Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend,yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes.As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts , swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs' ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today's unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance.An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings,whether we like it or not.

Bee Wilson is the food writer and historian who writes as the 'Kitchen Thinker' in the Sunday Telegraph, and is the author of Swindled!. Her charming and original new book, Consider the Fork, explores how the implements we use in the kitchen have shaped the way we cook and live. This is the story of how we have tamed fire and ice, wielded whisks, spoons, graters, mashers, pestles and mortars, all in the name of feeding ourselves. Bee Wilson takes us on an enchanting culinary journey through the incredible creations, inventions and obsessions that have shaped how and what we cook. From huge Tudor open fires to sous-vide machines, the birth of the fork to Roman gadgets, Consider the Fork is the previously unsung history of our kitchens. Bee Wilson writes a weekly food column, 'The Kitchen Thinker' in The Sunday Telegraph, for which she has three times been named the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year. Her previous books include The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us and Swindled!. Before she became a food writer, she was a Research Fellow in History at St John's College, Cambridge. She has also been a semi-finalist on Masterchef. Her favourite kitchen implement is currently the potato ricer. 'A cracking good read, as enjoyable as it is enlightening' Raymond Blanc, Chef-Patron 'Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons' 'Wonderful ... Witty, scholarly, utterly absorbing and fired by infectious curiosity' Lucy Lethbridge, Observer '[A] delightfully informative history of cooking and eating from the prehistoric discovery of fire to twenty-first-century high-tech, low-temp soud-vide-style cookery' ELLE magazine 'A graceful study' Steven Poole, Guardian

A ground-breaking book by the world-leading expert in sensory science: Freakonomics for food 'Popular science at its best' - Daniel Levitin Why do we consume 35% more food when eating with one more person, and 75% more when with three? Why are 27% of drinks bought on aeroplanes tomato juice? How are chefs and companies planning to transform our dining experiences, and what can we learn from their cutting-edge insights to make memorable meals at home? These are just some of the ingredients of Gastrophysics, in which the pioneering Oxford professor Charles Spence shows how our senses link up in the most extraordinary ways, and reveals the importance of all the 'off-the-plate' elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the placing on the plate, the background music and much more. Whether dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we're tasting and influence what others experience. Mealtimes will genuinely never be the same again. 'Truly accessible, entertaining and informative. On every page there are ideas to set you thinking and widen your horizons' - Heston Blumenthal, OBE 'His delight in weird food facts is infectious...fascinating' - James McConnachie, Sunday Times 'Gastrophysics is packed with such tasty factual morsels that could be served up at dinner parties. If Spence can percolate all these factual morsels to the mainstream, the benefits to all of us would be obvious' - Nick Curtis, Daily Telegraph 'Spence allows people to appreciate the multisensory experience of eating' - New Yorker 'The scientist changing the way we eat' - Guardian

From springhouse to smokehouse, from hearth to garden, Southern Appalachian foodways are celebrated afresh in this newly revised edition of The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. First published in 1984-one of the wildly popular Foxfire books drawn from a wealth of material gathered by Foxfire students in Rabun Gap, Georgia-the volume combines hundreds of unpretentious, delectable recipes with the practical knowledge, wisdom, and riveting stories of those who have cooked this way for generations. A tremendous resource for all interested in the region's culinary culture, it is now reimagined with today's heightened interest in cultural-specific cooking and food-lovers culture in mind. This edition features new documentation, photographs, and recipes drawn from Foxfire's extensive archives while maintaining all the reminiscences and sharp humor of the amazing people originally interviewed. Appalachian-born chef Sean Brock contributes a passionate foreword to this edition, witnessing to the book's spellbinding influence on him and its continued relevance. T. J. Smith, editor of the revised edition, provides a fascinating perspective on the book's original creation and this revision. They invite you to join Foxfire for the first time or once again for a journey into the delicious world of wild foods, traditional favorites, and tastes found only in Southern Appalachia.

Biotech companies are racing to alter the genetic building blocks of the world's food. In the United States, the primary venue for this quiet revolution, the acreage of genetically modified crops has soared from zero to 70 million acres since 1996. More than half of America's processed grocery products-from cornflakes to granola bars to diet drinks-contain gene-altered ingredients. But the U.S., unlike Europe and other democratic nations, does not require labeling of modified food. Dinner at the New Gene Café expertly lays out the battle lines of the impending collision between a powerful but unproved technology and a gathering resistance from people worried about the safety of genetic change.

Cultural geographers Menzel and D'Aluisio visited 25 families in 21 countries to create this fascinating look at what people around the world eat in a week. Meet a family that hunts for seal and fish together; a family that raises and eats guinea pigs; and a family that drinks six gallons of Coca-Cola a week. Tricycle Press

Just like many pandemic-driven Americans, Europeans are turning on their ovens and rediscovering their roots through baking. This collection of nearly one hundred recipes is presented with elegant yet friendly flair by Laurel Kratochvila, an American-born, boulangerie-trained baker with her own Jewish bakery and bagel shop in Berlin. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain kind of baked product-breads, brioches and enriched doughs, viennoiseries and laminated pastries, tartes and biscuits-and includes foundational recipes and time-honored techniques for dough-shaping, fermentation, seasoning, and fillings. Sprinkled throughout the book are profiles introducing readers to eleven other European bakers who are turning out delicious pastries and breads that reflect the cultural heritage of their home cities of Paris, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Madrid, London, and Lisbon. Recipes such as Baltic rye bread, toasted sesame challah, elderflower maritozzi, honey and fig tropezienne, lamb and fennel sausage rolls, soft pretzels, and spicy ginger caramel shortbreads combine Old World traditions with twenty-first century flavors. Filled with luscious photography, and suitable for bakers at every level of experience, this sophisticated yet accessible guide to home baking is crammed with centuries of European history.

Celebrating the bounty of the estate s organic kitchen garden, groves, and olive orchard, the Stone Edge Farm Kitchen Larder Cookbook makes the ultimate gift for cooks looking for new creative and efficient means to make the most of abundance and is a thoughtful, practical inspiration for building one s own repertoire of versatile staples and resourceful dishes combining delicious and dependable larder recipes with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Divided into chapters around ten classic ingredients Lemons and Citrus, Herbs, Garlic, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peppers, Figs, Quince, Olives and Olive Oil, and Grapes seventy-five delectable recipes show readers how to prepare pantry staples, such as preserves, infused oils, and conservas, and then how to use those same products and ingredients in fully composed seasonal cocktails, dishes, and desserts for family meals and entertaining. Recipes include: Warm Olives with Preserved Lemon, Stone Fruit Salad with Onions, Wild Pecans, and Black Garlic Dressing, Potato and Green Garlic Ravioli, Herb-Crusted Fillet of Beef with Red Wine Jus, and Honey Sage Whiskey Sour. Step-by-step photographs guide the reader through preservation techniques and recipes and inspire with views of finished and composed dishes and scenery from wine country.

A History of Cookbooks provides a sweeping literary and historical overview of the cookbook genre, exploring its development as a part of food culture beginning in the Late Middle Ages. Studying cookbooks from various Western cultures and languages, Henry Notaker traces the transformation of recipes from brief notes with ingredients into detailed recipes with a specific structure, grammar, and vocabulary. In addition, he reveals that cookbooks go far beyond offering recipes: they tell us a great deal about nutrition, morals, manners, history, and menus while often providing entertaining reflections and commentaries. This innovative book demonstrates that cookbooks represent an interesting and important branch of nonfiction literature.

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.

Smith's story opens with early America, an agriculturally independent nation where most citizens grew and consumed their own food. Over the next two hundred years, however, Americans would cultivate an entirely different approach to crops and consumption. Advances in food processing, transportation, regulation, nutrition, and science introduced highly complex and mechanized methods of production. The proliferation of cookbooks, cooking shows, and professionally designed kitchens made meals more commercially, politically, and culturally potent. To better understand these trends, Smith delves deeply and humorously into their creation. Ultimately he shows how, by revisiting this history, we can reclaim the independent, locally sustainable roots of American food.

The family dinner, the client luncheon, the holiday spread--the idea of people coming together for a meal seems the most natural thing in the world. But that is certainly not the case for most other members of the animal kingdom. In Feast, archeologist Martin Jones presents both historic and modern scientific evidence to illuminate how prehistoric humans first came to share food and to trace the ways in which the human meal has shaped our cultural evolution.
Jones shows that by studying the activities of our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, and by unearthing ancient hearths, some more than 30,000 years old, scientists have been able to piece together a picture of how our ancient ancestors found, killed, cooked, and divided food. In sites uncovered all over the world, fragments of bone, remnants of charred food, pieces of stone or clay serving vessels, and the outlines of ancient halls tell the story of how we slowly developed the complex traditions of eating we recognize in our own societies today. Jones takes us on a tour of the most fascinating sites and artifacts that have been discovered, and shows us how archeologists have made many fascinating discoveries. In addition, he traces the rise of such recent phenomena as biscuits, "going out to eat," and the Thanksgiving-themed TV dinner.
From the earliest evidence of human consumption around half a million years ago to the era of the drive-through diner, this fascinating account unfolds the history of the human meal and its profound impact on human society.

As a bestselling children's cookery writer, entrepreneur and mum of three, Annabel Karmel knows what it's like to juggle motherhood with a busy life. The prospect of spending hours cooking a nutritious meal for the family can be daunting, but Annabel's stunning new cookbook offers a solution with over 100 simple, tasty recipes that the whole family will enjoy. For those busy weeknights, try Annabel's 20-minute recipes and 6-ingredient meal ideas - all of which are easy-to-make and packed with flavour - such as Chicken Chow Mein or her mouth-watering Dover Sole with Parsley Butter. Planning lunches for school or work is also a breeze thanks to Annabel's innovative ideas for lunchboxes and snacks. There are meals you can prepare in advance and store in the fridge or freezer ready for an action-packed family weekend, and easy recipes that you can make from storecupboard ingredients. If you have family or friends coming round, Annabel has got it covered with superb ideas for easy weekend entertaining and show-stopping desserts. Impress your dinner guests with Annabel's succulent Venison Casserole or aromatic Oriental Roast Duck, followed by Berry and White Chocolate Tart. Packed full of brand new recipes, Annabel Karmel's Busy Mum's Cookbook gives mums everything they need to prepare delicious, healthy, stress-free meals for all the family every day of the week.

JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE - NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "VOGUE "- "NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER
"One of the great culinary stories of our time."--Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"
" "
It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother's house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. "Yes, Chef "chronicles Samuelsson's journey, from his grandmother's kitchen to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally come together at Aquavit, earning him a "New York Times" three-star rating at the age of twenty-four. But Samuelsson's career of chasing flavors had only just begun--in the intervening years, there have been White House state dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs, and, most important, the opening of Red Rooster in Harlem. At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fulfilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room--a place where presidents rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, and bus drivers. It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home.
Praise for "Yes, Chef"
" "
"Such an interesting life, told with touching modesty and remarkable candor."--Ruth Reichl
"Marcus Samuelsson has an incomparable story, a quiet bravery, and a lyrical and discreetly glittering style--in the kitchen and on the page. I liked this book so very, very much."--Gabrielle Hamilton
"Plenty of celebrity chefs have a compelling story to tell, but none of them can top this] one.""--The Wall Street Journal"
"Elegantly written . . . Samuelsson has the flavors of many countries in his blood.""--The Boston Globe"
"Red Rooster's arrival in Harlem brought with it a chef who has reinvigorated and reimagined what it means to be American. In his famed dishes, and now in this memoir, Marcus Samuelsson tells a story that reaches past racial and national divides to the foundations of family, hope, and downright good food."--President Bill Clinton

Ghulam Bombaywala sells bagels in Houston. Demetrios dishes up pizza in Connecticut. The Wangs serve tacos in Los Angeles. How ethnicity has influenced American eating habits-and thus, the make-up and direction of the American cultural mainstream-is the story told in We Are What We Eat. It is a complex tale of ethnic mingling and borrowing, of entrepreneurship and connoisseurship, of food as a social and political symbol and weapon-and a thoroughly entertaining history of our culinary tradition of multiculturalism. The story of successive generations of Americans experimenting with their new neighbors' foods highlights the marketplace as an important arena for defining and expressing ethnic identities and relationships. We Are What We Eat follows the fortunes of dozens of enterprising immigrant cooks and grocers, street hawkers and restaurateurs who have cultivated and changed the tastes of native-born Americans from the seventeenth century to the present. It also tells of the mass corporate production of foods like spaghetti, bagels, corn chips, and salsa, obliterating their ethnic identities. The book draws a surprisingly peaceful picture of American ethnic relations, in which "Americanized" foods like Spaghetti-Os happily coexist with painstakingly pure ethnic dishes and creative hybrids. Donna Gabaccia invites us to consider: If we are what we eat, who are we? Americans' multi-ethnic eating is a constant reminder of how widespread, and mutually enjoyable, ethnic interaction has sometimes been in the United States. Amid our wrangling over immigration and tribal differences, it reveals that on a basic level, in the way we sustain life and seek pleasure, we are all multicultural.

Many home cooks find sauces to be intimidating, equating them with rarified French restaurant techniques. America's Test Kitchen is knocking down that preconception with this ground-breaking cookbook that brings the flavourful world of sauces to life through the lens of home cooking. Take all of your meals to new heights with 230 simple sauces accompanied by more than 150 fresh and fun recipes that use them. You'll be amazed at the versatility of the recipes in this uniquely organized and beautifully illustrated cookbook. In addition to the must-have classics that will boost your cooking arsenal (think: Warm Brown Butter-Hazelnut Vinaigrette with a Frisée Salad, a bright and bold Thyme-Sherry Vinegar Pan Sauce to dress up a Weeknight Roast Chicken, and a Teriyaki Stir-Fry Sauce for an at-home version of Chinese takeout), we also dive into the wide world of simmering sauces (from piquant Thai curries to complex Mexican moles), yogurt sauces (we take this familiar dairy product and give it new life), relishes (from classic Italian caponata to restaurant-inspired Grapefruit-Basil), herb sauces (Moroccan Chermoula to Argentinian Chimichurri to French Persillade), and more to open up new realms of flavor in your kitchen. You'll find plenty of unexpected pairings that showcase the ways to put sauce to use in your everyday cooking.

Whether they make it themselves or just enjoy it with breakfast, people can be passionate about their favourite jam, jelly or marmalade. Award-winning jam-maker Sarah B. Hood looks at the history of these sweet treats from simple fruit preserves to staple commodities, gifts for royalty, global brands, wartime comforts and valued delicacies. She traces connections between sweet preserves and the Temperance movement, the Crusades, the prevention of scurvy, medieval banquets, Georgian dinner parties, Scottish breakfasts, Joan of Arc and the adoption of tea-drinking in Europe. She explores the birth of unique local specialties and treasured regional customs, the rise and fall of international marmalade mavens, the mobilisation of volunteer preserve-makers on a grand scale and a jam-factory revolution.