Beignets, Po' Boys, gumbo, jambalaya, Antoine's. New Orleans' celebrated status derives in large measure from its incredibly rich food culture, based mainly on Creole and Cajun traditions. At last, this world-class destination has its own food biography. Elizabeth M. Williams, a New Orleans native and founder of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum there, takes readers through the history of the city, showing how the natural environment and people have shaped the cooking we all love. The narrative starts by describing the indigenous population and material resources, then reveals the contributions of the immigrant populations, delves into markets and local food companies, and finally discusses famous restaurants, drinking culture, cooking at home and cookbooks, and signature foods dishes. This must-have book will inform and delight food aficionados and fans of the Big Easy itself.

Savor celebrates the art and pleasure of beautiful charcuterie boards and platters--demystified and made simple! Serving boards possess an uncanny ability to mirror the mood of a host and transform a room's ambiance as friends and family gather around them to both eat and enjoy time together. This book lavishly details how to create memorable and delicious serving boards, no matter the season or the occasion. In Savor, you'll find: - Expert Advice and Recipes from Murray's Cheese, Publican Market, The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, Lady & Larder, Mike's Hot Honey, Blake Hill Preserves, Esters Wine Shop & Bar, and Vermont Creamery - Practical & Delicious Guides on how to pair cheeses, meats, condiments, and an array of other ingredients that can be used on serving boards. Also included are suggested drink pairings - Over 100 Recipes for crackers and bread, preserves, pickles, flavored nuts, dips, spreads, some bigger bites, and even desserts Expert advice and insights provide strategies and approaches for composing boards that balance flavor profiles and textures, using elegant and inventive recipes. Elevate your home entertaining with Savor!

Provence today is a state of mind as much as a region of France, promising clear skies and bright sun, gentle breezes scented with lavender and wild herbs, scenery alternately bold and intricate, and delicious foods served alongside heady wines. Yet in the mid-twentieth century, a travel guide called the region a "mostly dry, scrubby, rocky, arid land." How, then, did Provence become a land of desire--an alluring landscape for the American holiday? In A Taste for Provence, historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz digs into this question and spins a wonderfully appealing tale of how Provence became Provence. The region had previously been regarded as a backwater and known only for its Roman ruins, but in the postwar era authors, chefs, food writers, visual artists, purveyors of goods, and travel magazines crafted a new, alluring image for Provence. Soon, the travel industry learned that there were many ways to roam--and some even involved sitting still. The promise of longer stays where one cooked fresh food from storied outdoor markets became desirable as American travelers sought new tastes and unadulterated ingredients. Even as she revels in its atmospheric, cultural, and culinary attractions, Horowitz demystifies Provence and the perpetuation of its image today. Guiding readers through books, magazines, and cookbooks, she takes us on a tour of Provence pitched as a new Eden, and she dives into the records of a wide range of visual media--paintings, photographs, television, and film--demonstrating what fueled American enthusiasm for the region. Beginning in the 1970s, Provence--for a summer, a month, or even just a week or two--became a dream for many Americans. Even today as a road well traveled, Provence continues to enchant travelers, armchair and actual alike.

Best-selling fermentation authors Kirsten and Christopher Shockey explore a whole new realm of probiotic superfoods with Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments. This in-depth handbook offers accessible, step-by-step techniques for fermenting beans and grains in the home kitchen. With 50 recipes, they expand beyond the basic components of these traditionally Japanese protein-rich ferments to include not only soybeans and wheat, but also chickpeas, black-eyed peas, lentils, barley, sorghum, millet, quinoa, and oats. Their ferments feature creative combinations such as ancient grains tempeh, hazelnut cocoa nibs tempeh, millet koji, sea island red pea miso, and heirloom cranberry bean miso. Once the ferments are mastered, there are 50 additional recipes for using them in recipes such as miso flank steak, natto polenta, and Thai marinated tempeh. For enthusiasts enthralled by the flavor possibilities and the health benefits of fermenting, this book opens up a new world of possibilities.

In recent years, a growing emphasis has been placed on tourism experiences and attractions related to food. In many cases eating out while on holiday includes the 'consumption' of a local heritage, comparable to what is experienced when visiting historical sites and museums. Despite this increasing attention, however, systematic research on the subject has been nearly absent. Tourism and Gastronomy addresses this by drawing together a group of international experts in order to develop a better understanding of the role, development and future of gastronomy and culinary heritage in tourism. Students and researchers in the areas of tourism, heritage, hospitality, hotel management and catering will find this book an extremely valuable source of information.

The Prehistory of Food sets subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. It brings together contributors with a scientific and biological expertise as well as those interested in the patterns of consumption and social change, and includes a wide range of case studies.

Aesthetic Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Women's Food Writing explores the aesthetic pleasures of eating and writing in the lives of M. F. K. Fisher (1908-1992), Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967), and Elizabeth David (1913-1992). Growing up during a time when women's food writing was largely limited to the domestic cookbook, which helped to codify the guidelines of middle class domesticity, Fisher, Toklas, and David claimed the pleasures of gastronomy previously reserved for men. Articulating a language through which female desire is artfully and publicly sated, Fisher, Toklas, and David expanded women's food writing beyond the domestic realm by pioneering forms of self-expression that celebrate female appetite for pleasure and for culinary adventure. In so doing, they illuminate the power of genre-bending food writing to transgress and reconfigure conventional gender ideologies. For these women, food encouraged a sensory engagement with their environment and a physical receptivity toward pleasure that engendered their creative aesthetic.

Mealtime, anytime, nothing could be more satisfying than a bowl of homemade soup.

Be it a steaming bowl of Minestrone to take the bite out of a winter day or a delicate Raspberry Lime Soup for sultry summer nights when appetites are flagging, these eighty enticing recipes for soups, stews, and chilies are simple for even the novice cook, and creatively appealing to the experienced chef. Anyone with a deep pot and a ladle can make sumptuous meals of a rich Curried Chicken Stew or a refreshing chilled Breakfast Fruit Soup in about half an hour.

From warm, comforting classics like Matzo Ball Soup, New England Clam Chowder, and Beef Stew to elegant meal openers like Carrot with Ginger Cream or Avocado Gazpacho, there's a taste for every season, a treat for every palate.

Edward Ashdown Bunyard (1878-1939) was England's foremost pomologist (student of apples) and a significant gastronome and epicure in the 1920s and 30s. He wrote three books of national significance: "A Handbook of Hardy Fruits" (1920-25) "The Anatomy of Dessert" (1929), and "The Epicure's Companion" (1937, edited with his sister, Lorna). His family were the owners of one of England's most significant fruit nurseries, founded in 1796 in Kent. In his written work, Bunyard was important for his trenchant and enlightening explication of the charm of apples, surely England's most noble garden product, as well as pears and other fruits. There is probably no better contemplation of the last course of dinner than "The Anatomy of Dessert". Bunyard's life ended tragically with his suicide in 1939. This volume of essays, written for the most part by Edward Wilson, English scholar and fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, but with important contributions by Joan Morgan (currently England's foremost authority on the history of apples and the place of dessert in Victorian dining), Alan Bell (biographer of Sydney Smith, formerly Librarian of the London Library) and Simon Hiscock (Senior Research Fellow in Botany at Worcester College, Oxford) topped and tailed by poems from Arnd Kerkhecker and U.A. Fanthorpe. The studies include a biographical essay on Edward Bunyard and chapters about his friendship with Norman Douglas; his literary tastes; his scientific work in plant genetics; his relationship with the epicurian society, The Saintsbury Club; his work seen in the context of inter-war gastronomic writing; and his contribution to the horticultural world, particularly as a pomologist and enthusiast of English roses. It closes with a full bibliography of works by, and about, Bunyard.

He presided over Virginia's great political barbeques for the last half of the nineteenth century, taught the young Prince of Wales to crave mint juleps in 1859, catered to Virginia's mountain spas, and fed two generations of Richmond epicures with terrapin and turkey. This fascinating culinarian is John Dabney (1821-1900), who was born a slave, but later built an enterprising catering business. Dabney is just one of 175 influential cooks and restaurateurs profiled by David S. Shields in The Culinarians, a beautifully produced encyclopedic history of the rise of professional cooking in America from the early republic to Prohibition. Shields's concise biographies include the legendary Julien, founder in 1793 of America's first restaurant, Boston's Restorator; and Louis Diat and Oscar of the Waldorf, the men most responsible for keeping the ideal of fine dining alive between the World Wars. Though many of the gastronomic pioneers gathered here are less well known, their diverse influence on American dining should not be overlooked plus, their stories are truly entertaining. We meet an African American oyster dealer who became the Congressional caterer, and, thus, a powerful broker of political patronage; a French chef who was a culinary savant of vegetables and drove the rise of California cuisine in the 1870s; and a rotund Philadelphia confectioner who prevailed in a culinary contest with a rival in New York by staging what many believed to be the greatest American meal of the nineteenth century. He later grew wealthy selling ice cream to the masses. Shields also introduces us to a French chef who brought haute cuisine to wealthy prospectors and a black restaurateur who hosted a reconciliation dinner for black and white citizens at the close of the Civil War in Charleston. Altogether, Culinarians is a delightful compendium of charcuterie-makers, pastry-pipers, caterers, railroad chefs, and cooking school matrons not to mention drunks, temperance converts, and gangsters who all had a hand in creating the first age of American fine dining and its legacy of conviviality and innovation that continues today.

Learn all about Vietnamese cuisine and enjoy over 80 authentic recipes with this beautifully illustrated Vietnamese cookbook. Vietnamese food is fast emerging as one of the most popular of all Asian cuisines. Its emphasis on fresh herbs, raw vegetables and light seasonings makes it ideal for the health-conscious cook. This lavishly illustrated book of recipes, gathered and photographed in Vietnam, examines the historical and regional influences that have shaped the cuisine and presents a selection of classic dishes. The 84 easy-to-follow Vietnamese recipes present a diverse range of dishes from the country's major regions--from Hanoi to Saigon, the Mekong Delta, and all the points in between. Detailed information on Vietnamese ingredients and cooking techniques make The Food of Vietnam the perfect guide for anyone interested in the cuisine of this vibrant and bountiful country, where food is a daily celebration of life. Vietnamese recipes include: Pork Rice Paper Rolls Lotus Stem Salad with Shrimp Clam Soup with Starfruit and Herbs Fried Tofu with Lemongrass and Five Spice Crabs with Tamarind Sauce Braised Duck with Ginger Pork Stewed in Coconut Juice Slush Ice Lychee in Coconut Milk

Ever since Darwin and "The Descent of Man," the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in "Catching Fire," renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, "Catching Fire" sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, "Catching Fire" will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins--or in our modern eating habits.

Whether you have a long weekend or a fortnight to spare, there are plenty of no-fly European adventures to discover. From coastal to cultural, mountainous to mouth-watering, The Eco-Conscious Travel Guide offers 30 themed routes you can hop on and hop off at any point, including: * Alpine Ambles * Ski Escapes * Chocolate, Cheese and Carb Delights * Wine-fuelled Wanders

Smoking food is an age-old tradition. Today, however, we no longer smoke food to preserve it, but rather to enrich it and make it taste better. What was once a way to preserve food has now become a method to prepare "delicacies." Home Smoking will show you, step-by-step, how to smoke meats, fish, and poultry using different cooking techniques and various woods, plus how to smoke on an alcohol stove, barbecue grill, in a roasting pan, and wok, and how to build your own barrel smoker. Instructions for preparing and smoking your own food also come with delicious recipes for both the hot and cold smoking of pork, beef, fish, game, and chicken. For chefs of all skill levels.

This title offers atmospheric, enchanting ideas to celebrate the traditional festival of Halloween. It features fabulous carved pumpkins, deliciously warming dishes, sweet treats, festive displays, games and disguises for the whole family. It offers easy-to-follow ideas with complete instructions and inspirational photographs. You can try autumnal recipes such as Pumpkin Soup, Corn and Ham Muffins, Pumpkin Fritters, Spellbound Tart, Toffee Apples, Ghost Cake, Gingerbread Cookies or Marshmallows. You can make your own spooky disguises for trick or treating - choose from Frankenstein's Monster, Witch, Vampire, Skeleton, Cat or Egyptian Mummy. You can decorate your home with Jack o'lanterns, candle holders and autumnal arrangements. Halloween originated as a pagan festival marking the end of summer, on a night when it was believed that evil spirits, witches and other dark forces roamed the earth for a night. Today it is a time for all the family to celebrate and for children to dress up in masks and costumes, to venture forth in search of candy and excitement in a riotous medly of pumpkins, trick-or-treating and other mischief. This gift book provides a medley of seasonal delights for making the most of this celebratory time of year. Ideas range from scary costumes to a delicious selection of recipes with spooky themes. Make a spicy Pumpkin Soup, indulge in crisp Toffee Apples, make a creepy ghost costume or carve some little pumpkins. With step-by-step instructions for every project, vibrant photographs and fun ideas, there is an accessible activity for everyone in the family, whether old or young. Celebrate the season in style with this charming sourcebook of tempting eats, treats and tricks.

This volume brings together a group of scholars to consider the rituals of eating together in the Byzantine world, the material culture of Byzantine food and wine consumption, and the transport and exchange of agricultural products. The contributors present food in nearly every conceivable guise, ranging from its rhetorical uses - food as a metaphor for redemption; food as politics; eating as a vice, abstinence as a virtue - to more practical applications such as the preparation of food, processing it, preserving it, and selling it abroad. We learn how the Byzantines viewed their diet, and how others - including, surprisingly, the Chinese - viewed it. Some consider the protocols of eating in a monastery, of dining in the palace, or of roughing it on a picnic or military campaign; others examine what serving dishes and utensils were in use in the dining room and how this changed over time. Throughout, the terminology of eating - and especially some of the more problematic terms - is explored. The chapters expand on papers presented at the 37th Annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held at the University of Birmingham under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, a fitting tribute for the man who first told the world about Byzantine agricultural implements.

Written by a leading campaigner for GM Watch, one of the world's leading lobbying groups, this book reveals the huge issues that are at stake. Genetically modified food has been headline news for years, but it's difficult to know how far the genetic revolution has affected our lives. Is the food on our shelves free of genetically engineered ingredients? How much power do food corporations wield? Andy Rees provides the answers. He shows that, while corporations that produce genetically modified food have met with resistance in Europe, their hold on the US market is strong. They're also expanding operations in less-regulated countries in Africa, Asia and the former Soviet bloc. The US has launched a legal suit to attempt to force the European market open to genetically modified food. What does the future hold? This brilliantly readable book tells us all we need to know.

Drawing directly from his experience as an acclaimed climate-change gardener, and of setting up a kitchen garden from scratch for River Cottage, Mark explains the practical aspects of organic growing, introduces us to a whole world of vegetables we may not have previously considered, and does away with alienating gardening jargon once and for all. Mark begins with a catalogue of vegetables that will grow in this country, explaining for each their benefits, what varieties to go for, dos and don'ts, and popular culinary uses. He then invites us to create a wish list of foods, and shows us his own list from his early gardening days. Next, he explains how to turn this wish list into a coherent kitchen garden plan appropriate for our space, whether it be a patch of acidic soil, a roof-top garden or an allotment, whether we put on our wellies in every free moment or are 'time-poor' gardeners. Then he puts all the theory into practice, showing us how to look after nutrients in the soil, how to resist pests and diseases, and how to make our garden sustainable and organic. In clear, concise sections we learn about seed trays, supporting plants with climbing structures, mulching, composting, companion planting, irrigation and promoting pollination, and there are additional tables showing sowing and harvesting times, plant sizes, and alternative varieties of plants for different sites.About thirty recipes and a directory of useful addresses finish the book, and the handbook is complemented by bright colour photography throughout. Practical and inspiring, with a textured hard cover and an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, "Veg Patch" is destined to join Handbooks No. 1, 2 and 3 as an indispensible household reference.

This delicious anthology of primary texts brings together the major English and French nineteenth-century writings on the arts and pleasures of the table. With the invention of the restaurant and a public scene of dining after the French Revolution, gastronomy emerged as a distinct genre of writing, treating food with philosophical significance. Romantic Gourmand recognizes that more goes into the making of a good meal than food itself, and they transformed dining into a fine art and a medium for self-expression. This excellent book examines the theories of ettiquette and food connoisseruship and how it became the foundation for our modern food culture with gourmet magazines, reviews and televized cuisine. Presenting texts, some of which appear in English for the fitst time, Diane Gigante's looks at the French genius behind modern gastronomy, essays include: Grimod de la Reyniere; Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Tast; Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine; Charles Lamb's Dissertation on Roast Pig; William Thackeray's Dinner-Giving Snobs; lesser-known works by pseudonymous authors such as Launcelot Sturgeon and Dick Humelbergius Secundus. with an intereste in, the history of food.

This delicious anthology of primary texts brings together the major English and French nineteenth-century writings on the arts and pleasures of the table. With the invention of the restaurant and a public scene of dining after the French Revolution, gastronomy emerged as a distinct genre of writing, treating food with philosophical significance. Romantic Gourmand recognizes that more goes into the making of a good meal than food itself, and they transformed dining into a fine art and a medium for self-expression. This excellent book examines the theories of ettiquette and food connoisseruship and how it became the foundation for our modern food culture with gourmet magazines, reviews and televized cuisine. Presenting texts, some of which appear in English for the first time, Diane Gigante's looks at the French genius behind modern gastronomy, essays include: Grimod de la Reyniere; Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Tast; Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine; Charles Lamb's Dissertation on Roast Pig; William Thackeray's Dinner-Giving Snobs; and lesser-known works by pseudonymous authors such as Launcelot Sturgeon and Dick Humelbergius Secundus. with an intereste in, the history of food.

From childhood to singledom, raising a family, divorce and marriage to Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a good meal. Growing up, she tasted love in her grandmother's tomato sauce and dreamed of her mother's Fancy Lady Sandwiches. Hood cooked roast pork to warm her first apartment, found hope in her daughter's omelette and fell in love-with her husband and his chicken stock. Hood tracks her lifelong journey in the kitchen with twenty-seven essays, each accompanied by a recipe (or a few). In "Carbonara Quest", searching for the perfect spaghetti helped her cope with lonely nights as a flight attendant. In the award-winning "The Golden Silver Palate", she recounts the history of her fail-safe dinner party recipe for Chicken Marbella and how it failed her. Hood's simple, comforting recipes include meatballs, Beef Stew, Fried Chicken, grilled cheese and a peach pie.

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.