Worth the hardback - if you're considering waiting | Food: The History of Taste (California Studies in Food...

A Delicious Read | Food: The History of Taste (California Studies in Food and Culture)

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	• Food: The History of Taste (California Studies in Food and Culture) University of California Press, 2007 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Excellent academic overview of food in history

Replaying history in the context of food makes for a very engaging read. If you are really passionate about food this book offer tremendous insight into food trends world wide.

Worth the hardback - if you're considering waiting

I don't typically purchase hardbacks - other than coffee table books, I'll wait for paperback, check out from a library, e-book, or just borrow from a friend. Reading about the quality illustrations and photos in this book prompted me to just go ahead and click "Buy."

It arrived about two hours ago, and I've skimmed through the whole book and finished reading the introductory chapter, so I admit this isn't a complete review. However, I have to say the photos and illustrations are really beautiful. The heft of this work make me recommend this purchase as a hardback and make this an example of what can't be the same with e-books or the Kindle (sorry, Amazon!). I'm looking forward to curling up with this book with some delicacies over this lousy weather weekend! Bon appetit!

Addendum: April 11, 2008 - Well, after several leisurely sit-downs, I finished this book and have to reiterate the joy I received from reading this book. Like Art History tells a story of cultures and civilizations (usually with the Elites perspective), food tells a story through time, and with greater representation across a society/culture. Loved it!

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A Delicious Read

The eating of food has often had a prominent place in literature because it says so much about who's doing the eating. So it's not surprising that this assemblage of well-written academic essays on cuisines and the societies that produce them captures the reader's interest so readily. The diversity of cuisines covered both in geography and time provides a real feel for the diversity of human experience at the table (or at the Neolithic hearth). Professor Freedman's book works either as a coffee table browser or a straight read. I read it cover to cover and enjoyed it all. My own preferences are the chapters on prehistory, ancient Greece and Rome, and the development of the restaurant in the 18th century. The many pictures included are great fun.

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Real Gastronomy in a Fine Style

I must say I was truly fortunate to receive a pre-publication copy of this exquisite volume. Editor Paul Freedman displays all the literary deftness of an M.F.K. Fisher or Calvin Trillin, without ignoring the analytic depth of gastronomic writing since Brillat-Savarin. An academic historian, Freedman treats the history of cuisine with a refreshing clarity and seriousness in his introduction. Connecting matters of food to class and taste throughout the history of the West and its influences, the editor provides ample fodder for "foodie," academic, and lay-reader alike with his lively and engaging overview of world cuisine that opens the volume and connects its essays.

Both the UC Press edition and the Thames & Hudson edition feature lavish illustrations and elegant typography. The essays are cutting-edge without ignoring the needs of the previously un-informed or merely curious, making this an ideal coffee-table volume or holiday gift as much as it could be serious reading. Ideally shelved near Harold McGee, "Food: The History of Taste" is likely to become a cross-market classic for the near future.

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This richly illustrated book is the first to apply the discoveries of the new generation of food historians to the pleasures of dining and the culinary accomplishments of diverse civilizations, past and present. Editor Paul Freedman has gathered essays by French, German, Belgian, American, and British historians to present a comprehensive, chronological history of taste from prehistory to the present day. The authors explore the early repertoire of sweet tastes; the distinctive contributions made by classical antiquity and China; the subtle, sophisticated, and varied group of food customs created by the Islamic civilizations of Iberia, the Arabian desert, Persia, and Byzantium; the magnificent cuisine of the Middle Ages, influenced by Rome and adapted from Islamic Spain, Africa, and the Middle East; the decisive break with highly spiced food traditions after the Renaissance and the new focus on primary ingredients and products from the New World; French cuisine's rise to dominance in Europe and America; the evolution of modern restaurant dining, modern agriculture, and technological developments; and today's tastes, which employ few rules and exhibit a glorious eclecticism. The result is the enthralling story not only of what sustains us but also of what makes us feel alive.
Copub: Thames & Hudson

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