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 subj... View More...
From hunting and gathering to GMOs and ultra-processed foods, this expansive tour of human history rewrites the story of our species and points the way to a better future. The history of Homo sapiens is usually told as a story of technology or economics. But there is a more fundamental driver: food. How we hunted and gathered explains our emergence as a new species and our earliest technology; our first food systems, from fire to agriculture, tell where we settled and how civilizations expanded. The quest for food for growing populations drove exploration, colonialism, slavery, even capitalis... View More...
Bill Buford--author of the highly acclaimed best-selling "Among the Thugs--"had long thought of himself as a reasonably comfortable cook when in 2002 he finally decided to answer a question that had nagged him every time he prepared a meal: What kind of cook could he be if he worked in a professional kitchen? When the opportunity arose to train in the kitchen of Mario Batali's three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, Buford grabbed it. "Heat "is the chronicle--sharp, funny, wonderfully exuberant--of his time spent as Batali's "slave" and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary masters in ... View More...
An unforgettable portrait of Franceas legendary chef, and the sophisticated, unforgiving world of French gastronomy Bernard Loiseau was one of only twenty-five French chefs to hold Europeas highest culinary award, three stars in the "Michelin Red Guide," and only the second chef to be personally awarded the Legion of Honor by a head of state. Despite such triumphs, he shocked the culinary world by taking his own life in February 2003. The "GaultMillau" guidebook had recently dropped its ratings of Loiseauas restaurant, and rumors swirled that he was on the verge of losing a Michelin star (a p... View More...
You know you're going on a quest for pie, but you may find something else entirely. Be prepared. These were the prophetic words uttered to Pascale Le Draoulec as she began her cross-country journey. When offered a job in New York, she chose to drive rather than fly into her new life. As a food writer, she decided to turn an ordinary move into a culinary quest. She chose pie as her grail and guide, because, after all, what's more American than pie?Crossing class and color lines, and spanning the nation (from Montana Huckleberry to Pennsylvania Shoo-Fly), pie -- real, homemade pie -- has meaning... View More...
Like many Jewish Americans, Elizabeth Ehrlich was ambivalent about her background. She identified with Jewish cultural attitudes, but not with the institutions; she had fond memories of her Jewish grandmothers, but she found their religious practices irrelevant to her life. It wasn't until she entered the kitchen--and world--of her mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor, that Ehrlich began to understand the importance of preserving the traditions of the past. As Ehrlich looks on, Miriam methodically and lovingly prepares countless kosher meals while relating the often painful stories of h... View More...
A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest begins -- to save her maimed daughter and a horse driven mad by pain. It is an odyssey that will bring her to... The Horse Whisperer He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called Whisperers. Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift, is to meet his greatest challenge. A... View More...
This book is a broad-ranging and provocative study of the human passion for meat. It will intrigue anyone who has ever wondered why meat is important to us; why we eat some animals but not others; why vegetarianism is increasing; why we aren't cannibals; and how meat is associated with environmental destruction. View More...
A collection of essays on food, love, and guilty pleasures from the pioneering culinary writer whose delightful prose offers "one feast after another" (Frank McCourt). Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is hailed as one of America's preeminent writers about gastronomy, but her work reaches far beyond the limits of that genre. Whether the subject of her fancy is the lowly, unassuming potato or the love life of that aphrodisiac mollusk the oyster, she explores the complexities of the world with an all-consuming curiosity. In this collection of some of her finest works, Fisher demonstrates a palette wel... View More...
The average American consumes 218.3 pounds of meat every year. But in the face of concerns about Mad Cow disease, dubious industrial feedlot practices, and self-righteous vegetarians, the carnivorous lifestyle has become somewhat declasse. Now, Scott Gold issues a red-blooded call to arms for the meat-adoring masses to rise up, speak out, and reclaim their pride. "The Shameless Carnivore" explores the complexities surrounding the choice to eat meat, as well as its myriad pleasures. Delving into everything from ethical issues to dietary, anthropological and medical findings, Gold answers such p... View More...
Beloved teacher and bestselling cookbook author Marcella Hazan tells how a young girl raised in Emilia-Romagna became America's godmother of Italian cooking Widely credited with introducing proper Italian food to the English-speaking world, Marcella Hazan is as authentic as they come. Raised in Cesenatico, a quiet fishing town on the northern Adriatic Sea, she's eventually have her own cooking schools in New York, Bologna, and Venice and teach students from around the world to appreciate and produce the food that native Italians eat. She?d write bestselling and award-winning cookbooks, collec... View More...
Jeff Henderson was just another inner-city black kid born into a world of poverty and limited options, where crime seemed to provide the only way to get out. Raised mostly by his single mother, who struggled just to keep food on the table, Jeff dreamed big. He had to get out and he soon did by turning to what so many in his community did: dealing drugs. But Jeff was no ordinary drug dealer; by twenty-one, he was one of the top cocaine dealers in San Diego, making up to $35,000 a week. Two years later he was indicted on federal drug trafficking charges and sentenced to almost twenty years in pr... View More...
At each stage of her courtship--from her first date with "Mr. Latte" (a near-disaster) to her first uneasy dinner at his parents' home, from intimate suppers in her Upper West Side apartment to his first attempt at cooking for her--Amanda supplies menus for the meals they share: more than one hundred well-balanced and well-seasoned recipes that will leave you satisfied yet wanting more.With warmth and honesty, Amanda shares her feasts and foibles, triumphs and near-misses, tense encounters and good times in the kitchen and beyond. Her humorous, sensuous tale leads us date by date, recipe by re... View More...
"Good cooking depends on two things: common sense and good taste." In England, no food writer's star shines brighter than Simon Hopkinson's. His breakthrough Roast Chicken and Other Stories was voted the most useful cookbook ever by a panel of chefs, food writers, and consumers. At last, American cooks can enjoy endearing stories from the highly acclaimed food writer and his simple yet elegant recipes. In this richly satisfying culinary narrative, Hopkinson shares his unique philosophy on the limitless possibilities of cooking. With its friendly tone backed by the author's impeccable experti... View More...
"Olmsted makes you insanely hungry and steaming mad--a must-read for anyone who cares deeply about the safety of our food and the welfare of our planet." --Steven Raichlen, author of the Barbecue Bible series"The world is full of delicious, lovingly crafted foods that embody the terrain, weather, and culture of their origins. Unfortunately, it's also full of brazen impostors. In this entertaining and important book, Olmsted helps us fall in love with the real stuff and steer clear of the fraudsters." --Kirk Kardashian, author of Milk Money: Cash, Cows, and the Death of the American Dairy Farm... View More...
"Kwame Onwuachi's story shines a light on food and culture not just in American restaurants or African American communities but around the world." --Questlove By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened--and closed--one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had sold drugs in New York and been shipped off to rural Nigeria to "learn respect." He had launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars made from selling candy on the subway and starred on Top Chef. Through it all, Onwuachi's love of food and cooking remained a constant, even when, a... View More...
A wildly hilarious and irreverent memoir of a globe-trotting life lived meal-to-meal by one of our most influential and respected food criticsAs the son of a diplomat growing up in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, Adam Platt didn't have the chance to become a picky eater. Living, traveling, and eating in some of the most far-flung locations around the world, he developed an eclectic palate and a nuanced understanding of cultures and cuisines that led to some revelations which would prove important in his future career as a food critic. In Tokyo, for instance--"a kind of paradise for n... View More...
A celebration of French cuisine and culture, from a culinary adventurer who made his mark decades before Anthony Bourdain arrived on the scene. Traveling through the provinces, cities, and remote country towns that make up France, Waverley Root discovers not only the Calvados and Camembert cheese of Normandy, the haute cuisine of Paris, and the hearty bouillabaisse of Marseilles, but also the local histories, customs, and geographies that shape the French national character. Here are the origins of the Plantagenet kings and Rabelais's favorite truffle-flavored sausages, and the tale of how t... View More...
