Gastronomy History

As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia. But how did this tasty hand-held food - and Mexican food more broadly - become so ubiquitous? In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine, explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer conquered the world.

Les pirates des Caraïbes avaient imaginé le Draque, l'ancêtre du Mojito, dès le 16e siècle. Et les marins anglais, aidés des Amérindiens, avaient inventé le Punch avant que la Marine anglaise songe elle-même au Gin Fizz et au Gin Tonic pour guérir ses troupes. Aux États-Unis, les bars clandestins, les speakeasies, qui ont proliféré à l'époque de la prohibition ont mis à la mode certaines mixtures, souvent pour camoufler le goût douteux de l'alcool frelaté qu'on y servait.

You probably don't realize that your supermarket is filled with foods that have a military origin: canned goods, packaged deli meats, TV dinners, cling wrap, energy bars…the list is almost endless. In fact, there's a watered-down combat ration lurking in practically every bag, box, can, bottle, jar, and carton Americans buy. Anastacia Marx de Salcedo shows how the Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate plans, funds, and spreads the food science that enables it to produce cheap, imperishable rations.

Mesoamerica is a cultural area including central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador. In this area, Prehispanic societies developed over thousands of years before coming into contact with Spanish conquistadores in the early 16th century. Mesoamerican civilizations flourished, developing complex social, political, and economic systems-based, to a certain extent, on their knowledge of nature.

Food trucks announcing "halal" proliferate in many urban areas but how many non-Muslims know what this means, other than cheap lunch? In this audiobook, Febe Armanios and Bogac Ergene provide an accessible introduction to halal (permissible) food in the Islamic tradition. Historically, Muslims used food to define their identities in relation to co-believers and non-Muslims. Food taboos are rooted in the Quran and prophetic customs, as well as writings from various periods and geographical settings.

The first Thanksgiving at Plymouth in 1621 was a powerfully symbolic event and not merely the pageant of abundance that we still reenact today. In these early encounters between Indians and English in North America, food was also symbolic of power: The venison brought to Plymouth by the Indians, for example, was resonant of both masculine skill with weapons and the status of the men who offered it. These meanings were clearly understood by Plymouth's leaders, however weak they appeared in comparison.

Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century - to the 1960s and 1970s - to tell the story of how a coterie of unusual men and women embraced an alternative lifestyle that would ultimately change how modern Americans eat. Impeccably researched, Hippie Food chronicles how the longhairs, revolutionaries, and back-to-the-landers rejected the square establishment of President Richard Nixon's America and turned to a more idealistic and wholesome communal way of life and food.

Food consumption is a significant and complex social activity - and what a society chooses to feed its children reveals much about its tastes and ideas regarding health. In this groundbreaking historical work, Amy Bentley explores how the invention of commercial baby food shaped American notions of infancy and influenced the evolution of parental and pediatric care. Until the late 19th century, infants were almost exclusively fed breast milk. But over the course of a few short decades, Americans began feeding their babies formula and solid foods....

The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are we at last developing a food culture or are we just going through the motions? Eating for England is an entertaining, detailed, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek observation of the British and their food, their cooking, their eating, and how they behave in restaurants.

In this follow-up book to A Natural History of Wine and A Natural History of Beer, authors Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall yet again use alcoholic beverages as a lens through which to gain a greater appreciation of natural history.

What do Americans think of when they think of the hamburger? A robust, succulent spheroid of fresh ground beef, the birthright of red-blooded citizens? Or a Styrofoam-shrouded Big Mac, mass-produced to industrial specifications and served by wage slaves to an obese, brainwashed population? Is it cooking or commodity? An icon of freedom or the quintessence of conformity?

Do you know what the first burger chain was? That Taco Bell was originally known as Bell Burger - and was founded in the same city as McDonald's? Have you heard of the 1980s burger wars? All About the Burger covers all of these topics and more! Discover the food history you've been missing in this entertaining audiobook.

Este audiolibro compendia la historia de España a través de sus cocinas y despensas, desde los caníbales y carroñeros de la cueva de Atapuerca hasta la increíble —y sin embargo cierta— invención de la tortilla de patatas sin patatas y sin huevos de nuestra más reciente posguerra.

Combining an insider's passion with down-to-earth humor, chef and food writer Patric Kuh traces the evolution of American high-style restaurants from the 1941 opening of Le Pavillon to the recent rise of less traditional restaurants, such as Le Cirque, Spago, and Danny Meyer's Union Square group. Kuh takes readers inside this high-stakes business, sharing little-known anecdotes, describing legendary cooks and bright new star chefs, and relating his own reminiscences.

History Lover's Cookbook will transport listeners through the Battle of First Bull Run/Manassas to April 9, 1865, where General Robert E. Lee stood under an apple tree to dispatch his surrender to General Grant. Do you know what he was eating when he surrendered? Prepare a picnic of lemonade, raspberry shrub, mint julep, fried chicken, ham sandwiches, potato salad with boiled dressing, cold slaw, soda biscuits and quince marmalade to observe one of the many Civil War re-enactments throughout the United States.

The distinctive beverage of the Western world, bourbon is Kentucky's illustrious gift to the world of spirits. Although the story of American whiskey is recorded in countless lively pages of our nation's history, the place of bourbon in the American cultural record has long awaited detailed and objective presentation. Not a recipe audiobook or a barman's guide, but a fascinating and informative contribution to Americana, The Social History of Bourbon reflects an aspect of our national cultural identity that many have long suppressed or overlooked.

Este libro es el resultado de la extraordinaria investigación y rescate de más de un centenar de recetarios de todos los tiempos. Después del éxito de La comida en la historia argentina, Daniel Balmaceda continuó rastreando e indagando sobre las costumbres desconocidas de la cocina y la mesa de los argentinos. ¿Cómo comíamos antes de la industrialización de los alimentos?

The Ark of Taste is a living catalog of our nation's food heritage preserving treasures passed down for generations—some rare, some endangered, all delicious. These foods reflect our country's diversity. By championing them, we keep them in production and on our plates, while promoting a more equitable alternative to industrial agriculture. The Ark of Taste is a vital resource for all of us who spend the summer searching for that perfectly ripe peach or heirloom tomato—or who are simply looking for the next good thing to eat.

America is more than just a fast food nation. Food Americana is the inside story of how generations of Americans have formed a national cuisine with tastes from all over the world. Fried chicken was a distinctly Southern dish - now it's the Sunday night special at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. A Utah restaurant won Maine's annual Best Lobster Roll competition. And perhaps the ultimate all-American dish, pizza, is served up in 30 different styles, a total of three billion pies a year, an average of 23 pounds for each of us.

In the 1970s, New York City was plagued by crime, filth, and an ineffective government. The city was falling apart, and even the newly constructed World Trade Center threatened to be a fiasco. But in April 1976, a quarter-mile up on the 107th floor of the North Tower, a new restaurant called Windows on the World opened its doors - a glittering sign that New York wasn't done just yet. In The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World, journalist Tom Roston tells the complete history of this incredible restaurant, from its stunning $14-million opening to 9/11 and its tragic end.