In roughly one hundred years - from the 1870s to the 1970s - dining on trains began, soared to great heights, and then fell to earth. The founders of the first railroad companies cared more about hauling freight than feeding passengers. The only food available on trains in the mid-nineteenth century was whatever passengers brought aboard in their lunch baskets or managed to pick up at a brief station stop. It was hardly fine dining. Seeing the business possibilities in offering long-distance passengers comforts such as beds, toilets, and meals, George Pullman and other pioneering railroaders like Georges Nagelmackers of Orient Express fame, transformed rail travel. Fine dining and wines became the norm for elite railroad travelers by the turn of the twentieth century. The foods served on railroads - from consomme to turbot to souffle, always accompanied by champagne - equaled that of the finest restaurants, hotels, and steamships. After World War II, as airline travel and automobiles became the preferred modes of travel, elegance gave way to economy. Canned and frozen foods, self-service, and quick meals and snacks became the norm. By the 1970s, the golden era of railroad dining had come grinding to a halt. Food on the Rails traces the rise and fall of food on the rails from its rocky start to its glory days to its sad demise. Looking at the foods, the service, the rail station restaurants, the menus, they dining accommodations and more, Jeri Quinzio brings to life the history of cuisine and dining in railroad cars from the early days through today.

Pudding usually brings to mind flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and tapioca, but prepackaged pudding cups don't even scratch the surface of global pudding varieties--the term can denote dishes containing candied fruits and nuts or even frugal blends of little more than flour and suet. "Pudding: A Global History" explains how puddings developed from their early savory, sausage-like mixtures into the sweet and sticky confections we are now familiar with, and he describes how advances in kitchen equipment have changed puddings over time. Tackling blood, bread, rice, batter, and vegetable puddings, Jeri Quinzio describes the diverse ways cooks around the world make their puddings and how versions from different countries vary--England's rice pudding, for instance, is flavored with vanilla, nutmeg, or cinnamon, whereas in India it is made with nuts or raisins. In addition to investigating the history of puddings on the dining table, Quinzio also looks at the prominent place puddings have had in novels, poems, songs, and cartoons. He shows how authors and artists like Anthony Trollope, Robert Burns, and George Cruikshank have used puddings to illustrate their characters' sorrows, joys, and even political leanings. Bursting with choice morsels about puddings past and present, this is a book for fans of blood pudding and plum pudding alike.

"The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star," the noted gourmet Brillat-Savarin once wrote. If that's so, the discovery of ice cream must be worth a whole galaxy. And the name of the discoverer should be emblazoned in the heavens. The trouble is, we don't know who made that first dish of vanilla, strawberry or triple chocolate chunk ice cream. That may explain why there are candidates for the honor all over the world. Some give the ancient Romans credit for inventing ice cream, but although they did send their slaves off to the mountains to get snow, they didn't make ice cream with it. They poured syrup on it and ate it, or they used it to chill their wines or fruit. Others say Marco Polo brought ice cream back to Italy from China. He didn't. The Chinese and the Europeans developed their ice creams separately. In the Arab world, snow and ice were combined with fruits and a sweetener -- usually honey or sugar -- to make a chilled drink called a sharbat. The word led to the English sherbet, the French sorbet, the Italian sorbetto and the Spanish sorbete. But a sharbat was and still is a drink. The most-told story is that Catherine de Medici brought ices from Italy to France in the 16th century when she married the future king Henry II. The reality is that ices didn't appear in France for another century, and French confectioners said they had to go to Italy to learn how to make them. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Americans were eating 23 quarts of ice cream per person, per year, more than any other country. Vanilla was America's favorite flavor, with chocolate coming in second. The health issues associated with ice cream were no longer colic and cold stomachs; they were fat and cholesterol. Nevertheless, premium and super-premium ice cream sales were growing, and low-fat ice cream sales were shrinking. Manufacturers were researching the possibility of adding Omega-3 fatty acids to ice cream to give it the health benefits associated with salmon. With all the premium ice creams on the market today, why make your own? Because it's easy and it's fun. You don't need ice and salt for today's ice cream makers, and they're affordable and simple to use. You control the ingredients so you know exactly what's in your ice cream. No guar gum or salmon required. You can use your imagination, experiment with flavors and add your own chunky bits. You, like me, can make ice cream that's parfaite. Jeri Quinzio is a freelance writer and past president of the Culinary Historians of Boston. Jeri has contributed to the Radcliffe Culinary Times and Gastronomica.