals prepared with ingredients key to the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean Family Table combines his medical experience and Sicilian roots to outline the guiding principles of the Mediterranean diet and takes it one step further with a collection of easy, wholesome, and delicious recipes the entire family will love.From purees made with fresh vegetables that will tempt the taste buds of bambini—and can serve as easy sides for the rest of the family—to recipes tailored to meet the special nutritional needs of children and seniors (highlighted by icons for easy reference), this well-curated collection of recipes will allow you to:Reinvent classic recipes by replacing mayonnaise and butter with heart-healthy olive oil in dishes like Mediterranean Potato Salad and Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes Discover good-for-you Mediterranean greens in kid-approved recipes like Orecchiette with Bread Crumbs and Broccoli Rabe, and Swiss Chard and Cannellini Beans alla Alessandra Create your own "Sunday Supper" family tradition with recipes like Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce and Mama's Meatballs with PastaThe Mediterranean Family Table contains a wealth of helpful information, including how to make healthier eating choices; instill good habits in kids that will last a lifetime; and buy, store, and cook ingredients fundamental to the Mediterranean diet. Anecdotes from Acquista's family history are woven throughout, as well as stories of growing up near the Mediterranean Sea, and the techniques he uses to incorporate what he learned from his Sicilian upbringing into his busy, landlocked, modern family life. Buon appetito!

    For nearly a century, brands battled to win loyal consumers for the new leavening miracle, transforming American commerce and advertising even as they touched off a chemical revolution in the world's kitchens. Linda Civitello chronicles the titanic struggle that reshaped America's diet and rewrote its recipes. Presidents and robber barons, bare-knuckle litigation and bold-faced bribery, competing formulas and ruthless pricing--Civitello shows how hundreds of companies sought market control, focusing on the big four of Rumford, Calumet, Clabber Girl, and the once-popular brand Royal. She also tells the war's untold stories, from Royal's claims that its competitors sold poison, to the Ku Klux Klan's campaign against Clabber Girl and its German Catholic owners. Exhaustively researched and rich with detail, Baking Powder Wars is the forgotten story of how a dawning industry raised Cain--and cakes, cookies, muffins, pancakes, donuts, and biscuits.

    With a chapter for each of ten cocktails--from the grog sailors drank on the high seas in the 1700s to the mojitos of modern club hoppers--Wayne Curtis reveals that the homely spirit once distilled from the industrial waste of the exploding sugar trade has managed to infiltrate every stratum of New World society. Curtis takes us from the taverns of the American colonies, where rum delivered both a cheap wallop and cash for the Revolution, to the plundering pirate ships off the coast of Central America, to the watering holes of pre-Castro Cuba, and to the kitsch-laden tiki bars of 1950s America. Here are sugar barons and their armies conquering the Caribbean, Paul Revere stopping for a nip during his famous ride, Prohibitionists marching against "demon rum," Hemingway fattening his liver with Havana daiquiris, and today's bartenders reviving old favorites like Planter's Punch. In an age of microbrewed beer and single-malt whiskeys, rum--once the swill of the common man--has found its way into the tasting rooms of the most discriminating drinkers. Awash with local color and wry humor, "And a Bottle of Rum" is an affectionate toast to this most American of liquors, a chameleon spirit that has been constantly reinvented over the centuries by tavern keepers, bootleggers, lounge lizards, and marketing gurus. Complete with cocktail recipes for would-be epicurean time-travelers, this is history at its most intoxicating.

    Accompanying the advice there are 80 new delicious recipes.Following on from Dr Rupy’s bestselling cook book The Doctor’s Kitchen, Eat to Beat Illness distils actionable ideas for daily life to teach you how to use food to trigger and amplify your defences against illness. Accompanying the advice there are 80 new delicious recipes.In Dr Rupy’s second book he builds on the message that what you choose to put on your plate is one of the most important health interventions you can make. Food can not only affect our likelihood of disease but it can lengthen our lives, change our mood and even affect the expression of our DNA.The first section of the book explains how our bodies can better fight off illness through eating well and how we can heal our bodies through simple lifestyle changes including exercise, stress reduction, sleeping well and finding purpose in our lives.It is now scientifically proven that certain foods and food groups are beneficial for staving off illness and here Rupy will look at key conditions such as cancer, depression, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, stress and explain what to eat to increase our chances of staying healthy.Complemented by 80 new recipes, full of tempting international flavours such as Roast Golden Beets with Italian Greens and Hazelnut Pesto; Bangladeshi Cod CurrySpatchcock Poussin and Middle Eastern Ful Madames; Iranian Dizi Stew; Garlic Chilli Prawn and Black Bean Stirfry with Bokchoy and Silverbeet; Pea and Broccoli Orecchiette Japanese Togarashi Mix, to name just a few, eating well for has never been so easy and delicious.

    And it's not that you can't--it's that you don't. It's that we've been wrecked by cooking shows with their millions of complicated steps and crazy-ass ingredients. Ingredients you can't find, let alone pronounce. That's not how I want to cook. I want to eat well, but I don't want it to take a year. Who's making stuff like 'Truffled Peruvian Mountain Squab with Chilled Framboise Foam' anyway? "So this book is about food that's big in taste and small in effort. Just great-tasting stuff with no fancy techniques and definitely no over-the-top ingredients, as in everything-comes-from-a-regular-supermarket--cool concept, huh? It's just a bunch of recipes you'll easily be able to make and enjoy."--From Sam the Cooking GuyLook inside for great recipes like these:• One Dank Tomato Pie • "Whatever" Spring Rolls • Five-Minute Stir-Fry Noodles • O.F.R.B.P.J.G.O. • Awww Nuts! • BBQ Chicken Pizza • Halloween Chicken Chili • Fridge Fried Rice • Sam's Sticky Sweet BBQ Ribs • Stuffed Burgers • Pesto BBQ Shrimp • Chili Salmon • Motor Home Meatballs • Spicy-ish Sausage Pasta • The Great Potato Cake • Brussels Sprouts You'll Actually Eat • (Fake) Creme Brulee • Chocolate Toffee Matzoh  • Peanut Butter Ice-Cream Cup Things

    Ubiquitous in the world’s most fabulous cuisines, butter is boss. Here, it finally gets its due. After traveling across three continents to stalk the modern story of butter, award-winning food writer and former pastry chef Elaine Khosrova serves up a story as rich, textured, and culturally relevant as butter itself. From its humble agrarian origins to its present-day artisanal glory, butter has a fascinating story to tell, and Khosrova is the perfect person to tell it. With tales about the ancient butter bogs of Ireland, the pleasure dairies of France, and the sacred butter sculptures of Tibet, Khosrova details butter’s role in history, politics, economics, nutrition, and even spirituality and art. Readers will also find the essential collection of core butter recipes, including beurre manié, croissants, pâte brisée, and the only buttercream frosting anyone will ever need, as well as practical how-tos for making various types of butter at home--or shopping for the best.

    In Simple Cakes, Mary guides you step-by-step through the art of baking all kinds of cakes, biscuits and pastries.All 40 of Mary's baking recipes, which range from a classic Tarte Tatin to a sumptuous Sacher Torte, Lemon Drizzle Traybake and Devonshire Scones, use readily available ingredients. The recipes are accompanied by colour photographs at every stage to make this notoriously tricky area of cooking even easier. With clear, easy-to-follow methods, Mary Berry's fail-safe instructions guarantee even the novice cook excellent results every time.