A history of the art of cooking begins with the clay ovens of the prehistoric Mediterranean world and the the bronze ovens of ancient China and paints a vivid portrait of what would follow in Asian street markets, palace kitchens, greasy diners, and Taco Bell.

'Man is the cooking animal', said the biographer James Boswell. This sentiment is the foundation of a remarkable and innovative approach to human history by the Australian restauranteur and food critic, Michael Symons.

Australians first confronted the oddities of their national cuisine when this gastronomic classic appeared 25 years ago. Because Australia never had a peasant farming class with local cooking customs, the book explains, camp food became the mainstay of the Aussie dining tradition. Portable weekly rations of mutton, flour, and tea had turned the early settlers into a mobile army, and their suburbanite descendants still survive on tins of jam, condensed milk, camp pie, and beer. A cry for action, the book successfully launched a new Australian taste for fresh produce, farm markets, and...