Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food

by Gregory McNamee

Food has functioned both as a source of continuity and as a subject of adaptation over the course of human history. Onions have been a staple of the European diet since the Paleolithic era; by contrast, the orange is once again being cultivated in large quantities in southern China, where it was originally grown. Other foods remain staples of their original regions as well as of the world diet at large. Still others are now grown in places that would have seemed impossible in the past—bananas in heated greenhouses in Iceland, corn on the fringes of the Gobi Desert, tomatoes on the International Space Station.

 

But how did humans discover how to grow and incorporate these foods into their diet in the first place? How were they chosen over competing foods? In this charming and frequently surprising compendium, Moveable Feasts gathers revelations from history, anthropology, chemistry, biology, and many other fields and spins them into entertaining tales of discovery while adding more than ninety delicious recipes from various culinary traditions around the world.

 

Among the thirty types of food discussed in the course of this alphabetically arranged work are the apple, the banana, chocolate, coffee, corn, garlic, honey, millet, the olive, the peanut, the pineapple, the plum, rice, the soybean, the tomato, and the watermelon. All the recipes accompanying these diverse food histories have been adapted for re-creation in the modern kitchen.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Gregory McNamee is a writer, journalist, editor, photographer, and publisher. He is the author or title-page editor of thirty-five books and more than four thousand periodical publications, including articles, essays, reviews, interviews, editorials, poems, and short stories.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ethnobotanist's delight contains recipes for Panellets (Catalan almond & pine nut cakes) and Orange Omelet for Harlots and Ruffians (a recipe dating from about 1430 found in a cookbook by Johannes Bockenheim, a German who worked in Rome as a cook for Pope Martin V.)

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the history of food and its origins absolutely fascinating. So informative, yet still funny, engaging, and readable.

[June Baer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book makes food boring. I love food history and cookbooks, this was not at all what I thought it would be. Sounds almost like he wants to be an academic but is failing at it.