It s no surprise that sugar has been on our minds for millennia. First cultivated in New Guinea around 8,000 B.C.E., this addictive sweetener has since come to dominate our appetites whether in candy, desserts, soft drinks, or even pasta sauces for better and for worse. In this book, Andrew F. Smith offers a fascinating history of this simultaneously beloved and reviled ingredient, holding its incredible value as a global commodity up against its darker legacies of slavery and widespread obesity. As Smith demonstrates, sugar s past is chockfull of determined adventurers: relentless sugar...
It s no surprise that sugar has been on our minds for millennia. First cultivated in New Guinea around 8,000 B.C.E., this addictive sweetener has sinc...
The peanut is one of the most versatile and beloved of American food icons. In this first culinary history of the protein-laden legume, Andrew F. Smith follows the peanut's rise from a lowly, messy snack food to its place in haute cuisine and on candy racks across the country. Chronicling how peanut consumption and production has changed throughout history, Smith highlights the peanut's role in the ways economic distress, wartime conditions, industrialization, and health trends reflect and inform our culinary landscape. Chock-full of photographs, advertisements, and peanut recipes from as...
The peanut is one of the most versatile and beloved of American food icons. In this first culinary history of the protein-laden legume, Andrew F. Smit...
"Talking turkey" about the bird you thought you knew
Fondly remembered as the centerpiece of family Thanksgiving reunions, the turkey is a cultural symbol as well as a multi-billion dollar industry. As a bird, dinner, commodity, and as a national icon, the turkey has become as American as the bald eagle (with which it actually competed for supremacy on national insignias).
Food historian Andrew F. Smith's sweeping and multifaceted history of Meleagris gallopavo separates fact from fiction, serving as both a solid historical reference and a fascinating general read. With his...
"Talking turkey" about the bird you thought you knew
Fondly remembered as the centerpiece of family Thanksgiving reunions, the turkey is a cu...
Food expert and celebrated food historian Andrew F. Smith recounts--in delicious detail--the creation of contemporary American cuisine. The diet of the modern American wasn't always as corporate, conglomerated, and corn-rich as it is today, and the style of American cooking, along with the ingredients that compose it, has never been fixed. With a cast of characters including bold inventors, savvy restaurateurs, ruthless advertisers, mad scientists, adventurous entrepreneurs, celebrity chefs, and relentless health nuts, Smith pins down the truly crackerjack history behind the way America eats....
Food expert and celebrated food historian Andrew F. Smith recounts--in delicious detail--the creation of contemporary American cuisine. The diet of th...
For topping French fries or cottage cheese, K rations or school lunches, ketchup has long been an American favorite. In Pure Ketchup, Andrew F. Smith chronicles American milestones in ketchup history, including colonial adaptations of popular British mushroom, anchovy, and walnut ketchups, the rise of tomato-based ketchup, the proliferation of commercial bottling after the Civil War, debates about preservatives, the resurgence of homemade and designer varieties, and a recent challenge from salsa. In addition to the history of ketchup, the book also includes historical recipes.
For topping French fries or cottage cheese, K rations or school lunches, ketchup has long been an American favorite. In Pure Ketchup, Andrew F. Smith ...
When it comes to food, there has never been another city quite like New York. The Big Apple--a telling nickname--is the city of 50,000 eateries, of fish wriggling in Chinatown baskets, huge pastrami sandwiches on rye, fizzy egg creams, and frosted black and whites. It is home to possibly the densest concentration of ethnic and regional food establishments in the world, from German and Jewish delis to Greek diners, Brazilian steakhouses, Puerto Rican and Dominican bodegas, halal food carts, Irish pubs, Little Italy, and two Koreatowns (Flushing and Manhattan). This is the city where, if you...
When it comes to food, there has never been another city quite like New York. The Big Apple--a telling nickname--is the city of 50,000 eateries, of fi...
A sweeping reference work on food and drink in America, with fascinating entries on everything from the history of White Castle to the origin of the Bloody Mary, The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink provides more than a thousand concise, authoritative, and exuberant entries, beautifully illustrated with hundreds of historical photographs and sixteen pages of color plates. This entertaining and informative reference serves up everything you could ever want to know about American consumables and their impact on popular culture and the culinary world. The Companion offers...
A sweeping reference work on food and drink in America, with fascinating entries on everything from the history of White Castle to the origin of the B...
Is vegetarianism morally defensible? Can one even be a vegetarian?
This book asserts that the answers to both these questions is a resounding 'no.' Drawing on the latest research in plant science, systems ecology, environmental philosophy, and cultural anthropology, Andrew F. Smith himself a long-time vegetarian shatters the distinction between vegetarianism and omnivorism. He explains how the world would be better off if we could re-orient the way we think about plants, animals, and the moral reasoning that we use to bolster our belief in such a binary. Smith illustrates how...
Is vegetarianism morally defensible? Can one even be a vegetarian?
This book asserts that the answers to both these questions is a resou...
New York City's first food biography showcases all the vibrancy, innovation, diversity, influence, and taste of this most-celebrated American metropolis. Its cuisine has developed as a lively potluck supper, where discrete culinary traditions have survived, thrived, and interacted. For almost 400 years New York's culinary influence has been felt in other cities and communities worldwide. New York's restaurants, such as Delmonico's, created and sustained haute cuisine in this country. Grocery stores and supermarkets that were launched here became models for national food distribution. More...
New York City's first food biography showcases all the vibrancy, innovation, diversity, influence, and taste of this most-celebrated American metropol...
Eating junk food and fast food is a great all-American passion. American kids and grownups love their candy bars, Big Macs and supersized fries, Doritos, Twinkies, and Good Humor ice cream bars. The disastrous health effects from the enormous appetite for these processed fat- and sugar-loaded foods are well publicized now. This was particularly dramatically evidenced by Super Size Me (2004), filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's 30-day all-McDonald's diet in which his liver suffered the same poisoning as if he had been on an extended alcohol binge. Through increased globalization, American popular...
Eating junk food and fast food is a great all-American passion. American kids and grownups love their candy bars, Big Macs and supersized fries, Do...
