The Cambridge World History of Food (2-Volume Set)

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Have the French always enjoyed their renowned cuisine? When did Russians begin to eat pirogi? What was the first Indonesian spice to be cultivated elsewhere in the world? Questions such as these make for good Jeopardy material, but they're far from trivial--just ask anyone with a passion for good food and a curiosity for where that food originated. That person will know instinctively that the best way to approach a culture--and, indeed, the human animal--is through the stomach. For this individual, The Cambridge World History of Food will be something of a bible, and the best of gifts.

A massive scholarly tome in two volumes and more than 2,000 pages, the CWHF encompasses a wealth of learning that touches on nearly every aspect of human life. (It also reveals the answers to the three earlier questions: No, French cuisine as we know it is a 19th-century development; in the 16th century, following the conquest of the Volga Tatar; ginger, in colonial Mexico.) Thoroughly researched and highly accessible despite its formidable layout, the set addresses a groaning board of topics past and present, from the diet of prehistoric humans to the role of iron in combating disease; from the domestication of animals to the spread of once-isolated ethnic cuisines in a fast-globalizing world. Of greatest interest to general readers is its concluding section--a dictionary of the world's food plants, which gives brief accounts of items both common and exotic, from abalong to Zuttano avocado.

The product of seven years of research, writing, and editing on the part of more than 200 authors, The Cambridge World History of Food promises to become a standard reference for social scientists, economists, nutritionists, and other scholars--and for cooks and diners seeking to deepen their knowledge of the materials they use and consume. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

An undertaking without parallel or precedent, this monumental two-volume work encapsulates much of what is known of the history of food and nutrition throughout the span of human life on earth. It constitutes a vast and essential chapter in the history of human health and culture. Ranging from the eating habits of our prehistoric ancestors to food-related policy issues we face today, this work covers the full spectrum of foods that have been hunted, gathered, cultivated, and domesticated; their nutritional makeup and uses; and their impact on cultures and demography. It offers a geographical perspective on the history and culture of food and drink and takes up subjects from food fads, prejudices, and taboos to questions of food toxins, additives, labeling, and entitlements. It culminates in a dictionary that identifies and sketches out brief histories of plant foods mentioned in the text--over 1,000 in all--and additionally supplies thousands of common names and synonyms for those foods. The essays in this volume are the work of 220 experts in fifteen countries, in fields from agronomy to zoology. Every chapter is accompanied by bibliographical references. The volumes are organized in the following sections: 1. A determination of what our Paleolithic ancestors ate during their stay on the planet (over 99 percent of the time humankind has lived on earth). 6 chapters 2. An extensive treatment of the domestication and development of each of humankind's staple foods. 60 chapters 3. The history of our dietary liquids from beer through soft drinks to water. 13 chapters 4. Studies on the discovery of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and the essential fatty acids along with a look at what they do for us. 37 chapters 5. A history of food and drink for all of the countries in the world. In addition there is a chapter on culinary history. 23 chapters 6. Historical issues involving human health, such as nutrition and mortality decline, height and nutrition, infection and nutrition. 18 chapters 7. Contemporary food-related policy issues are treated in this penultimate section of the work. Examples include chapters on food labeling, food biotechnology and the RDAs. 13 chapters 8. The last section of the work is a food-plant dictionary with over 1,000 entries that emphasize history and usage. The dictionary also includes over 4,000 synonyms for the names of plant food. Here readers well-informed about potatoes or asparagus can learn about lesser-known or strictly regional foods such as ackee or zamia and--among the thousands of synonyms provided--can discover that an aubergine is an eggplant, that "swedes" are rutabagas, and that "bulgar" comes from bulghur, which means "bruised grain."

Customer Reviews:

Not a good enough reference to be worth the money.......2004-10-29

This is a tremendously expensive reference that one should expect to be trustworthy. But it isn't. Nor is it as definitive as should be expected, though it does have some fascinating entries, such as the role of dogs in the history of food. For the price, there should be line drawings for some of the more unusual fruits and veg, because as it is, the verbal descriptions would lead a reader to think that something looked quite different than it does. So I use these two volumes with caution, referencing further anything said here before I take it as a given. Although some other reviewers here have criticized the dryness of style, that is what I want in this sort of thing, so I have no complaints there. Of far more importance is the slant that many of the articles have, which clearly have a political agenda that the information is wrapped around. So, while the bibliographies for same are useful, they also are selectively chosen. Given the guides to food now, and the many histories, I would think that a few books judiciously chosen are better value than this one reference, though if you are monied, this is an interesting addition to your library, to be read with a grain of salt in every 'Oh, my! I didn't know that.'

Taking a class with the editor.......2003-05-01

Argghhhh I have Kenneth Kipple for a teacher, arghhhhh. The greatest use of this book is in the bibliographies at the end of the chapts. Skip the articles and look for the books in the bibliography.

Food for thinking with.......2001-08-07

Part of the dissatisfaction among some reviewers is that this book is not a light, cheerful cook-book/dictionary. For those who want something more along those lines, there are plenty of light-weight volumes that purport to tell the story of this or that cooking tradition with lots of nice glossy pictures and maybe more than three accurate facts if you're really lucky. Try Jane and Michael Stern's road trip food voyages for example.

This two volume set is not for the faint of heart. It is a book for the enthusiast and the professional food historian alike: people who are looking for the social, biological and historical context to the food they enjoy. It is not completely encyclopaedic and there are a few inaccuracies in the identification of plant names and such but these are minor quibbles in the face of the sheer comprehensiveness of the work and the undoubted scholarly care that has gone into its preparation.

I for one appreciated the early chapters on the archaeology of food. People tend to forget the time depth that surrounds eating as a human activity. This is not surprising in a modern world that emphasizes fast food over aesthetics or knowledge. It's my observation that those who are most interested in food purely as a consumable item seem to have little interest in where it really comes from. For example, one of the great tragedies of modern industrial living is the increasing absence of knowledge of or even respect for the fact that real animals died to provide you with your McChicken Burger, or your Poached Sole in Tuscan Orange Sauce.

This book is an invaluable reference. I recommend it to all my students in my Anthropology of Food and Eating class, and I myself use it all the time. The Oxford Companion to Food is also a fine volume, and while it is sometimes more useful with regard to specific foods, it is much lighter on analysis and unneccesarily flippant in places. I would recommend that you buy both the Cambridge volumes and the OCF. Together they almost completely fill the reference spot on the bookshelf of the serious student of food.

To dine well is to touch the face of God

A warning note.......2001-06-12

This is a bumper book, stuffed with good articles by leading authorities in the field. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is a relatively dry volume that concentrates overmuch on archaeology and evolution (well documented elsewhere) and not enough on food history, on which there is a huge amount of misleading literature.

Sadly these volumes require a warning notice for their dictionary of plant foods (a hefty part of the book: pages 1711-1889). Evidently a last-minute attempt to widen the appeal of the book, this is woefully and grossly inaccurate. For example, pink peppercorns are wrongly identified as Piper nigrum, rather than Schinus terebinthifolius (and their mild toxicity is not noted either). Almost every entry in the directory is wrong or questionable. There is further evidence of underinvestment in editing elsewhere in the book; for example, botanical names are not consistent between chapters.

Most readers would fare much better with Alan Davidson's amusingly written, comprehensive and (above all) accurate "Oxford Companion to Food". This Cambridge volume belongs on library shelves - where it will occasionally be very useful.

Not enough visual aids, i.e. illustrations, maps etc.......2001-06-01

I bought this book recently and really enjoy reading the various articles. The style is quite scholarly, like articles published in refereed scientific journals, complete with a reference list at the end of every article. Being an engineer and not a medical doctor or biologist I usually have to look up several words per article. So this is not necessarily light reading.

Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, the chapters of the book are almost devoid of illustrations. This is my big gripe and the reason I rate this work 4 stars instead of 5. I guess I should have been warned by the absence of the word "illustrated" from the title. Especially where more exotic food stuffs (such as a Durian) are concerned illustrations (pictures) would be helpful. Also, where different variants of the same produce, e.g. bananas are compared it would be easiest to show the difference with a pictorial comparison instead of with a table. The descriptions are very good and detailed, but as they say 'a picture says more than a thousand words'.

Also, for some of the articles more maps would be helpful to give a quick overview where certain items are grown and foods are used. Unless proficient in geography, having an atlas by your side may be a good idea when reading some of the articles.

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A glass more than half-full?

The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 17002100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)
Robert William Fogel
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521004888

Book Description

Nobel laureate Robert Fogel's compelling new study examines health, nutrition and technology from 1700 to 2100. Although throughout most of human history, chronic malnutrition has been the norm, a synergy between improvements in productive technology and human physiology has enabled humans to more than double their average longevity and to increase their body size by over fifty percent over the past three centuries. Larger, healthier humans have contributed to the acceleration of economic growth and technological change, resulting in reduced economic inequality, declining hours of work and a corresponding increase in leisure time. Increased longevity has also brought increased demand for health care. Fogel argues that health care should be viewed as the growth industry of the twenty-first century and systems of financing it should be reformed. His book will be essential reading for all interested in economics, demography, history and health care policy. A professor at the University of Chicago, Robert William Fogel has taught at the University of Rochester, Cambridge University, and Harvard University. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his work, including the Arthur C. Cole Prize (1968), the Schumpeter Prize (1971), the Bancroft Prize (1975), the Gustavus Myers Prize (1990), and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science (1993). Previous books include Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994) and The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (The University of Chicago Press, 2000).

Customer Reviews:

A glass more than half-full?.......2006-04-16

Given that our vision is so heavily freighted with the moment, ideas of human progress are in short supply lately. Although not an easy ride, economic historian and Nobel laureate Robert William Fogel's survey of the long run, at least in respect to human morbidity, leisure and longevity, provides escape velocity from pressing concerns about war, pandemic, income inequality and the health of the ecosphere. It might be as another noted economist, Alfred Lord Keynes, said in a different context: In the long-run we are all dead. But, the long-run seems to be getting longer.

The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 is an extension of Fogel's briefer 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture. It provides a synergistic view of the impact of increasing human environmental control on the demographic, economic and physiological conditions of successive generations over the past 300 years. According to Fogel, the interaction of these forces has over this period, and most dramatically over the last century, brought about a new stage of evolution - non-genetic "techno-physio evolution." He indicates this is evidenced by an unprecedented positive change during this period in caloric intake of about 250%, human body size of over 50%, and an increase in longevity of over 100%. Pointing to the future, Fogel's extrapolation of data over the last 140 years in optimal life circumstances, suggests that centenarians will be common by the last quarter of the 21st century. During the past three centuries there has also been an accompanying substantial decrease in the hours it takes each day to earn one's daily bread and increase in the percentage of discretionary income.

Although this is a "little" book, just 111 pages in the main body, it is densely packed with deep-mine data and illuminating higher-order concepts derived from a lifetime of concentration on economic development, particularly when Fogel was affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research as director of its Development of the American Economy Program and subsequently at the University of Chicago as the Charles R. Walgreen Professor of American Institutions and director of the university's Center for Population Economics. Metabolic indices, the thermodynamics of human physiological activity, Waaler curves, in-utero effects on morbidity, protein energy, malnutrition, physiological capital, and Gini ratios are grist for Fogel's mill.

Fogel's treatment of the confluence of technological change, diet, morbidity, work demands, leisure and mortality extends beyond developments in Western society to include the rapid pace of technophysio evolutionary changes in third world countries whose per capita income increases piggybacked on Western innovations, consequently dwarfing the much slower pace of Western improvements a century earlier. In the process of his examination he emphasizes the need to recognize the optimal conditions for human adaptation rather than settle for standards such as daily caloric requirements derived from earlier phases of technophysio evolution. Policy issues in the areas of health care, personal savings and retirement are also discussed in the light of the demographic changes that are occurring.

Some data reported by Fogel and those from other sources are anomalous. For instance, in view of the technophysio evolution particularly of the last 100 years, it seems strange that Dutch males, who were on average about 5'5" in 1860 are now the tallest in the world at about 5'11" while over the same period US men, who were about 5'7" then, are only 5'8" now after the declines of the last few decades. One explanation derives from the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the US (Gini = 45) compared to the greater income equality in the Netherlands (Gini = 30.9). (The Gini coefficient ranges from 1-100 with lower scores representing less income inequality). Also, there are data from millennia ago indicating a decline in average heights in the Eastern Mediterranean in the transition period from the hunter-gatherer economic regime to the first agricultural revolution (11,000 BC - 5000 BC). In John Kolmos (Ed.) Stature, Living Standards and Economic Development (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994) there are a number of contributions that focus on such issues.

Professor Fogel touches very briefly on in utero, childhood and adolescence effects of economic status on morbidity and mortality, but his comment that "The exact mechanisms by which malnutrition and trauma in utero or in early childhood are transformed into organ dysfunctions are still unclear." (p. 32) is unwarranted. These relationships are detailed extensively in various chapters of the volume by Bruce S. McEwen and H. Maurice Goodman (Eds.) Handbook of Physiology: Coping with the Environment: Vol. IV (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) for neuroendocrine abnormalities; in D.J.P. Barker's Mothers, Babies and Health in later Life (Churchill Livingstone, 1998) and Fetal Origins of Cardiovascular and Lung Disease (Marcel Dekker, 2001) for specific organ effects; in Peter Gluckman and Mark Hansen's The Fetal Matrix (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005) for more general morbidity effects; and A.R. Cellura's The Genomic Environment and Niche-Experience (Cedar Springs Press, 2005) for the confluence of genetic influences, economic regimes, ecological niches, caloric intake, stature, morbidity and mortality.

Robert William Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 is that rare species of research - longitudinal study. Unlike the cross-sectional snapshots whose importance often quickly fades, there is gold in these data mines that is so precious because it is so difficult to find and so hard to get to. It is must reading for those in human biology, medicine and the social sciences who are interested in the issues surrounding human adaptation. It will also appeal to life-long learners drawn to the interface between the biology, economics and history of the human condition.

Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941-1944 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)

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Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941-1944 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)
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Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521829321

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Based upon extensive archival material, this is a pioneering study of the impact of the famine that occurred in Greece during its occupation by German, Italian and Bulgarian forces in 1941 and 1942. Violetta Hionidou examines the politics of the food crisis, focusing on the famine's demographics and the effectiveness of relief operations. Her interdisciplinary approach combines demographic, historical and anthropological methodologies to present a comprehensive account of the situation--documented by the archives of the International Red Cross.

The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge Paperback Library)

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This is the best of the potato history books.

The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge Paperback Library)
Redcliffe N. Salaman
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World

ASIN: 0521316235

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First published in 1949, this remarkable book is the culmination of a life-long study of every aspect of the potato. Dr Salaman is concerned first with the history of the potato as a member of the botanical genus Solanum, its adaptation by man as a cultivated plant, and the record of its spread throughout the world; secondly he considers the influence the potato has exerted upon the social structure and economy of different peoples at different times. The archaeological and anthropological evidence for the early significance of the potato among the peoples of Latin America is discussed in detail with numerous illustrations, but the central portion of the book is concerned with the European, and particularly the Irish evidence. Naturally the Great Hunger is the most dramatic single episode in the entire work, and Dr Salaman does full justice to his tragic theme, concluding with the observation that in Ireland ‘the potato ended in wrecking both exploited and exploiter’. Elegantly written, with numerous vivid anecdotes, Salaman’s History has long enjoyed the status of a classic. This revised impression, with a new introduction and emendations by Professor J. G. Hawkes, enables another generation of readers to sample what Eric Hobsbawm has referred to as ‘that magnificent monument of scholarship and humanity’.

Customer Reviews:

This is the best of the potato history books........1998-08-13

Redcliffe Salaman chronicles the history of the potato from prehistory through modern times with the vehemence and passion of a zealot. This book contains a tremendous amount of information about the cultures that have made use of the potato as well as all you could ask about the noble tuber itself, including dietary and cultivation information. Here, in a book about spuds, you'll learn plenty about human nature, the nature of civilizations, and even art.

Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)

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Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time)
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From the time of Malthus, the insufficient supply of food resources has been considered the main constraint of population growth and the main factor in the high mortality prevailing in pre-industrial times. In this essay, the mechanisms of biological, social and cultural nature linking subsistence, mortality and population and determining its short and long term cycles are discussed. The author’s analysis examines the existing evidence from the century of the Great Plague to the industrial revolution, interpreting the scanty quantitative information concerning caloric budgets and food supply, prices and wages, changes in body height and epidemiological history, demographic behaviours of the rich and of the poor. The emerging picture sheds doubts on the existence of a long term interrelation between subsistence of nutritional levels and mortality, showing that the level of the latter was determined more by the epidemiological cycles than by the nutritional level of the population. The permanent potential conflict between food supply and population growth was also mediated by the biological adaptability of the human species to nutritional stress. In the short term, the synergy between famine and epidemic infections in determining recurrent mortality crises is evident, but their impact starts declining in frequency and intensity in the eighteenth century.

The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)

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The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
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This book tells how the Soviet Union fed itself after the invasion by the Germans during World War II. The author argues that central planning became much less important in feeding the population, and civilians were thereby forced to become considerably more self reliant in feeding themselves. A rationing system was instituted soon after the war began, but quickly became irrelevant because of the chronic food shortages. The breakdown in central supplies of food was accompanied by the diminished importance of the ruble, which in many places was replaced by bread and clothing as the medium of exchange. Although the Soviet army was given high precedence over civilians, the author also shows that the population living under German occupation was much worse off than were Soviet civilians living in the rear. In addition to extensive use of American and German archives from the war period, the author interviewed more than thirty Soviet emigrés who survived the war.

Global Brands: The Evolution of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages (Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise)

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Global Brands: The Evolution of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages (Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise)
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Brands help explain why, in a world focused on science and new technology, several of the world's multinational corporations have little to do with either. Rather they are old firms with little critical investment in patents or copyrights. For these firms, the critical intellectual property is trademarks. Global Brands explains how the world's largest multinationals in alcoholic beverages achieved global leadership; the predominant corporate governance structures for firms' marketing-based industries; and why these firms form alliances with direct competitors.

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