Pasta, cappuccino, olive oil Italian food culture is a prominent feature of Western society in our cafes, restaurants and homes. But what is the history of Italian cuisine? And where do we get our notions about Italian food? Garlic and Oil is the first comprehensive history of food habits in modern Italy. Chronicling the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, the author argues that politics dramatically affected the nature of Italian cuisine and food habits. Contrary to popular belief, the Italian diet was inadequate and unchanging for many decades. Drawing on the writings of scientific professionals, domestic economists, government officials, and consumers, the author shows how the miserable diet of so many Italians became the subject of political debate and eventually, the target of government intervention. As successive regimes liberal, fascist, democratic struggled with the question of how to improve peoples eating habits, their actions purposefully and inadvertently affected what and how much Italians ate, shaping not only the foundations of Italian cuisine, but also the nature of Italian identity. Garlic and Oil is a popular national food history that offers a new perspective on the history of consumerism and food studies by examining how political change affects food consumption habits.

Einstein's cook was lucky. But you, too, can have a scientist in your kitchen: Robert L. Wolke.

Do you wish you understood the science of foods, but don't want to plow through dry technical books? What Einstein Told His Cook is like having a scientist at your side to answer your questions in plain, nontechnical terms.

Chemistry professor and syndicated Washington Post food columnist Robert L. Wolke provides over 100 reliable and witty explanations, while debunking misconceptions and helping you to see through confusing advertising and labeling.

o In "Sweet Talk" you will learn that your taste buds don't behave the way you thought they did, that starch is made of sugar, and that raw sugar isn't raw. Did you know that roads have been paved with molasses? Why do cooked foods turn brown? What do we owe to Christopher Columbus's mother-in-law?

o In "The Salt of the Earth" you will learn about the strange salts in your supermarket. Does sea salt really come from the sea? (Don't bet on it.) Why do we salt the water for boiling pasta? And how can you remove excess salt from oversalted soup? (You may be surprised.)

o In "The Fat of the Land" you will learn the difference between a fat and a fatty acid, what makes them saturated or unsaturated, and that nonfat cooking sprays are mostly fat. Why don't the amounts of fats on food labels add up? Why does European butter taste better than ours?

o In "Chemicals in the Kitchen" you will learn what's in your tap water, how baking powder and baking soda differ, and what MSG does to food. What Japanese taste sensation is sweeping this country? Is your balsamic vinegar fake? Why do potato chips have green edges?

o In "Turf and Surf" you will learn why red meat is red, why ground beef may look as if it came from the Old Gray Mare, and how bones contribute to flavor. Want a juicy turkey with smooth gravy? How does one deal with a live clam, oyster, crab, or lobster?

o In "Fire and Ice" you will learn how to buy a range and the difference between charcoal and gas for grilling. Did you know that all the alcohol does not boil off when you cook with wine? How about a surprising way to defrost frozen foods? And yes, hot water can freeze before cold water.

o In "Liquid Refreshment" you will learn about the acids and caffeine in coffee, and why "herb teas" are not teas. Does drinking soda contribute to global warming? Why does champagne foam up? Should you sniff the wine cork? How can you find out how much alcohol there is in your drink?

o In "Those Mysterious Microwaves" you will learn what microwaves do—and don't do—to your food. What makes a container "microwave safe"? Why mustn't you put metal in a microwave oven? How can you keep microwave-heated water from blowing up in your face?

o In "Tools and Technology" you will learn why nothing sticks to nonstick cookware, and what the pressure-cooker manufacturers don't tell you. What's the latest research on juicing limes? Why are "instant read" thermometers so slow? Can you cook with magnetism and light? What does irradiation do to our foods?

This entry in the Food Culture around the World series helps those in the United States understand the new immigrants from Central America who have brought their food cultures with them. Food Culture in Central America illustrates the unique foodways of the region in depth-and in English-for the first time. Important foods and ingredients, techniques, and lore associated with food preparation are surveyed. Typical meals eaten at home are presented, with attention to the cultural context in which those meals take place, including regional or national differences. The book also examines various meal settings-street vendors, modest comedors, and fancy restaurants. The role of food in common festivals and life cycle rituals is explored as well, including Christmas, Semana Santa, and Quincineras. Author Michael R. McDonald emphasizes the living process of "metatezation," referring to the use of the traditional metate, a stone platform used to grind ingredients, resulting in the unique flavors and textures of the cuisines. The process echoes the concept of "mestizaje," the intense hybrid mixture of identities throughout Latin America, which is also explained. Photographs Maps An extensive glossary A resource guide A selected bibliography to facilitate further research

At the age of nineteen, high school diploma in hand, Leonard Gentine knew two things: he wanted to own a family business that would pass from generation to generation, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Dolores Becker, a girl he'd met on a blind date. For Leonard, life didn't prove that simple.

This biography, told from the viewpoint of four generations of the Gentine family, places the reader in Leonard's shoes as he advances from young man to old age and discovers life's foundational lessons. Along the way, he endures outstanding debts, disappointments, and a collection of small businesses, all with Dolores at his side. It's an inspirational story of perseverance, personal integrity, and a mind-set of always doing the right thing-as painful as that may be in the short term.

TREATED LIKE FAMILY details the development of Sargento-a nationally recognized cheese company and household name. At the same time, it's a timeless story that showcases the importance of the individual and how a family united in a single purpose within the right culture is unstoppable.

Tom Faley invites the reader into the lives of the Gentine family and the men and women they hired, deftly weaving a story grounded in over 180 interviews-the collective voices of the company's employees, retirees, and friends.

TREATED LIKE FAMILY offers a rare glimpse into the creative mind of an innovator and entrepreneur and underscores the rewards for all of us when we maintain our humanity toward one another: When one person motivates others to pull together, at times facing unspeakable odds, he is able not only to change their lives but to alter history.

The sixteen essays in "The Larder" argue that the study of food does not simply help us understand more about what we eat and the foodways we embrace. The methods and strategies herein help scholars use food and foodways as lenses to examine human experience. The resulting conversations provoke a deeper understanding of our overlapping, historically situated, and evolving cultures and societies.
"The Larder" presents some of the most influential scholars in the discipline today, from established authorities such as Psyche Williams-Forson to emerging thinkers such as Rien T. Fertel, writing on subjects as varied as hunting, farming, and marketing, as well as examining restaurants, iconic dishes, and cookbooks.
Editors John T. Edge, Elizabeth Engelhardt, and Ted Ownby bring together essays that demonstrate that food studies scholarship, as practiced in the American South, sets methodological standards for the discipline. The essayists ask questions about gender, race, and ethnicity as they explore issues of identity and authenticity. And they offer new ways to think about material culture, technology, and the business of food.
"The Larder" is not driven by nostalgia. Reading such a collection of essays may not encourage food metaphors. "It's not a feast, not a gumbo, certainly not a home-cooked meal," Ted Ownby argues in his closing essay. Instead, it's a healthy step in the right direction, taken by the leading scholars in the field.

Anthony Bourdain's long-awaited sequel to Kitchen Confidential, the worldwide bestseller 'As ferociously rude as anything Bourdain has done before' Guardian 'Terrific ... his love for his subjects - both the food and the cook - sings' Telegraph 'Bourdain has insight, access and good taste, and he's a naturally engaging writer' New York Times A lot has changed since Kitchen Confidential - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business - and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-travelling professional eater and drinker, Bourdain compares and contrasts what he's seen and what he's seeing, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food. And always he returns to the question: 'Why cook?' Or the harder one to answer: 'Why cook well?' Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs he compares to a Mafia summit, Bourdain, in his distinctive, no-holds-barred style, cuts to the bone on every subject he tackles.

Here is another volume from today's most influential writer on food and health, the New York Times Personal Health columnist, Jane E. Brody. In this new book, America's authority on great food that is also good food has produced, with her collaborator Richard Flaste, a primer on seafood combined with a collection of delicious recipes. She notes that most of us, when growing up, knew fish in one of two incarnations - fish sticks or tuna on rye. What we didn't know was that seafood comes in an amazing variety of forms, that it is one of the most important low-fat sources of dietary protein available, and that it can be cooked easily, even by "fish novices", in an almost infinite number of delicious ways that go well beyond the frozen fillets of childhood. Part One is a comprehensive overview of seafood lore that includes chapters on how to select, clean, fillet, and store fish; basic seafood cooking techniques; and a full discussion of seafood safety and the overwhelming health benefits of adding fish to your diet. Part Two is a collection of 240 recipes for hors d'oeuvres and appetizers, soups, salads, and main courses, including special sections on grilling and microwaving.

Make classic sushi along with more artful and exotic rolls with this illustrated sushi cookbook. In this sushi making book, Japanese cooking expert Yumi Umemura offers 85 easy recipes combining sushi rice--the key to delicious sushi--with ingredients ranging from time-honored favorites to non-traditional ingredients--such as Thai fish sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, French ratatouille, cooked meats like roast beef or chicken and smoked salmon. Many recipes reflect sushi's worldwide popularity--incorporating the diverse tastes. Sushi Recipes include: Seared Tataki Beef Sushi Tempura Sushi Four Color Rolls Two-Cheese Tuna Salad Rolls Simple Mushroom and Chicken Sushi Rice Poached Egg Sushi Rice Salad Prosciutto Rolls Tuna Tartare Gunkan Sushi Avocado Sesame Rolls Thai Shrimp Sushi Parcels Korean Kimchi Sushi Rolls Whether making the classic thick rolls, thin rolls, or experimenting with one of the author's fun and easy-to-make inventions such as pizza sushi, The Sushi Lover's Cookbook will guide you to sushi nirvana.

Home cooked food can be used to nourish our loved ones, as well as ourselves. Whether it's a roast chicken shared on a Sunday night, a thick soup to soothe yourself, or American-style cookies to be eaten whilst still warm, it's the ultimate form of sharing love. With chapters devoted to how food can Comfort, Seduce, Nourish, Spoil and Cocoon, Skye McAlpine has exactly the right recipe for every moment of connection be it: - An elegant dish to make someone fall in love with you - Scallops with Buttery Brandy Gratin - A satisfyingly reliable meal for everyday family life - Polpette di Ricotta with Tomato Sauce - A go-to recipe for a very old friend - Chocolate, Coconut and Cherry Cake - Or something deeply simple to eat alone - Spaghetti with Pistachio and Lemon With hand-marbled patterns and glorious recipes and photography, A Table Filled with Love is a beautiful cookbook. It invites us to pull up a chair to Skye's delightfully aspirational and unabashedly romantic table.

Proust's famous madeleine captures the power of food to evoke some of our deepest memories. Why does food hold such power? What does the growing commodification and globalization of food mean for our capacity to store the past in our meals - in the smell of olive oil or the taste of a fresh-cut fig? This book offers a theoretical account of the interrelationship of culture, food and memory. Sutton challenges and expands anthropology's current focus on issues of embodiment, memory and material culture, especially in relation to transnational migration and the flow of culture across borders and boundaries. The Greek island of Kalymnos in the eastern Aegean, where Islanders claim to remember meals long past -- both humble and spectacular - provides the main setting for these issues, as well as comparative materials drawn from England and the United States. Despite the growing interest in anthropological accounts of food and in the cultural construction of memory, the intersection of food with memory has not been accorded sustained examination. Cultural practices of feasting and fasting, global flows of food as both gifts and commodities, the rise of processed food and the relationship of orally transmitted recipes to the vast market in speciality cookbooks tie traditional anthropological mainstays such as ritual, exchange and death to more current concerns with structure and history, cognition and the 'anthropology of the senses'. Arguing for the crucial role of a simultaneous consideration of food and memory, this book significantly advances our understanding of cultural processes and reformulates current theoretical preoccupations.

Make every meal magical with The Witch's Cookbook, your very own recipe grimoire! Chefs and bakers may seem to wield magic in the way they can whip up the most amazing dishes and desserts. But they are nothing compared to the original brewmasters-witches! Featuring over 50 wickedly delicious recipes, The Witch's Cookbook is your short-and-sweet go-to for quick-and-easy meals with a mystical flair. Each recipe is witchcraft themed and can be made with traditional ingredients, plus a little bit of spellwork and magic, of course. Get your cauldron bubbling with recipes like: Toadstool Toppers Crow Familiar Nests Typhon's Black Serpent Ramen Persephone's Vegetable Bounty Midnight Berry Pavlovas Love Vitality Potion And more! Along with amazing meals to make any time of the year, The Witch's Cookbook features "Witch Tips" that offer additional spells and blessings for your home and hearth. From breakfast to dessert and everything in between, The Witch's Cookbook is sure to be your cooking companion for every solstice, full moon, and magical day of the year!

Relax. Refresh. Restart. Amid the commotion of everyday life, finding a few precious moments of "me time" can be challenging. With so many demands on our attention, knowing how to get the most out of our limited downtime is more important than ever. Discover new ways to take some time out with this invaluable guide to finding and creating sanctuary. Whether you're searching for serenity at home or seeking solace in the great outdoors, this book is packed with self-care tips, calming crafts and delicious recipes to help you relax, recharge and rejuvenate.