What do you think?
Rate this book
História da Alimentação
Esta obra, que reuniu cerca de quarenta historiadores e outras autoridades da área da alimentação, foi organizada por Jean-Louis Flandrin, co-fundador da revista Food & Foodways, professor emérito da Universidade de Paris VIII - Vincennes e diretor de estudos da Escola Superior de Ciências Sociais (EHESS), da França, e por Massimo Montanari, professor da Universidade de Bolonha e especialista em alimentação na Idade Média.
885 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
75 people are currently reading
1511 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Louis Flandrin
27 books2 followersJean-Louis Flandrin (4 juillet 1931 - 8 août 2001) est un historien français qui a profondément renouvelé l'histoire de la famille, de la sexualité et de l'alimentation. Ses travaux en la matière ont été novateurs par les méthodes d'analyse inventées et par les documents explorés (pénitentiels, livres de cuisine, proverbes), pris en compte sur une longue durée allant du Haut Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 28, 2015
This book definitely addresses everything you always wanted to know about the history of food in Europe but were afraid to ask. However, I do have two criticisms both having to do more with form than content. The first criticism is that the independent essays, while grouped into a chronology of sorts, are not unified in any way so it reads a bit disjointed. The second, and more important, is that some of the essays literally cry out for the mercy of a graph or two. This could be condensed by dozens of pages and be made infinitely more readable by the addition of graphs.
The final chapters were very interesting though a bit dated as the once mighty McDonald's enterprise has been showing its age of late. Not that I didn't already know about this but it was fun to read about the European opinion of Americans and food. I hereby summarize for you: fat, tasteless, chaotic, fat, innovative, childlike, fat, stupid and more fat.
As it took more than a year and a half to get through, I am very happy to turn the final page and place the darn, taunting thing back on a shelf.
The final chapters were very interesting though a bit dated as the once mighty McDonald's enterprise has been showing its age of late. Not that I didn't already know about this but it was fun to read about the European opinion of Americans and food. I hereby summarize for you: fat, tasteless, chaotic, fat, innovative, childlike, fat, stupid and more fat.
As it took more than a year and a half to get through, I am very happy to turn the final page and place the darn, taunting thing back on a shelf.
October 5, 2012
Everyone interested in food history MUST own this book.
February 17, 2008
Where Harold McGee details the science of cooking and food, Flandrin traverses the cultural history of food in similar encyclopedic fashion. The ground he covers is extensive, beginning with prehistoric man's first BBQs (animals that perished in forest fires) to Coney Island hot dogs and the global homogenization of food. He also includes ample use of linguistics, which is always fun. Too much to read at one or even twenty sittings, it's a great book to pick up at any time to revisit the narrative of man's gastronomical evolution.
August 3, 2021
This was information I have been looking.
I knew that much of what we think of as traditional food is not. Kimchi as we think of could not be made in Korea before the 1700. The Irish had not see a potato before 1589. Of the Italians had never seen a tomato before 1548. However I had no idea that the basics of a person diet changed so much over the years. How much the preparation, cooking and serving of food changes. While this book is Euro m-centric especially France and Italy, it does look at the history of food in the US as well. The book consist of a different chapters each examining a different aspect or even different time periods of cuisine. All the chapter have extensive notes of sources for the information presented in each chapter. The information presented is drawn not just historical documents but many sources. The archeological examination of bones from the animals eaten. Art is also a source of information about food and associated customs wither it is Minoan vase or renaissance painting. Even plays and other forms of literacy can tell something about people are and how they saw food. Traveller’s diaries over the centuries show how cuisine evolved differently in different countries.
The chapters more or less flow in chronological from the time of prehistory thru Egypt, the Levant to Greece and Rome to Middle Ages and up to the days of McDonald’s and the globalization of food. There many interesting parts along the way. The diet of the ancient Hebrews after the Babylonian exile as well as the Sephardic Jews around the time of Spanish Reconquista. The reformation transformed diet just as much as did other aspects of life. The utensils, cookware and dishes how they changed over the millennia. The concept of modern restaurants are a direct result of the French Revolution. Eating beef for centuries was seen as vulgar and only done by the poorest of peasants.
That bakers did not traditionally make the dough for the the bread they produced and in fact were not allowed to make dough. A farmer grew grain and took it to the miller. The miller mostly was not seen member of the community but usually seen as a scoundrel or a thief because the flour you got back from Miller was so much lighter than the weight of grain you gave to Miller. The farmer would then make dough that was taken to baker to bake. Grain collected as tax would be stored until a famine happened at which point grain would be ground, made into dough and given to the baker to bake which would be distributed to hungry.
The book is full of interesting items. Some parts I did find dry. It did not feel like it not written for the general public but more a specialized audience, those who are interested in the history of cuisine. It changed how I see the evolution of cuisine. I can see now that reading historical fiction and watch movies there will be more errors in accuracy for me to swallow.
I knew that much of what we think of as traditional food is not. Kimchi as we think of could not be made in Korea before the 1700. The Irish had not see a potato before 1589. Of the Italians had never seen a tomato before 1548. However I had no idea that the basics of a person diet changed so much over the years. How much the preparation, cooking and serving of food changes. While this book is Euro m-centric especially France and Italy, it does look at the history of food in the US as well. The book consist of a different chapters each examining a different aspect or even different time periods of cuisine. All the chapter have extensive notes of sources for the information presented in each chapter. The information presented is drawn not just historical documents but many sources. The archeological examination of bones from the animals eaten. Art is also a source of information about food and associated customs wither it is Minoan vase or renaissance painting. Even plays and other forms of literacy can tell something about people are and how they saw food. Traveller’s diaries over the centuries show how cuisine evolved differently in different countries.
The chapters more or less flow in chronological from the time of prehistory thru Egypt, the Levant to Greece and Rome to Middle Ages and up to the days of McDonald’s and the globalization of food. There many interesting parts along the way. The diet of the ancient Hebrews after the Babylonian exile as well as the Sephardic Jews around the time of Spanish Reconquista. The reformation transformed diet just as much as did other aspects of life. The utensils, cookware and dishes how they changed over the millennia. The concept of modern restaurants are a direct result of the French Revolution. Eating beef for centuries was seen as vulgar and only done by the poorest of peasants.
That bakers did not traditionally make the dough for the the bread they produced and in fact were not allowed to make dough. A farmer grew grain and took it to the miller. The miller mostly was not seen member of the community but usually seen as a scoundrel or a thief because the flour you got back from Miller was so much lighter than the weight of grain you gave to Miller. The farmer would then make dough that was taken to baker to bake. Grain collected as tax would be stored until a famine happened at which point grain would be ground, made into dough and given to the baker to bake which would be distributed to hungry.
The book is full of interesting items. Some parts I did find dry. It did not feel like it not written for the general public but more a specialized audience, those who are interested in the history of cuisine. It changed how I see the evolution of cuisine. I can see now that reading historical fiction and watch movies there will be more errors in accuracy for me to swallow.
August 6, 2015
I thought this was pretty good overall. It takes you through a smorgasbord of food (pardon the Punjabi) from all around. there are some really interesting bits about meat eating and the effect that has had on growth of populations especially beef and also how sugar which we consume now as per normal was once something that you could only get from the pharmacy as a form of medicine. changes your mind-set if you think about eating sugar as medicine … and I generally hate pumping any form of medicine into my body as my refusal to go on antibiotics for the last 2 weeks throat infection testifies :) It talks about how hunting (especially animal hunting) back in the Neanderthal days caused us to form groups and therefore help out social development right from the start, there are interesting sections about food in different religions with a strong focus on the food in the Jewish faith. It also talks about: banquets, Egyptian food, Greek food, Etruscans eating habits, how the romans dined, how the German barbarians ate, food and link to culture, food trade, medieval cooking, table manners, colonialism and the effects that had on food distribution, industrial revolution effect on food, foreign foods and the mcdonaldization of food.
August 18, 2019
This is a collection of academic essays on culinary history.
I read it about 10 years ago. Some parts are fascinating, others are very interesting, some curious, others less so. Some parts are mind boggling - how many people must have died before the techniques for removing the toxins were discovered?
I found this book enlightening.
I read it about 10 years ago. Some parts are fascinating, others are very interesting, some curious, others less so. Some parts are mind boggling - how many people must have died before the techniques for removing the toxins were discovered?
I found this book enlightening.
August 31, 2025
#Binge Reviewing My Previous Reads #Culinary History
Jean-Louis Flandrin’s Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present is not merely a book about food—it is about humanity itself, about how appetites and kitchens map onto civilisations and philosophies, and about how the act of eating has always been a political and cultural declaration. This is less a single-author meditation and more a grand symphonic project, since the work is a collective volume where Flandrin, alongside Massimo Montanari and other eminent historians, curates essays that move across epochs and continents. If most food histories tease us with anecdotes and light narrative, this one insists on rigour: food here is not garnish but infrastructure, the ground beneath social history.
What strikes first is the breadth. We are taken from the earliest foraging practices and bread’s slow emergence as a civilisational anchor through the Roman feasts, mediaeval fasting disciplines, Renaissance banquets, Enlightenment coffeehouses, and into the modernity of tinned food and industrial cuisine. The sweep is vast but never unmoored: the essays always tie practices of cooking and eating to power, religion, and identity. We see how food is rarely neutral—fasting in Christian and Islamic worlds becomes not just asceticism but boundary-drawing, a politics of holiness through hunger. Roman gustatory excess was not only about appetite but about citizenship and the performance of empire.
One of the book’s intellectual gifts is its ability to link the materiality of food with the symbolic structures of culture. It reveals how bread was not just sustenance but metaphor, the "staff of life" that underpinned theology and rebellion alike. How wine traversed from sacred ritual to conviviality, shaping European identity. How sugar, once an exotic medicine, turned into the commodity of empire, with all its violence and sweetness folded together. Flandrin and Montanari’s editorial hand ensures that we see food as deeply layered: economic, social, theological, and erotic even.
Compared to Bee Wilson’s playful but sharp narratives or Mark Kurlansky’s single-item microhistories like Cod or Salt, this book feels like a cathedral of food history—dense, rigorous, and occasionally austere, yet filled with intellectual stained glass. Where Wilson seduces with anecdote and wit, and Kurlansky captures with commodity-driven storytelling, Flandrin’s Food insists on structures and systems. It is perhaps closer in spirit to Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Near a Thousand Tables, but with more documentary weight, less sparkle and more archive. Armesto thrives on sweeping provocations, Flandrin on layered accumulations of detail.
And yet the density does not strip the book of sensuality. Quite the opposite: by examining how mediaeval spices functioned both as gustatory thrills and as social markers of wealth, or how the Enlightenment reconfigured taste itself as an aesthetic category, we sense how food is never purely practical.
The contributors restore the symbolic heat in everyday recipes. Even when discussing kitchen technologies—the hearth, the spit, and the oven—there is an insistence that these objects shape human rhythms of labour, gender roles, and even the architecture of the home. In this way, the book reminds me faintly of Bee Wilson’s Consider the Fork, though Wilson’s style is anecdotal and tactile while Flandrin’s is structural and historical.
A particularly rewarding section is the treatment of cross-cultural exchanges. The Columbian exchange of maize, potatoes, and tomatoes is given due attention, not as a quirky tale of European adaptation but as an ecological revolution. The book’s European perspective is undeniable—it is part of its editorial DNA—but it does not wholly ignore the global: Indian spices, Arab innovations, and American crops all punctuate the narrative. Still, compared to something like Stewart Lee Allen’s In the Devil’s Garden, which frolics mischievously in global taboos, this volume is statelier, less inclined to seduction, and more invested in historiographic scaffolding.
It is worth noting that Food: A Culinary History feels like a counterweight to modern "foodie" culture. Here there is little room for the fetishisation of artisanal sourdough or the romanticisation of terroir. Instead, what emerges is an awareness that cuisines are born from necessity, scarcity, contact, and conflict as much as from creativity.
The mediaeval use of spices wasn’t only aesthetic—it was about signalling wealth and warding off the perceived dangers of humours. Industrial canning wasn’t just convenience—it was militarisation of nutrition, the feeding of armies. By refusing to isolate food from economy and politics, the book does not let the reader remain in the safe zone of nostalgia.
The comparative richness is striking when we set it against Molly Harrison’s The Kitchen in History. Harrison provides an intimate, almost domestic museum of kitchens across time, giving readers tactile glimpses of objects, hearths, and shifts in household practice. Flandrin, on the other hand, situates those same kitchens inside vast cultural systems. Together they complement one another: Harrison gives us the stove as furniture, and Flandrin gives us the stove as a social revolution. Reading both side by side is like zooming from close-up detail to a sweeping panorama.
Perhaps the only challenge is accessibility. For a casual reader enchanted by Bee Wilson’s wit or Kurlansky’s narrative grip, Food: A Culinary History may feel daunting, a heavy meal rather than a light tasting menu. But for those willing to persist, the rewards are immense. You come away not just with facts about what people ate, but with a recalibrated sense of how food structures civilisations. That Christianity and Islam’s different fasting traditions shaped entire calendars; that European colonialism altered diets across continents; that industrialisation redefined not only what was eaten but also how bodies were disciplined by new rhythms of consumption—these insights stay lodged long after the book is closed.
What lingers most is the reminder that food is always double: substance and sign. To eat is to live but also to participate in systems of meaning far larger than one’s own hunger. Flandrin’s great achievement is to reveal those layers with patient scholarship, to insist that the history of food is the history of humanity, that kitchens are as politically charged as parliaments, and that every bite we take is already history passing through us.
Jean-Louis Flandrin’s Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present is not merely a book about food—it is about humanity itself, about how appetites and kitchens map onto civilisations and philosophies, and about how the act of eating has always been a political and cultural declaration. This is less a single-author meditation and more a grand symphonic project, since the work is a collective volume where Flandrin, alongside Massimo Montanari and other eminent historians, curates essays that move across epochs and continents. If most food histories tease us with anecdotes and light narrative, this one insists on rigour: food here is not garnish but infrastructure, the ground beneath social history.
What strikes first is the breadth. We are taken from the earliest foraging practices and bread’s slow emergence as a civilisational anchor through the Roman feasts, mediaeval fasting disciplines, Renaissance banquets, Enlightenment coffeehouses, and into the modernity of tinned food and industrial cuisine. The sweep is vast but never unmoored: the essays always tie practices of cooking and eating to power, religion, and identity. We see how food is rarely neutral—fasting in Christian and Islamic worlds becomes not just asceticism but boundary-drawing, a politics of holiness through hunger. Roman gustatory excess was not only about appetite but about citizenship and the performance of empire.
One of the book’s intellectual gifts is its ability to link the materiality of food with the symbolic structures of culture. It reveals how bread was not just sustenance but metaphor, the "staff of life" that underpinned theology and rebellion alike. How wine traversed from sacred ritual to conviviality, shaping European identity. How sugar, once an exotic medicine, turned into the commodity of empire, with all its violence and sweetness folded together. Flandrin and Montanari’s editorial hand ensures that we see food as deeply layered: economic, social, theological, and erotic even.
Compared to Bee Wilson’s playful but sharp narratives or Mark Kurlansky’s single-item microhistories like Cod or Salt, this book feels like a cathedral of food history—dense, rigorous, and occasionally austere, yet filled with intellectual stained glass. Where Wilson seduces with anecdote and wit, and Kurlansky captures with commodity-driven storytelling, Flandrin’s Food insists on structures and systems. It is perhaps closer in spirit to Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s Near a Thousand Tables, but with more documentary weight, less sparkle and more archive. Armesto thrives on sweeping provocations, Flandrin on layered accumulations of detail.
And yet the density does not strip the book of sensuality. Quite the opposite: by examining how mediaeval spices functioned both as gustatory thrills and as social markers of wealth, or how the Enlightenment reconfigured taste itself as an aesthetic category, we sense how food is never purely practical.
The contributors restore the symbolic heat in everyday recipes. Even when discussing kitchen technologies—the hearth, the spit, and the oven—there is an insistence that these objects shape human rhythms of labour, gender roles, and even the architecture of the home. In this way, the book reminds me faintly of Bee Wilson’s Consider the Fork, though Wilson’s style is anecdotal and tactile while Flandrin’s is structural and historical.
A particularly rewarding section is the treatment of cross-cultural exchanges. The Columbian exchange of maize, potatoes, and tomatoes is given due attention, not as a quirky tale of European adaptation but as an ecological revolution. The book’s European perspective is undeniable—it is part of its editorial DNA—but it does not wholly ignore the global: Indian spices, Arab innovations, and American crops all punctuate the narrative. Still, compared to something like Stewart Lee Allen’s In the Devil’s Garden, which frolics mischievously in global taboos, this volume is statelier, less inclined to seduction, and more invested in historiographic scaffolding.
It is worth noting that Food: A Culinary History feels like a counterweight to modern "foodie" culture. Here there is little room for the fetishisation of artisanal sourdough or the romanticisation of terroir. Instead, what emerges is an awareness that cuisines are born from necessity, scarcity, contact, and conflict as much as from creativity.
The mediaeval use of spices wasn’t only aesthetic—it was about signalling wealth and warding off the perceived dangers of humours. Industrial canning wasn’t just convenience—it was militarisation of nutrition, the feeding of armies. By refusing to isolate food from economy and politics, the book does not let the reader remain in the safe zone of nostalgia.
The comparative richness is striking when we set it against Molly Harrison’s The Kitchen in History. Harrison provides an intimate, almost domestic museum of kitchens across time, giving readers tactile glimpses of objects, hearths, and shifts in household practice. Flandrin, on the other hand, situates those same kitchens inside vast cultural systems. Together they complement one another: Harrison gives us the stove as furniture, and Flandrin gives us the stove as a social revolution. Reading both side by side is like zooming from close-up detail to a sweeping panorama.
Perhaps the only challenge is accessibility. For a casual reader enchanted by Bee Wilson’s wit or Kurlansky’s narrative grip, Food: A Culinary History may feel daunting, a heavy meal rather than a light tasting menu. But for those willing to persist, the rewards are immense. You come away not just with facts about what people ate, but with a recalibrated sense of how food structures civilisations. That Christianity and Islam’s different fasting traditions shaped entire calendars; that European colonialism altered diets across continents; that industrialisation redefined not only what was eaten but also how bodies were disciplined by new rhythms of consumption—these insights stay lodged long after the book is closed.
What lingers most is the reminder that food is always double: substance and sign. To eat is to live but also to participate in systems of meaning far larger than one’s own hunger. Flandrin’s great achievement is to reveal those layers with patient scholarship, to insist that the history of food is the history of humanity, that kitchens are as politically charged as parliaments, and that every bite we take is already history passing through us.
July 8, 2013
After bazillionty years (okay...two), I have finally cleared all the books off my "currently reading" list and we are done. Whee. Frolic. Cavort.
About this book. I'm kinda zonked, so I will review in bullet form
-It's long. Sure not GOT long, but it's a larger format so it seems even longer than you think it will be. It feels long.
-It's an edited volume. Toward the end of the book, this fact SHOWS. Edited volumes, in my opinion, tend to be disjointed (not surprising given the number of authors), but at the beginning of the book it doesn't seem so disjointed--or oddly so French. I swear one "chapter" was percentages of what the French ate in the 1800s, which ended with (and I paraphrase) "other countries may differ but they aren't France so who cares."
-It is long. Did I mention that? Because it feels long.
-The beginning was far cooler than the end. Some chapters were omigod interesting and I was reminded why I thought I liked this book a lot. Then I would hit "death chapters" that were awful and I would hate the book.
-I learned a lot of very interesting things. That's why it got three stars. For all the length and the chapters of death...I did enjoy the book and I plan to keep it for a reference. But I'm really really really glad it's over.
About this book. I'm kinda zonked, so I will review in bullet form
-It's long. Sure not GOT long, but it's a larger format so it seems even longer than you think it will be. It feels long.
-It's an edited volume. Toward the end of the book, this fact SHOWS. Edited volumes, in my opinion, tend to be disjointed (not surprising given the number of authors), but at the beginning of the book it doesn't seem so disjointed--or oddly so French. I swear one "chapter" was percentages of what the French ate in the 1800s, which ended with (and I paraphrase) "other countries may differ but they aren't France so who cares."
-It is long. Did I mention that? Because it feels long.
-The beginning was far cooler than the end. Some chapters were omigod interesting and I was reminded why I thought I liked this book a lot. Then I would hit "death chapters" that were awful and I would hate the book.
-I learned a lot of very interesting things. That's why it got three stars. For all the length and the chapters of death...I did enjoy the book and I plan to keep it for a reference. But I'm really really really glad it's over.
October 18, 2015
Uneven at times, which is only to be expected with a compendium of this sort. Overall, very interesting, with a broad perspective for certain historical periods. The more 'recent' past, however, is more focused on France, with some side notes on England and later still America. With a book this big, its unfortunate that there wasn't room for a broader discussion of international cuisines. I felt that the earlier periods were dissected, in some cases, in too much detail, with some articles becoming repetitive of prior discussions (how many ways can you describe gruel?).
Overall, I would want to give this a 3 1/2 star rating.
Overall, I would want to give this a 3 1/2 star rating.
April 14, 2020
This book is a collection of essays by various authors about topics related to culinary history, primarily in western Europe, but referring to the United States and a few other countries in the later essays. The essays are arranged more or less chronologically. They don't all cover same geographical areas, but primary targets are France and to a lesser extent, Italy and even less, Germany. Other European countries are mentioned at times in different essays. Since the essays were produced by different authors and taken from different sources there is a certain amount of duplication and contradiction, but on the whole the collection hangs together and covers its topic well.
April 18, 2021
This books is a great introduction to the subject of "food history", which is a rising niche within the academic world of anthropology and sociology. Organised as a collection of academic essays from the last 20-30 years, it looks like a heavy academic tome but it is structured in a simple chronological order with eye-catching titles eyes. Perfect for research and references, which is the main reason I decided to read it. If you are learning about the subject for the first time, this is where you should start. It will definitely challenge what think you know about culinary traditions, such as busting the myth that pasta comes from China!
July 11, 2014
This is a comprehensive entree into food studies. The historical sweep is vast (from classical through to contemporary period). The key authors in the field are represented.
If a researcher is interested in entering food studies, then this is an effective start into this area. I particularly enjoyed the attention to regional food (and life and development).
If a researcher is interested in entering food studies, then this is an effective start into this area. I particularly enjoyed the attention to regional food (and life and development).
April 14, 2013
Buy this if you are into food!!
November 26, 2016
A little dry in places but really informative. Some introductions could've been shorter.
3.5*
More thoughts here:
www.kirstypediablog.wordpress.com
3.5*
More thoughts here:
www.kirstypediablog.wordpress.com
September 22, 2024
Es un trabajo imprescindible como obra de referencia para quien esté interesado en la historia de la gastronomía.
April 30, 2020
I should have guessed by the ambitious title that this book would not be what Id hoped for.
Yes, its a book about the history of food. Food. A topic so big you could never hope to cover just part of its history in a dozen lifetimes or in a library full of books on the topic.
A book under 600 pages obviously needs to limit its scope. In this case, it was the entire history of food in only the western tradition, mainly Europe, especially France. I have no complaints about this. My complaint is that this book, to the average non-academic reader is... BORING! Omg, so boring. So much of it was vague discussions of what crops, statistically, people ate in certain regions at certain times, what general methods of cooking may or may not have been popular for various reasons due to social pressures etc...
Again, no complaint, just... there was no detail, no color, nothing to engage the reader. It was all very academic. Again, no complaints, other than thats not what I was looking for.
I very nearly DNF. Halfway through I realized I was not getting what I came for and I was going to retain NOTHING from having spent hours with my eyes glazed over ‘reading’ these pages. I persisted because the title of each subsequent chapter seemed so intriguing, like, hm, this sounds interesting, only to be presented with emotionless statistics and vague summaries of general behaviors. At which point I only persisted to the end because it was my only library book after the library shut down due to quarantine for COVID-19. I hade to take frequent breaks between sections to read lighter books in my personal collection, but quarantine gets all the credit for making me finish this book.
To be fair, the final chapters, where modern food changes are discussed, where slightly more engaging and enjoyable. Slightly.
Anyhow, it’s probably a good book for a actual student of culinary history. I doubt I will retain much, if anything, of what I learned by reading this, however, I feel like I got some notion of how agriculture and foodways have changed throughout history, so I have some vague framework for understanding more interesting material about culinary history. Overall, Im glad I read it and exceptionally proud that I actually finished it.
Yes, its a book about the history of food. Food. A topic so big you could never hope to cover just part of its history in a dozen lifetimes or in a library full of books on the topic.
A book under 600 pages obviously needs to limit its scope. In this case, it was the entire history of food in only the western tradition, mainly Europe, especially France. I have no complaints about this. My complaint is that this book, to the average non-academic reader is... BORING! Omg, so boring. So much of it was vague discussions of what crops, statistically, people ate in certain regions at certain times, what general methods of cooking may or may not have been popular for various reasons due to social pressures etc...
Again, no complaint, just... there was no detail, no color, nothing to engage the reader. It was all very academic. Again, no complaints, other than thats not what I was looking for.
I very nearly DNF. Halfway through I realized I was not getting what I came for and I was going to retain NOTHING from having spent hours with my eyes glazed over ‘reading’ these pages. I persisted because the title of each subsequent chapter seemed so intriguing, like, hm, this sounds interesting, only to be presented with emotionless statistics and vague summaries of general behaviors. At which point I only persisted to the end because it was my only library book after the library shut down due to quarantine for COVID-19. I hade to take frequent breaks between sections to read lighter books in my personal collection, but quarantine gets all the credit for making me finish this book.
To be fair, the final chapters, where modern food changes are discussed, where slightly more engaging and enjoyable. Slightly.
Anyhow, it’s probably a good book for a actual student of culinary history. I doubt I will retain much, if anything, of what I learned by reading this, however, I feel like I got some notion of how agriculture and foodways have changed throughout history, so I have some vague framework for understanding more interesting material about culinary history. Overall, Im glad I read it and exceptionally proud that I actually finished it.
February 11, 2018
Un sommario della storia dell'alimentazione mondiale conosciuta a oggi. Per motivi spiegati nel testo, Italia e Francia sono i paesi per i quali più approfondite sono le conoscenze. L'ho trovato di grandissimo interesse sia per l'arguzia dell'indagine storica che per la messe di curiose notizie. Peccato per la traduzione dal francese del primo saggio, veramente pietosa.
June 4, 2019
Because the book is really an edited collection of chapters, it just doesn't flow and often repeats itself. And too often "history" simply becomes the recitation of lists of plants and animals, with very little insight if any. Probably of more interest to Europeans, and in particular the French, than non-Europeans. Not bad, but not great.
April 18, 2023
A somewhat arcane academic history of food from various regions and time periods of the world (with a focus on Western Europe). Too much work for the return; at time we feel the authors are rehashing primary sources rather than building narratives from a variety of sources.
October 18, 2017
A tough, very detailed and thorough read.
It took me a long time to finish this book, and while interesting at times, it was just too stiff to be really enjoyable for me.
It took me a long time to finish this book, and while interesting at times, it was just too stiff to be really enjoyable for me.
July 10, 2018
meh - a collection of rather short articles, most concerning a rather basic idea. Each one read like a precis to a much fuller work. I was hoping for more from a 600+ page book.
January 4, 2019
This is not a bad book, but too dense and wordy without many decent illustrations. It would be more useful to me if I did not already have much better histories of food.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews