Food In World History

by Pilcher; Jeffrey M.

• ISBN13: 9780415311465
• ISBN10: 0415311462
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Providing a comparative and comprehensive study of culinary cultures and consumption throughout the world from ancient times to present day, this book examines the globalization of food and explores the political, social and environmental implications of our changing relationship with food. Including numerous case studies from diverse societies and periods, Food in World Historyexamines and focuses on: how food was used to forge national identities in Latin America the influence of Italian and Chinese Diaspora on the US and Latin America food culture how food was fractured along class lines in the French bourgeois restaurant culture and working class cafes the results of state intervention in food production how the impact of genetic modification and food crises has affected the relationship between consumer and product. This concise and readable survey not only presents a simple history of food and its consumption, but also provides a unique examination of world history itself.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(7)
The first world cuisine	8	(9)
Part I The ingredients of change	17	(34)
The Columbian Exchange	19	(8)
Sugar, spice, and blood	27	(7)
Nouvelle cuisines	34	(8)
Moral and political economies	42	(9)
Part II The taste of modernity	51	(36)
The industrial kitchen	55	(8)
Cuisine and nation-building	63	(8)
Empires of food	71	(8)
Migrant cuisines	79	(8)
Part III The global palate	87	(31)
Guns and butter	91	(9)
The Green Revolution	100	(8)
McDonaldization and its discontents	108	(5)
Culinary pluralism	113	(5)
Conclusion	118	(5)
Index	123