| Title | : | Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present (European Perspectives) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140296581 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140296587 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 640 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1996 |
Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present (European Perspectives) Reviews
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This book definitely addresses everything you always wanted to know about the history of food in Europe but were afraid to ask. However, I do have two criticisms both having to do more with form than content. The first criticism is that the independent essays, while grouped into a chronology of sorts, are not unified in any way so it reads a bit disjointed. The second, and more important, is that some of the essays literally cry out for the mercy of a graph or two. This could be condensed by dozens of pages and be made infinitely more readable by the addition of graphs.
The final chapters were very interesting though a bit dated as the once mighty McDonald's enterprise has been showing its age of late. Not that I didn't already know about this but it was fun to read about the European opinion of Americans and food. I hereby summarize for you: fat, tasteless, chaotic, fat, innovative, childlike, fat, stupid and more fat.
As it took more than a year and a half to get through, I am very happy to turn the final page and place the darn, taunting thing back on a shelf. -
Everyone interested in food history MUST own this book.
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Where Harold McGee details the science of cooking and food, Flandrin traverses the cultural history of food in similar encyclopedic fashion. The ground he covers is extensive, beginning with prehistoric man's first BBQs (animals that perished in forest fires) to Coney Island hot dogs and the global homogenization of food. He also includes ample use of linguistics, which is always fun. Too much to read at one or even twenty sittings, it's a great book to pick up at any time to revisit the narrative of man's gastronomical evolution.
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This was information I have been looking.
I knew that much of what we think of as traditional food is not. Kimchi as we think of could not be made in Korea before the 1700. The Irish had not see a potato before 1589. Of the Italians had never seen a tomato before 1548. However I had no idea that the basics of a person diet changed so much over the years. How much the preparation, cooking and serving of food changes. While this book is Euro m-centric especially France and Italy, it does look at the history of food in the US as well. The book consist of a different chapters each examining a different aspect or even different time periods of cuisine. All the chapter have extensive notes of sources for the information presented in each chapter. The information presented is drawn not just historical documents but many sources. The archeological examination of bones from the animals eaten. Art is also a source of information about food and associated customs wither it is Minoan vase or renaissance painting. Even plays and other forms of literacy can tell something about people are and how they saw food. Traveller’s diaries over the centuries show how cuisine evolved differently in different countries.
The chapters more or less flow in chronological from the time of prehistory thru Egypt, the Levant to Greece and Rome to Middle Ages and up to the days of McDonald’s and the globalization of food. There many interesting parts along the way. The diet of the ancient Hebrews after the Babylonian exile as well as the Sephardic Jews around the time of Spanish Reconquista. The reformation transformed diet just as much as did other aspects of life. The utensils, cookware and dishes how they changed over the millennia. The concept of modern restaurants are a direct result of the French Revolution. Eating beef for centuries was seen as vulgar and only done by the poorest of peasants.
That bakers did not traditionally make the dough for the the bread they produced and in fact were not allowed to make dough. A farmer grew grain and took it to the miller. The miller mostly was not seen member of the community but usually seen as a scoundrel or a thief because the flour you got back from Miller was so much lighter than the weight of grain you gave to Miller. The farmer would then make dough that was taken to baker to bake. Grain collected as tax would be stored until a famine happened at which point grain would be ground, made into dough and given to the baker to bake which would be distributed to hungry.
The book is full of interesting items. Some parts I did find dry. It did not feel like it not written for the general public but more a specialized audience, those who are interested in the history of cuisine. It changed how I see the evolution of cuisine. I can see now that reading historical fiction and watch movies there will be more errors in accuracy for me to swallow. -
I thought this was pretty good overall. It takes you through a smorgasbord of food (pardon the Punjabi) from all around. there are some really interesting bits about meat eating and the effect that has had on growth of populations especially beef and also how sugar which we consume now as per normal was once something that you could only get from the pharmacy as a form of medicine. changes your mind-set if you think about eating sugar as medicine … and I generally hate pumping any form of medicine into my body as my refusal to go on antibiotics for the last 2 weeks throat infection testifies :) It talks about how hunting (especially animal hunting) back in the Neanderthal days caused us to form groups and therefore help out social development right from the start, there are interesting sections about food in different religions with a strong focus on the food in the Jewish faith. It also talks about: banquets, Egyptian food, Greek food, Etruscans eating habits, how the romans dined, how the German barbarians ate, food and link to culture, food trade, medieval cooking, table manners, colonialism and the effects that had on food distribution, industrial revolution effect on food, foreign foods and the mcdonaldization of food.
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After bazillionty years (okay...two), I have finally cleared all the books off my "currently reading" list and we are done. Whee. Frolic. Cavort.
About this book. I'm kinda zonked, so I will review in bullet form
-It's long. Sure not GOT long, but it's a larger format so it seems even longer than you think it will be. It feels long.
-It's an edited volume. Toward the end of the book, this fact SHOWS. Edited volumes, in my opinion, tend to be disjointed (not surprising given the number of authors), but at the beginning of the book it doesn't seem so disjointed--or oddly so French. I swear one "chapter" was percentages of what the French ate in the 1800s, which ended with (and I paraphrase) "other countries may differ but they aren't France so who cares."
-It is long. Did I mention that? Because it feels long.
-The beginning was far cooler than the end. Some chapters were omigod interesting and I was reminded why I thought I liked this book a lot. Then I would hit "death chapters" that were awful and I would hate the book.
-I learned a lot of very interesting things. That's why it got three stars. For all the length and the chapters of death...I did enjoy the book and I plan to keep it for a reference. But I'm really really really glad it's over. -
This books is a great introduction to the subject of "food history", which is a rising niche within the academic world of anthropology and sociology. Organised as a collection of academic essays from the last 20-30 years, it looks like a heavy academic tome but it is structured in a simple chronological order with eye-catching titles eyes. Perfect for research and references, which is the main reason I decided to read it. If you are learning about the subject for the first time, this is where you should start. It will definitely challenge what think you know about culinary traditions, such as busting the myth that pasta comes from China!
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This is a comprehensive entree into food studies. The historical sweep is vast (from classical through to contemporary period). The key authors in the field are represented.
If a researcher is interested in entering food studies, then this is an effective start into this area. I particularly enjoyed the attention to regional food (and life and development). -
Buy this if you are into food!!
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A little dry in places but really informative. Some introductions could've been shorter.
3.5*
More thoughts here:
www.kirstypediablog.wordpress.com -
I should have guessed by the ambitious title that this book would not be what Id hoped for.
Yes, its a book about the history of food. Food. A topic so big you could never hope to cover just part of its history in a dozen lifetimes or in a library full of books on the topic.
A book under 600 pages obviously needs to limit its scope. In this case, it was the entire history of food in only the western tradition, mainly Europe, especially France. I have no complaints about this. My complaint is that this book, to the average non-academic reader is... BORING! Omg, so boring. So much of it was vague discussions of what crops, statistically, people ate in certain regions at certain times, what general methods of cooking may or may not have been popular for various reasons due to social pressures etc...
Again, no complaint, just... there was no detail, no color, nothing to engage the reader. It was all very academic. Again, no complaints, other than thats not what I was looking for.
I very nearly DNF. Halfway through I realized I was not getting what I came for and I was going to retain NOTHING from having spent hours with my eyes glazed over ‘reading’ these pages. I persisted because the title of each subsequent chapter seemed so intriguing, like, hm, this sounds interesting, only to be presented with emotionless statistics and vague summaries of general behaviors. At which point I only persisted to the end because it was my only library book after the library shut down due to quarantine for COVID-19. I hade to take frequent breaks between sections to read lighter books in my personal collection, but quarantine gets all the credit for making me finish this book.
To be fair, the final chapters, where modern food changes are discussed, where slightly more engaging and enjoyable. Slightly.
Anyhow, it’s probably a good book for a actual student of culinary history. I doubt I will retain much, if anything, of what I learned by reading this, however, I feel like I got some notion of how agriculture and foodways have changed throughout history, so I have some vague framework for understanding more interesting material about culinary history. Overall, Im glad I read it and exceptionally proud that I actually finished it. -
Un sommario della storia dell'alimentazione mondiale conosciuta a oggi. Per motivi spiegati nel testo, Italia e Francia sono i paesi per i quali più approfondite sono le conoscenze. L'ho trovato di grandissimo interesse sia per l'arguzia dell'indagine storica che per la messe di curiose notizie. Peccato per la traduzione dal francese del primo saggio, veramente pietosa.
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A tough, very detailed and thorough read.
It took me a long time to finish this book, and while interesting at times, it was just too stiff to be really enjoyable for me. -
meh - a collection of rather short articles, most concerning a rather basic idea. Each one read like a precis to a much fuller work. I was hoping for more from a 600+ page book.
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This is not a bad book, but too dense and wordy without many decent illustrations. It would be more useful to me if I did not already have much better histories of food.
