Purchase
Cooking in World History
University of California Press
November 2013
On Sale: November 10, 2013
488 pages
ISBN: 0520266455
EAN: 9780520266452
Kindle: B00FAI6XEY
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction History | Non-Fiction Cooking / Food
Rachel Laudan tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the worldโs great cuisinesโfrom the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the presentโin this superbly researched book. Probing beneath the apparent confusion of dozens of cuisines to reveal the underlying simplicity of the culinary family tree, she shows how periodic seismic shifts in โculinary philosophyโโbeliefs about health, the economy, politics, society and the godsโprompted the construction of new cuisines, a handful of which, chosen as the cuisines of empires, came to dominate the globe.
Cuisine and Empire shows how merchants, missionaries, and the military took cuisines over mountains, oceans, deserts, and across political frontiers. Laudanโs innovative narrative treats cuisine, like language, clothing, or architecture, as something constructed by humans. By emphasizing how cooking turns farm products into food and by taking the globe rather than the nation as the stage, she challenges the agrarian, romantic, and nationalistic myths that underlie the contemporary food movement.
 Media BuzzMorning Edition - March 4, 2014
| 
© 2003-2026