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A Biography of Honey--The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World
Free Press
March 2005
On Sale: March 22, 2005
336 pages ISBN: 0743250214 EAN: 9780743250214 Hardcover
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Cookbooks | Non-Fiction
"Honey has been waiting almost ten million years for a good
biography," writes Holley Bishop. Bees have been making this
food on Earth for hundreds of millennia, but we humans
started recording our fascination with it only in the past
few thousand years -- painting bees and hives on cave and
temple walls and papyrus scrolls, revering them in poetry
and art, even worshipping these amazing little insects as
gods. From the temples of the Nile to the hives behind the
author's own house, people have had a long, rapturous love
affair with the beehive and the seductive, addictive honey
it produces. Combining passionate research, rich detail, and
fascinating anecdote, Holley Bishop's Robbing the
Bees is an in-depth, sumptuous look at the oldest, most
delectable food in the world. Part biography, part
history, Robbing the Bees is also a celebration, a
love letter to bees and their magical produce. Honey has
played significant and varied roles in civilization: it is
so sweet that bacteria can't survive in it, so it was our
first food preservative and all-purpose wound salve. Honey
wine, or mead, was the intoxicant of choice long before beer
or wine existed. Hindus believe honey leads to a long life;
Mohammed looked to honey as a remedy for all illness.
Virgil; Aristotle; Pythagoras; Gregor Mendel; Sylvia Plath's
father, Otto; and Sir Edmund Hillary are among the famous
beekeepers and connoisseurs who have figured in honey's past
and shaped its present. To help navigate the worlds
and cultures of honey, Holley Bishop -- beekeeper, writer,
and honey aficionado -- apprentices herself to a modern
guide and expert, professional beekeeper Donald Smiley, who
harvests tupelo honey from hundreds of hives in the remote
town of Wewahitchka, Florida. Bishop chronicles Smiley's
day-to-day business as he robs his bees in the steamy
Florida panhandle and provides an engaging exploration of
the lively science, culture, and lore that surround each
step of the beekeeping process and each stage of bees'
lives. Interspersed throughout the narrative are the
author's lyrical reflections on her own beekeeping
experiences, the business and gastronomical world of honey,
the myriad varieties of honey (as distinct as the provenance
of wine), as well as illustrations, historical quotes, and
recipes -- ancient, contemporary, and some of the author's
own creations.
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