Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, & Lore Of Food

McNamee asks a question that has occurred to many people while eating artichokes: how did humans come to consume certain foods and why were they chosen over other foods? His answers draw on history, anthropology, chemistry, biology and other fields and describe the adaptation of thirty foods, including apples, bananas, chocolate, peanuts, pineapples, tomatos and watermelons. The descriptions include recipes from many culinary traditions around the world.
Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

McNamee asks a question that has occurred to many people while eating artichokes: how did humans come to consume certain foods and why were they chosen over other foods? His answers draw on history, anthropology, chemistry, biology and other fields and describe the adaptation of thirty foods, including apples, bananas, chocolate, peanuts, pineapples, tomatos and watermelons. The descriptions include recipes from many culinary traditions around the world. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In delightfully readable prose, McNamee considers some thirty assorted foods that make up a substantial part of the earth's comestible bounty....Recipes accompany each entry, running the gamut from ancient Roman and medieval through contemporary. Culinary traditions include Iranian, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese. McMamee imaginatively brings to life some archaic uses of Earth's bounty. Succinct bibliographies offer readers further satisfaction.Booklist

Everything we eat has a story. Knowing that story not only enhances the pleasure of the table, it also helps us regain a relationship to food---no longer as anonymous commodity, but as a critical part of our history, our culture, and the natural world we all come from. From almonds to wheat, Gregory McNamee tells us these stories with humor and intelligence in an engaging style that is both entertaining and enlightening.Michael Ableman, author of Fields Of Plenty: A Farmers Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It (Chronicle Books, 2005)

Of all the cultivatable ingredients, why have we chosen certain of them and rejected others? McNamee evaluates thirty of the most important ingredients, organized alphabetically, from almonds to wheat. He looks at their scientific makeup and nutritional value, as well as their social and culinary history and cultural relevance....Each entry includes several recipes, culled from a variety of contemporary and historical sources. The author's research is exhaustive, his pages packed with fascinating detail, and he does an great job of marrying the historical and scientific aspects of each ingredient....Well-executed.Kirkus Reviews

McNamee asks a question that has occurred to many people while eating artichokes: how did humans come to consume certain foods and why were they chosen over other foods? His answers draw on history, anthropology, chemistry, biology and other fields and describe the adaptation of thirty foods, including apples, bananas, chocolate, peanuts, pineapples, tomatos and watermelons. The descriptions include recipes from many culinary traditions around the world.Reference &Research Book News

Explores the natural history of thirty of the world's major food plants, explaining why and how they have been important in human history.

Food has functioned both as a source of continuity and as a subject of adaptation in the course of human history. Onions have been a staple of the European diet since the Paleolithic era, while the orange is once again being cultivated in great quantities in Southern China, where it was originally cultivated. Other foods--such as the apple and pear in Central Asia, the tomato in Mexico, the chili pepper in South America, and rice in South Asia--remain staples of their original regions and of the world diet today.Still other items are now grown in places that would have seemed impossible in the past-bananas in geothermally heated greenhouses in Iceland, corn on the fringes of the Gobi, and tomatoes in space. But how did humans discover how to grow and consume these foods in the first place? How were they chosen over competing foods? How did they come to be so important to us? In this charming and frequently surprising enyclopedia, Gregory McNamee gathers revelations from history, anthropology, chemistry, biology, and many other fields, and spins them into entertaining tales of discovery, complete with delicious recipes from many culinary traditions around the world.