An A Z Of Food And Drink

Gives the origin and meaning of a wide variety of food terms, including historical and literary references and related uses, both British and American.

Seasoned throughout with literary wit and wisdom, this veritable feast of gastronomic words and phrases traces the origins and history of over 1,200 English terms for foodstuffs, dishes, and drinks. Previously published as The Diner's Dictionary and Gourmet's Guide, this includes hundreds of illuminating quotations, ranging from the French writer, Misson, on seventeenth-century puddings, to Anthony Burgess on eating durians. Tuck into foods and drinks named after their place of origin,such as stilton, cheddar, or Dublin Bay prawns. Get your teeth stuck into such eponymous fruits and vegetables as Cox's Orange Pippin and Webb's Wonder. Or whet your appetite with wines named after their grape, including cabernet sauvignon and riesling. The book also covers the terminology of foreign cuisine that has become popular in Britain, such as Italian ciabatta. This edition also features a new introduction by Alan Davidson, author of theOxford Companion to Food.

Home cooks and gourmets, chefs and restaurateurs, epicures, and simple food lovers of all stripes will delight in this smorgasbord of the history and culture of food and drink. Professor of Culinary History Andrew Smith and nearly 200 authors bring together in 770 entries the scholarship on wide-ranging topics from airline and funeral food to fad diets and fast food; drinks like lemonade, Kool-Aid, and Tang; foodstuffs like Jell-O, Twinkies, and Spam; and Dagwood, hoagie, and Sloppy Joe sandwiches.

The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, first published in 1999, became, almost overnight, an immense success, winning prizes and accolades around the world. Its combination of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, with each page offering an infinity of perspectives, was recognized as unique. The study of food and food history is a new discipline, but one that has developed exponentially in the last twenty years. There are now university departments, international societies, learned journals, and a wide-ranging literature exploring the meaning of food in the daily lives of people around the world, and seeking to introduce food and the process of nourishment into our understanding of almost every compartment of human life, whether politics, high culture, street life, agriculture, or life and death issues such as conflict and war. The great quality of this Companion is the way it includes both an exhaustive catalogue of the foods that nourish humankind - whether they be fruit from tropical forests, mosses scraped from adamantine granite in Siberian wastes, or body parts such as eyeballs and testicles - and a richly allusive commentary on the culture of food, whether expressed in literature and cookery books, or as dishes peculiar to a country or community. The new edition has not sought to dim the brilliance of Davidson's prose. Rather, it has updated to keep ahead of a fast-moving area, and has taken the opportunity to alert readers to new avenues in food studies.

Guardian columnist and award-winning food writer Rachel Roddy condenses everything she has learned about Italy's favourite food in a practical, easy-to-use and mouth-watering collection of 100 essential pasta and pasta sauce recipes. Along with the recipes are short essays that weave together the history, culture and the everyday life of pasta shapes from the tip to the toe of Italy. There is pasta made with water, and pasta with egg; shapes made by hand and those rolled a by machine; the long and the short; the rolled and the stretched; the twisted and the stuffed; the fresh and the dried. The A-Z of Pasta tells you how to match pasta shapes with sauces, and how to serve them. The recipes range from the familiar - pesto, ragù and carbonara - to the unfamiliar (but thrilling). This is glorious celebration of pasta from one of the best food writers of our time. SHORTLISTED FOR THE ANDRE SIMONS FOOD & DRINK BOOK AWARDS ________________________ 'I love this book. Every story is a little gem - a beautiful hymn to each curl, twist and ribbon of pasta.' Nigel Slater 'Rachel Roddy describing how to boil potatoes would inspire me. There are very, very few who possess such a supremely uncluttered culinary voice as hers, just now' Simon Hopkinson 'Rachel Roddy's writing is as absorbing as any novel' Russell Norman, author of Polpo 'Roddy is a gifted storyteller, and a masterful hand with simple ingredients' Guardian Cook

Pair your meals with the perfect wine, beer, or spirit, even if you know nothing about vintages or vineyards. Just look up a dish or its main ingredient to find its perfect complement. From Aioli (a French Bandol if you can afford it, otherwise a Spanish Albarino) to Zucchini (baked with tomatoes and cheese, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo or a good Valpolicella), you can't go wrong.