Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People, 2nd Edition

by Linda Civitello

• ISBN13: 9780471741725
• ISBN10: 0471741728
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

An illuminating account of how history shapes our diets-now revised and updated Why did the ancient Romans believe cinnamon grew in swamps guarded by giant killer bats? How did the 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, Second Edition presents an engaging, informative, and witty narrative of the interactions among history, culture, and food. From prehistory and the earliest societies around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to today's celebrity chefs, Cuisine and Culture, Second Edition presents a multicultural and multiethnic approach that draws connections between major historical events and how and why these events affected and defined the culinary traditions of different societies. Fully revised and updated, this Second Edition offers new and expanded features and coverage, including: New Crossing Cultures sections providing brief sketches of foods and food customs moving between cultures More holiday histories, food fables, and food chronologies Discussions of food in the Byzantine, Portuguese, Turkish/Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires Greater coverage of the scientific genetic modification of food, from Mendel in the 19th century to the contemporary GM vs. organic food debate Speculation on the future of food And much more! Complete with sample recipes and menus, as well as revealing photographs and illustrations, Cuisine and Culture, Second Edition is the essential survey history for students of food history.

Author Biography

LINDA CIVITELLO has a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.A. in history from UCLA. She has taught food history in California and written extensively for television. The previous edition of Cuisine and Culture won the 2003 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Culinary History Book.

Table of Contents

Antipasto/Antojitos/Amuse-Bouches: Food for Thought	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xx
First Course: From Raw to Cooked: Prehistory, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India	p. 1
Prehistory	p. 1
The Ancient Agricultural Revolution	p. 5
The Fertile Crescent: The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers	p. 10
Egypt: The Nile River	p. 13
China: The Yellow (Huang He) River	p. 18
India: The Indus River	p. 22
Second Course: Grain, Grape, Olive: Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome	p. 25
The Mediterranean Sea	p. 25
Greece	p. 26
The Roman Empire	p. 34
Third Course: Crazy Bread, Coffee, and Courtly Manners: Christendom, Isum, and Byzantium in the Middle Ages, 500-1300	p. 53
Christendom: The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe	p. 54
The Muslim Empire: Baghdad	p. 60
The Eastern Roman Empire: Byzantium	p. 65
Culture Clash: The Crusades	p. 69
Christendom: The Late Middle Ages in Europe	p. 70
Fourth Course: Tea, Chocolate, and the First Cookbook: Medieval Asia, The Americas, and Renaissance Europe to 1500	p. 83
Asia	p. 83
Europe	p. 91
The American Empires	p. 100
Columbus Sets Sail for the Americas: 1492	p. 109
Fifth Course: The Columbian Exchange and the Protestant Reformation: Sugar and Vice in the Sixteenth Century	p. 111
Old World to New	p. 111
New World to Old	p. 128
Japan	p. 134
Europe	p. 136
Sixth Course: Thanksgiving, Hutspot, and Haute Cuisine: Seventeenth-Century America, The Netherlands, Russia, France	p. 144
Colonial America	p. 144
The Scientific Revolution	p. 156
The Golden Age of the Netherlands	p. 157
The Russian Bear	p. 163
France	p. 167
Seventh Course: Election Cake and "Let Them Eat Cake": The American and French Revolutions-The Eighteenth Century and the Enlightenment	p. 173
The Enlightenment	p. 173
America: From Colony to Country	p. 175
The French Revolution: "Let Them Eat Cake"	p. 187
The Napoleonic Era: 1799-1815	p. 193
Napoleon's Aftermath	p. 204
Eighth Course: From Coyotes to Coca-Cola: The Nineteenth Century in America	p. 206
"Go West, Young Man!"	p. 206
The South	p. 210
The Civil War-1850-1865	p. 213
Reconstruction-1865-1877	p. 216
The West: The Railroad and the Indian Wars-1860s-1886	p. 219
The Gilded Age	p. 224
Nineteenth-Century Health Food Movements	p. 235
Ninth Course: Sanitation, Nutrition, Colonization: The Nineteenth Century in Europe, Asia, and Africa	p. 241
Germs and Genes	p. 242
The British Empire	p. 246
Africa Enslaved: Working for Peanuts	p. 249
Inida: "The Jewel in the Crown"	p. 254
China: Tea and Opium	p. 255
Eastern Europe	p. 260
Italy: Unified Country, Regional Cuisine	p. 264
Tenth Course: The Purity Crusade, Cuisine Clossique, and Communal Food: The Early Twentieth Century in Europe and the United States	p. 270
The New Immigrants and the Melting Pot	p. 270
Progressives and the Purity Crusade	p. 276
Dining De Luxe in the Belle Epoque	p. 284
World War I and the Russian Revolution	p. 292
Eleventh Course: Prohibition, Soup Kitchens, Spam, and TV Dinners: The Roaring Twenties, The Depression, World War II, and the Cold War	p. 301
The Roaring Twenties in the United States	p. 301
The Great Depression and the New Deal	p. 310
World War II	p. 318
Post-World War II and the Cold War	p. 326
The Fast-Food Fifties	p. 329
Twelfth Course: Revolutions in Cuisines and Cultures: From "Bon Appetit" to "Bam!" The 1960S into the New Millennium	p. 335
The Sixties: Revolutions in Color	p. 335
The Seventies: Food Revolutions	p. 339
The Eighties: Political and Restaurant Revolutions	p. 342
The Nineties: The Rise of the Celebrity Chef	p. 349
The New Millennium and the Future of Food	p. 356
French Pronunciation	p. 370
Italian Pronunciation	p. 371
Major Wars and Battles (Not Ancient)	p. 372
Selected Cookbook and Food Books Chronology	p. 374
Notes	p. 382
Selected Bibliography	p. 392
Index	p. 401
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