Food And Culture

Many homes in Newfoundland still have well-stocked pantries of bottled moose or rabbit, freezers of corned capelin, and eider ducks at the ready, waiting for a special meal. Food, Culture, Place celebrates the land these foods come from and encourages everyone to put more traditional foods back on their plates. Lori McCarthy and Marsha Tulk have been collecting and cooking their way through the wild foods of Newfoundland for decades. This book showcases their experiences and shares the stories they have captured through their work and the people they have met. Through it all runs a deep love of everything that it takes to harvest, hunt, and prepare these foods to be enjoyed. Fish are caught, game hunted, berries and plants foraged. Food is prepared, preserved, and stored. Throughout are recipes for traditional dishes, regional delicacies, and modern preparations for today's home cook.

'A must-read ... satisfying, rich ... loaded with flavour' Sunday Telegraph This book is a celebration of food. By food, Michael Pollan means real, proper, simple food - not the kind that comes in a packet, or has lists of unpronounceable ingredients, or that makes nutritional claims about how healthy it is. More like the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize. In Defence of Food is a simple invitation to junk the science, ditch the diet and instead rediscover the joys of eating well. By following a few pieces of advice (Eat at a table - a desk doesn't count. Don't buy food where you'd buy your petrol!), you will enrich your life and your palate, and enlarge your sense of what it means to be healthy and happy. It's time to fall in love with food again. For the past twenty years, Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. His most recent book, about the ethics and ecology of eating, is The Omnivore's Dilemma, named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of The Botany of Desire, A Place of My Own and Second Nature.

FOOD AND CULTURE is the market-leading text for the cultural foods courses, providing information on the health, culture, food, and nutrition habits of the most common ethnic and racial groups living in the United States. It is designed to help health professionals, chefs, and others in the food service industry learn to work effectively with members of different ethnic and religious groups in a culturally sensitive manner. Authors Pamela Goyan Kittler and Kathryn P. Sucher include comprehensive coverage of key ethnic, religious, and regional groups, including Native Americans, Europeans, Africans, Mexicans and Central Americans, Caribbean Islanders, South Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, Greeks, Middle Easterners, Asian Indians, and regional Americans.

Elegantly written by a distinguished culinary historian, Food Is Culture explores the innovative premise that everything having to do with food--its capture, cultivation, preparation, and consumption--represents a cultural act. Even the "choices" made by primitive hunters and gatherers were determined by a culture of economics (availability) and medicine (digestibility and nutrition) that led to the development of specific social structures and traditions. Massimo Montanari begins with the "invention" of cooking which allowed humans to transform natural, edible objects into cuisine. Cooking led to the creation of the kitchen, the adaptation of raw materials into utensils, and the birth of written and oral guidelines to formalize cooking techniques like roasting, broiling, and frying. The transmission of recipes allowed food to acquire its own language and grow into a complex cultural product shaped by climate, geography, the pursuit of pleasure, and later, the desire for health. In his history, Montanari touches on the spice trade, the first agrarian societies, Renaissance dishes that synthesized different tastes, and the analytical attitude of the Enlightenment, which insisted on the separation of flavors. Brilliantly researched and analyzed, he shows how food, once a practical necessity, evolved into an indicator of social standing and religious and political identity. Whether he is musing on the origins of the fork, the symbolic power of meat, cultural attitudes toward hot and cold foods, the connection between cuisine and class, the symbolic significance of certain foods, or the economical consequences of religious holidays, Montanari's concise yet intellectually rich reflections add another dimension to the history of human civilization. Entertaining and surprising, Food Is Culture is a fascinating look at how food is the ultimate embodiment of our continuing attempts to tame, transform, and reinterpret nature.

An illuminating account of how history shapes our diets—now in a new revised and updated Third Edition Why did the ancient Romans believe cinnamon grew in swamps guarded by giant killer bats? How did African cultures imported by slavery influence cooking in the American South? What does the 700-seat McDonald's in Beijing serve in the age of globalization? With the answers to these and many more such questions, Cuisine and Culture, Third Edition presents an engaging, entertaining, and informative exploration of the interactions among history, culture, and food. From prehistory and the earliest societies in the Fertile Crescent to today's celebrity chefs, Cuisine and Culture, Third Edition presents a multicultural and multiethnic approach to understanding how and why major historical events have affected and defined the culinary traditions in different societies. Now revised and updated, this Third Edition is more comprehensive and insightful than ever before. Covers prehistory through the present day—from the discovery of fire to the emergence of television cooking shows Explores how history, culture, politics, sociology, and religion have determined how and what people have eaten through the ages Includes a sampling of recipes and menus from different historical periods and cultures Features French and Italian pronunciation guides, a chronology of food books and cookbooks of historical importance, and an extensive bibliography Includes all-new content on technology, food marketing, celebrity chefs and cooking television shows, and Canadian cuisine. Complete with revealing historical photographs and illustrations, Cuisine and Culture is an essential introduction to food history for students, history buffs, and food lovers.

Food Aand Culture is the market-leading text for the cultural foods courses, providing current information on the health, culture, food, and nutrition habits of the most common ethnic and racial groups living in the United States. It is designed to help health professionals, chefs, and others in the food service industry learn to work effectively with members of different ethnic and religious groups in a culturally sensitive manner. The authors include comprehensive coverage of key ethnic, religious, and regional groups, including Native Americans, Europeans, Africans, Mexicans and Central Americans, Caribbean Islanders, South Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, People of the Balkans, Middle Easterners, Asian Indians, and regional Americans.

Everyone eats, but rarely do we ask why or investigate why we eat what we eat. Why do we love spices, sweets, coffee? How did rice become such a staple food throughout so much of eastern Asia? Everyone Eats examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons for why humans eat, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic. E. N. Anderson explains the economics of food in the globalization era, food's relationship to religion, medicine, and ethnicity as well as offers suggestions on how to end hunger, starvation, and malnutrition. Everyone Eats feeds our need to understand human ecology by explaining the ways that cultures and political systems structure the edible environment.

The extreme diversity of Indian food culture—including the dizzying array of ingredients and dishes—is made manageable in this groundbreaking reference. India has no national dish or cuisine; however, certain ingredients, dishes, and cooking styles are typical of much of the subcontinent's foodways. There are also common ways of thinking about food. The balanced coverage found herein covers many states ignored by previous food writers. Students will find much of cultural interest here to complement country studies and foodies will discover fresh perspectives. From prehistoric times there has been considerable mixing of cultures and cuisines within India. Today, the endless variations in cuisine reflect religious, community, regional, and economic differences and histories. Sen, a noted author on Indian cuisine, consummately encapsulates the foodways in historical context, including the influence of the British period (the Raj). Among the topics covered are the restrictions of various religions and castes and the northern wheat-based vs. the southern rice-based cuisine, with an extensive review of each regional cuisine with typical meals. She characterizes the only-recent restaurant culture, with mention of Indian fare offered abroad. In addition, the Indian sweet tooth so apparent in the dishes made for many festivals and celebrations is highlighted. The roles of diet and health are also explained, with an emphasis on Ayruveda, which is gaining support in Western countries. A plethora of recipes for different regions and occasions complements the text.