I am almost always hungry.
In my entire (adult) life, i've never had a library fine. Until today. The Multnomah county sent me an email today politely letting me know that i owe them 70 cents.
I'm normally quite up to date on these kind of things, but this book....oh my gosh, this book. I knew that it was getting close to its due date, but i can't take it back (don't panic, it has been renewed, no further charges are being levied against me). You can't have it yet, I'm not done.
This book is amazing. It's a sociological look at how cuisine developed. Again: HOW CUISINE DEVELOPED. I only but skimmed through the chapter on prehistory, because it's mostly just guesses from what scientists have found in areas where people lived. This slightly bores me because it is mostly barely educated guessing...As in the rest of the world, cuisine really start to get interesting when people started writing shit down.
The first section of the book, after antiquity, goes on and on about the Greece and Rome (and to a larger extent, the rest of the Mediterranean). The Greeks. Thank the Greeks for writing so much about food. Who wrote about food? Poets. They really knew what was up. It was fairly detailed, how they would describe what cuts of meat, and what seasonings they used. Little details were also interesting, that wine was probably a totally different beast, and was almost always referred to as a sweet drink, and oftentimes mixed with honey. I couldn't help but to keep having visions of a bunch of greek dudes sitting down drinking the ancient equivalent to a wine cooler.
I admit my bias in my own cooking style leans to more of a Mediterranean and European style because the food available in the Northwest mimics so much of those regions. So the next section in the book, i skimmed through as well, I paid a bit more attention than during the prehistory chapter, but Middle Eastern cooking just doesn't appeal to me as much (still love eating it, just not it's history as much). But what struck me was how influential the spice trade and the basics of Middle Eastern cooking really influenced the rest of Europe.
The book covers some heady stuff, especially when you get into the modern-ish ideas of how mercantilism and humanism start molding European culture, politics and cuisine, but it never really is a difficult read but the flip-side of that is that it can get a little boring during sections.
I'm only halfway through the book, Age of Discovery era, but I can certainly recommend it to history or food nerds (i happen to be both...unfortunately).
I'm normally quite up to date on these kind of things, but this book....oh my gosh, this book. I knew that it was getting close to its due date, but i can't take it back (don't panic, it has been renewed, no further charges are being levied against me). You can't have it yet, I'm not done.
This book is amazing. It's a sociological look at how cuisine developed. Again: HOW CUISINE DEVELOPED. I only but skimmed through the chapter on prehistory, because it's mostly just guesses from what scientists have found in areas where people lived. This slightly bores me because it is mostly barely educated guessing...As in the rest of the world, cuisine really start to get interesting when people started writing shit down.
The first section of the book, after antiquity, goes on and on about the Greece and Rome (and to a larger extent, the rest of the Mediterranean). The Greeks. Thank the Greeks for writing so much about food. Who wrote about food? Poets. They really knew what was up. It was fairly detailed, how they would describe what cuts of meat, and what seasonings they used. Little details were also interesting, that wine was probably a totally different beast, and was almost always referred to as a sweet drink, and oftentimes mixed with honey. I couldn't help but to keep having visions of a bunch of greek dudes sitting down drinking the ancient equivalent to a wine cooler.
I admit my bias in my own cooking style leans to more of a Mediterranean and European style because the food available in the Northwest mimics so much of those regions. So the next section in the book, i skimmed through as well, I paid a bit more attention than during the prehistory chapter, but Middle Eastern cooking just doesn't appeal to me as much (still love eating it, just not it's history as much). But what struck me was how influential the spice trade and the basics of Middle Eastern cooking really influenced the rest of Europe.
The book covers some heady stuff, especially when you get into the modern-ish ideas of how mercantilism and humanism start molding European culture, politics and cuisine, but it never really is a difficult read but the flip-side of that is that it can get a little boring during sections.
I'm only halfway through the book, Age of Discovery era, but I can certainly recommend it to history or food nerds (i happen to be both...unfortunately).