料理之道：從神的規則到人的選擇

California Studies in Food and Culture #43

by Rachel Laudan, 瑞秋・勞丹, 馮奕達 (Translator)

★新版特別收錄｜作家蔡珠兒推薦專序
★16頁全彩圖解世界料理的演化

★2014年國際烹飪專業協會（IACP）最佳食物史書籍獎
★2017Openbook年度翻譯好書

隨著帝國崛起、普世宗教誕生、近代民主發展、營養科學不斷演進……
從神聖到世俗、從不可吃到可吃，
料理不僅記錄世界的變動，更參與打造了文明的創新！
　　
全面解讀五千年來全球料理中的階級秩序、文化與思想哲學！
一部探索世界主要菜系的由來、發展與轉移的經典之作！

◆

◎懂得吃煮過的穀類，為何曾被視為劃分文明人與野蠻的標準？
◎中國文人為何認為用「文火」才能燒出好菜？
◎當伊斯蘭料理進入天主教世界，為何促使糖從藥物變成了甜點？
◎牛肉如何成為「最高級」的肉類？日本明治天皇為何帶頭示範吃牛肉？
◎當今人們為何重新提倡在家煮食，並使用天然、未經加工的食品？

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

料理既是一場味覺饗宴，也是一門技術與政治，既牽動人類思想的演進，也乘載世界的變動。本書便以全球為視角，從智人學會烹煮穀物說起，一路談到飲食全球化的今天，詳盡解讀料理隨著人類文明發展而不斷演變的過程。身為食物史學家的作者瑞秋・勞丹便提醒我們：料理與人類的社會、政治與經濟體系，以及我們自身的健康狀況，甚至道德和宗教的信念息息相關。

在過去，料理有著等級劃分，即便麵包在西方是最為日常的主食，卻也曾依原料差異而被分成多個等級，供擁有不同社會地位的人來食用。但人們今天無論吃哪種食物，大多與個人出身或階級無關，而是與「選擇」更為相關。那麼，料理的分級是如何開始、後來如何打破分界？這一切的變化，又是如何影響文明發展與人類生活？

為了深入理解人與料理的關係，勞丹追尋在文明發展的各階段中誕生的料理菜系，試圖理出其中的潛在規則：

◎古代帝國的穀物料理──料理的選擇是身分位階的象徵：

烹飪的歷史自西元前兩萬年就開始發展，並於西元前三千年形塑出一套古代「料理哲學」，由「獻祭協議」、「階級原則」、「烹飪宇宙觀」為基礎構成。此時，人們相信身分地位與所吃的料理之間有因果關聯，使得高級料理與粗茶淡飯之間的分野隨之出現，並隨城市與國家興起而益發明顯。

◎普世宗教的神權料理──為宗教服務的全新飲食傳統：
　　
西元三世紀後，當各大帝國逐步放棄國家祭典，轉向接受提供通往救贖與開悟之道的普世宗教。

．佛教料理：興起於印度的孔雀帝國，隨著遊方僧而傳入東南亞、中國、朝鮮與日本。這些國家都發展出不同版本的佛教料理，例如中國的儒釋道料理、日本的「精進料理」。佛教強調避免肉食和酒精，注重米飯、豆類、精煉奶油等幫助冥想與精神成長的食材。

．伊斯蘭料理：由波斯料理調整而來，其影響最廣時從西班牙一路延伸到東南亞、從中國邊疆延伸到撒哈拉沙漠南緣。伊斯蘭認為飲食是人生一大樂事，以無酵小麥麵包、辛香料燉肉、酥皮與甜食為基礎。糖的使用與飲用咖啡是伊斯蘭料理帶來最重要的創新。

．基督教料理：從羅馬與猶太料理改造而來，後發展為拜占庭帝國料理和天主教料理，再隨著西班牙和葡萄牙帝國來到美洲、非洲與亞洲各地的貿易據點，基督教元素也因此廣泛融入各地料理中。基督教重視麵包與酒組成的聖餐，儀式上注重宴飲和齋戒期。

◎民族國家中的近代料理──拋棄傳統階級原則的飲食革命：
　
當自由民主等政治理論出現、營養科學的理論逐步建立、宗教改革強調個人選擇與家庭共餐的重要性，貴族宴會與高級料理逐漸沒落。西歐國家如法國、荷蘭與英國皆從傳統飲食轉向，皆以白麵包、牛肉與糖為料理基礎。

◎邁向全球的中階料理──餵飽全世界的營養選擇：

隨著傳統社會的階級原則式微、食品加工業發展，連接高級與下層料理的「中階料理」於焉誕生。尤其，大英帝國的中階料理以白麵包與牛肉為主，隨著殖民主義擴張到世界各地。中階料理為更多人提供營養與美味，打破了數千年來料理壁壘帶來的不平等問題。

──

每一道料理的創造都受時代下的哲學、政治經濟背景及當地文化影響，而高級料理與粗茶淡飯在此過程中的分流、交互激盪與重新調整，就一次次改寫了料理的價值與內涵。藉由了解表面上混雜多變的料理菜系的由來、發展、傳播與轉化，就能發現食材偏好、烹飪方法、用餐習慣乃至飲食哲學，無不體現出歷史上人類的生活方式與思維習慣。

本書結合對食物的熱情，以及科技史、科學哲學與社會史的跨學科思維，在史實中尋找每一種料理方式對全球飲食文化的貢獻。難能可貴的是，本書並未停留在回顧過去的料理變化，亦診斷當代的飲食潮流，藉此提醒讀者，人們對於飲食的看法與選擇仍在持續改變。

◎本書在2017年曾以《帝國與料理》為書名出版◎

Genres: Food, History, Nonfiction, Food History, Food and Drink, Food Writing, Cookbooks

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was recommended on the Maintenance Phase podcast and I’m so glad I read! Obviously it’s very broad overview and has me hankering for a deeper dive on culinary history! But really interesting to think about food trends as they relate to the spread of empire. Like learning about how the inaccessibility of French high cuisine was a big driving force of the French Revolution. Learning about all the global trends between the major grains. And like how Boring! the domination of British cuisine is, like bread and beef truly resent having grown up in the shadows of those influences. Had a great convo about food with the lovely Icelandic gentleman I was sitting next to on my flight who was curious about this read.

[Andrew Tollemache · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty damn good book that covers an exhaustive amount of ground in the history of global human diets/cuisine over the last 3-5 thousand years. Laudan seeks to detail how the historical shifting tides of empires, religions, nation-states and economic systems has profound affect on the types of food people produce and eat.

key Narrative Threads:

1) The persistence across almost all peoples of both a high, middling and low cuisine.
2) The shifting importance of empires then religions and recently nations to have very detailed thoughts on what a people are to eat.
3) The difficulty in nailing down what is unique to a nations cuisine. So much insane mixing and mashing of foods over the last 2K has made saying that food x is unique to culture Y (its contribution to the world) almost a joke.
--Take ketchup which arose in the modern world in England as a sweet vinegary sauce actually derives from ketap, a sour fish sauce first brewed in Sri Lanka.
--After the Mexican Revolution of 1917 a great effort was made to claim the indingenous, New World roots of "mexican food". Problem is that so much of the claimed "mexican cuisine" traces its routes to Islamic Spanish Moors (mole) or even Central Asia.
4) Any number of ethnic cuisines have arisen over the last two centuries, but due to the changes each sub set of a ethnic diaspora face as they integrate around the world can create a problematic degree of variety. Laudan details how different Chinese food is in various around the world. Chinese food can be quite different in Peru, Japan, the US and Philippines as each sub set of founding immigrants offer came from differing regions and made us of widely varying local ingredients in the places migrated too.
5) Over time the opinion of cultures regarding differing food stuffs can cycle from pro to con amd back repeatedly. Laudan documents how sugar has been seen as medicine, luxury and now poison.

[Marty Trujillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not hyperbole to say that Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, Rachel Laudan’s exhaustive study of the creation of the world’s cuisines, is a minor masterpiece. Laudan’s book examines in acute and thought-provoking detail the evolution of eating and the forces that conspired to influence cooking across time and cultures. Her book is a good reminder that most of the world's cuisines are based on grains, and have been for a very long time. In fact, crushed seeds continue to form the basis of most meals in the world even to this day. She also traces the innovations that resulted in the development of high and low cuisines (high for the rich and influential; low for the rest of us). Laudan does an exemplary job of showcasing the incredible role France played in establishing modern cuisine and the “middling” cuisine we eat today — one richer in variety and nutrition than low cuisine, but without the expense and hours of preparation that characterize high cuisine. She does an equally magnificent job at explaining that all food is processed food, and the process of converting raw materials into easily consumed meals is one of humankind’s greatest accomplishments. Laudan is clear and direct in reminding us that the food technology and processing we take for granted and even sneer at today saved us from the food insecurity, deprivation, disease and misery that had been the lot of previous generations.

[Roger Hernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Laudan does a great job of explaining the interrelations between gastronomy and history. She discusses dozens of cuisines from around the world and their historical influence on cultural and political development. The overall prose of the book is quite dry but readable. As a reader whose read dozens of books on Mesoamerica (a region she discusses throughout her book), I couldn't help but notice an "air" of Eurocentrism when she discussed the question of "cannibalism" in Aztec culture and the overall Mesoamerican region.

First, Aztec society as a whole did not consume human flesh. This practice has been put to rest by archeologists and anthropologists. The practice of cannibalism was reserved for a small class of elite priests and warriors who believed that by consuming the flesh of certain high-ranking warriors, the partaker would be imbued with prowess and energy.

Second, cuisine was highly developed in Mesoamerica by the time the Spaniards arrived in Mexico in 1519. Laudan does not believe that a Columbian Exchange existed. Rather, she believes that whatever exchange occurred happened one-way going from Europe to the Americas. Where would Indian and Thai cuisine be without chilies? Where would Italian cusine be without the tomato? There WAS a Columbian Exchange and Mesoamerica contributed much to global cuisine including maize, beans, sweet potato, squash, pineapple, pitahaya (mistakenly called dragon fruit), papaya, chocolate, chili peppers, cassava (a tuber used in making tapioca), allspice, vanilla, amaranth, etc. All of these products came from or were cultivated in Mesoamerica. Laudan also overlooks many of the Mesoamerican gastronomical techniques that were lost or misconstrued at the time of Spanish contact.

Laudan provides some revealing information on cuisine and its cultural and historical importance on a global level. Laudan also downplays the importance of Mesoamerican cuisine and miscontrues it's historical contribution to global cuisine.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific exemplar of “history of one thing that’s secretly also a pretty solid overview of the history of everything.” Every ten pages your head explodes. The legendary maps are even better in context. Read it.

[Cynthia Bertelsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, not one to race through, much food for thought and reflection.

[Andres Felipe Contreras Buitrago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un gran libro, la verdad se nota el gran trabajo que hace la autora para lograr condensar más de dos mil años de historia de la cocina, sin centrarse solo el occidente, por el contrario se menciona la cocina de muchos continentes, contrario a lo que se ha escrito por acá, el libro es fácil de leer, no es muy académico, las ilustraciones ayudan a la comprensión del texto, los capítulos, son concretos, aunque algunos se sienten bastantes largos, aunque la división dentro de estos es más que óptima, lo qué quiere observar la autora es la evolución de la cocina en el mundo, teniendo en cuenta los aspectos político, cultural y social.

En el primer capítulo tenemos la cocina de los primeras civilizaciones humanas, tenemos el mijo y arroz chino, por el lado de medio oriente, encontramos el cultivo de trigo y cebada, de esta última se hacían panes y cervezas, respecto a la primera era difícil de procesar, el pan de aquella época era duro y seco, aunque los granos ofrecían la ventaja de ser fáciles de cultivar, y aportaban muchas calorías, contaban con la desventaja de tener maleza, venenos y tener un largo proceso de transformación.

En aquella época la comida tenía todos una filosofía de la comida en la que debían hacer ofrendas y sacrificios para comer, luego de esto, las clases altas hacían grandes banquetes que duraban días, la comida era según las clases sociales, por ello la clase alta tenía chefs personales y podían consumir más carne y cervezas además de postres, las clases bajas, las mujeres
cocinaban y el aporte nutricional de la comida era poco, dando de resultado niños bajos y con enfermedades; por último, la comida se guiaban por un cosmos,se le relacionaba con elementos de la naturaleza.

En el segundo capítulo tenemos la cocina de las grandes civilizaciones antiguas, donde el trigo era el eje rector de las cocinas de aquéllos pueblos, la cebada estaba más reducida a las clases bajas. El imperio persa gracias a sus sistemas de riego y su recolección de comida, aseguró la seguridad alimentaria pudiendo hacer grandes banquetes, está comida era apreciada y odiada por los griegos, estos últimos usaban el olivo para aceites y la uva para vinos además que comían pescados y pan acompañados de salsas que usaban, con Alejandro magno se da inicio a la comida helénica.

Con la llegada de los romanos, estos daban gran importancia al pan, su éxito militar se debió a abastecer las tropas con buena comida, la gente del común comía bastante pan, esto gracias a la despensa que era el norte de África, en cuanto trigo. Igual cada región tenía su propia comida y producción alimentaria, llegando incluso a importar vino por pimienta en India. En China se producían edulcorantes y aceites; en México, el maíz adquirió gran importancia dando inicio a la producción de tamales y otras comidas con base al maíz.

En los siguientes tres capítulos, la autora se centra en la comida de las tres grandes religiones. La primera es la budista, estos daban mucha importancia a la mantequilla, el azúcar y el arroz, rechazaban el alcohol y el sacrificio de animales, se comía siempre antes de medio día, y además de le daban propiedades de placer y sabiduría al arroz y azúcar. Con la expansión del budismo en China se usa el té para meditar y el tofú como remplazo de la carne, está comida, más lo palillos chinos y los fideos llegan a Japón, está comida sigue aún vigente en Asia donde hay poco consumo de carne y gran consumo de arroz.

La segunda religión es el islam, donde el dulce tiene mucha importancia, es por ello que los árabes hacen comida como las donas y panecillos, también comian pan y tomaban vino, ademas que usaban las especias para toda la comida como un símbolo de estatus; los mongoles tenían una comida muy diversa que se centraba más que todo en una sopa acompañada de varios productos. Con los turcos tomando Constantinopla, estos heredan la cocina bizantina con vegetales y productos dulces, estos inovan en el café, bebida que se populariza por las cafeterías al ser centros de reunión, y crean un nuevo típo de arroz y postres como el arroz con leche.

La última religión es la cristiana, la cual comen mucho el pan, el vino, el aceite y cordero como metáforas de las enseñanzas de Jesucristo, también empiezan a practicar el ayuno, y no hacen tantos sacrificios, en las sociedades europeas el consumo de cerdo será popular como el del pescado, teniendo mejores métodos de conserva, con los molinos también se ayuda para mejorar la obtención del trigo. Con la expansión de los europeos a nuevas tierras vemos la llegada de nuevos productos al viejo mundo más que todo productos tropicales, aunque los europeos tardarán mucho en aprender de la comida nativa, el mayor cambio en esta época son nuevos métodos de conserva y la creación de molinos verticales para extraer mejor el azúcar.

En el sexto capítulo tenemos un cambio en la filosofía de la comida, ya que ahora el protestantismo tendrá un impacto en la cocina al darle ahora importancia a las bebidas frías y a las frutas y vegetales, igual se consumen muchos más productos de las periferias. Por el lado de Francia, este país se le relaciona con una cocina muy alta, con grandes estándares muy costosa y civilizada, que será muy imitada. Los neerlandeses, harán una cocina más burguesa, centrada en la familia y la enseñanza de valores en la mesa, el pescado y los lácteos serán importantes. Los ingleses, darán gran relevancia a la carne, y al té, dando inicio a los salones de té.

Los africanos esclavos traen comida al nuevo mundo, como la yuca y plátano además de la propia cocina. La papa lentamente se irá introduciendo en Europa como una forma de reemplazar el trigo, aunque este misma papa generó una gran hambruna.

En el penúltimo capítulo, tenemos una cocina intermedia que se globaliza por medio del consumo de pan y carne, el consumo de vegetales y frutas disminuye mucho, se crean las tiendas para comprar productos indispensable para la cocina, se crean también recetarios para la comida, además de instituciones para regular la comida.

La cocina francesa se le relaciona con los clásicos, es la comida de la diplomacia, se crean escuelas para enseñarle a meseros y chef, además se crean restaurantes en todo el mundo para servirla. La cocina industrial logra que el azúcar y la sal sea fácil de conseguir, así mismo se crean los alimentos enlatados y procesados. Habrá resistencia por movimientos que abogan por lo vegetariano, él no consumo de alcohol y la importancia del maíz y el arroz, de esto es que surge Kellogg's.

El último capítulo, es la comida contemporánea, en la que McDonald's es el reflejo de la expansión de la comida de Estados Unidos, adaptándose en cada país, igual que el ramen instantáneo, con la guerra fría la unión soviética abogó por una comida más mesurada donde la mujer tenga un rol importante. Es en esa época donde nacen los alimentos procesados, listos para comer, las bebidas carbonatadas, los dulces y chocolates, los lácteos con el yogur y la leche serán base de la dieta mundial. Los nuevos artefactos de la cocina equiparon las nuevas cocinas como la nevera o el microondas. También la comida de distintos lugares del mundo se puedan comer en cualquier parte, una cocina étnica, como por ejemplo los restaurantes Chinos, italianos o japoneses.

Frente a esta nueva cocina occidental, surgen una repuesta por una cocina más saludable, casera y con productos locales, ante la obesidad y la diabetes surgen campañas por una comida más fresca y saludable, aunque en el mundo la cocina ha mejorado haciendo que en cualquier lugar se consiga todo tipo de productos esto no ha impedido que el hambre y las enfermedades por ciertos alimentos no desaparezca.

En conclusión se debe ser responsable en cuanto nuestra comida, y mirar con reflexión que para conseguir toda la comida que comemos pasaron varios miles de años. La cocina es una ciencia.

[M.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Rachel Laudan’s “Cuisine & Empire” is a fascinating review of the evolution of food and the experience of eating throughout history, it is also not an easy book to recommend based on its density and the niche-like quality of the topic.

I first came across this book in 2015, when Laudan gave a talk on the podcast EconTalk. A fascinating discussion, it particularly appealed to me as I had been more and more curious of what lower-class food was like in the ancient world and into the middle ages in Europe. The book deals with these topics, moving in chronological order (for the most part) through the development of cuisine and is an important corrective to pop culture perceptions of historical cuisine and the relative newness of what people might consider traditional cuisine. There is refreshingly little moralizing about modern diets and food, without obscuring the fact that certain illnesses of affluence are becoming legion in the developed world.

Where it struggles, perhaps, is that there isn’t a narrative thesis tying he book together. There are times when the book is repetitive, both stylistically and in the evidence being presented. The many interesting facts and insights seem almost isolated from one another. And while I got the sense of a unique voice peeking through the text on more than one occasion, much of it gets concealed into a story-telling style that is academic influenced (though, it must be said, very much not geared towards appealing to an academic audience only).

This is a book that will have a place on my shelf, but will be something I dive into for specific chapters and references as inspiration for further investigation, rather than something I would re-read in its entirety.

[Beth Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bits and pieces are well-known, but putting the bits and pieces together is enlightening. Laudan's thoughtfulness and rigor undercut many conventional ideas about the development of cuisines.

[Aaron Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food history is the best history. Living in a world of endless fusion dishes and specialty restaurants is great from the perspective of the average eater - never in history has it been so cheap, convenient, and possible to develop a taste for so many different styles of cooking - but it makes you wonder about where all of these cooking styles came from, and why different cultures have the specific attitudes they do to the food that they eat. Food isn't just fuel; it's both a shared experience within a society and a dividing line between societies, so any complete discussion of the hows and whys of cooking styles has to include some discussion of the societies that produced them. Laudan reaches back to the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution to explain how people's attitudes towards food have changed over time due to religious conversions, imperialism, class conflict, technological change, rising incomes, and simple shifting tastes.

Laudan starts off with a quick review of the history of the development of agriculture, though thankfully she doesn't exhaust the reader à la Guns, Germs & Steel with descriptions of every plant domestication in world history. This is a social history and not a history of farming, though she does briefly discuss the botanical properties of barley, millet, maize, etc. She spends most of her time focusing on grains and to a lesser extent roots, since it was their large amount of stored calories that allowed civilizations to elevate them from raw fuel to food and hence cuisine as we know it. Depressingly but unsurprisingly, most of humanity has subsisted on extremely basic and monotonous diets since time immemorial, yet while domestication has vastly enriched the variety of foods available to the masses, the greatest driver of cuisine was political and cultural change.

The Greeks philosophized at length and in quantity about food as a source of civic strength and virtue. Plato's specific views in The Republic might seem odd to modern readers, but his general thoughts on moderation and excess, what foods are okay and which aren't, and how the character is determined by the food you eat are still echoed nearly unchanged by many people. What you eat says something about you, so anyone who has read their Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, or Michael Moss will be familiar with how those fronts in the food wars are still open. Even today, describing a diet as "spartan" implies toughness and character-building, while the modern word "foodie" has a slightly decadent ring to it. Anyone with even moderate means today eats the diet of the kings of yesterday, which can lead to almost absurdly dedicated coolness cascades, as people with excessive time and money on their hands try to seek out ever-more rarefied culinary experiences. Or, in reverse, particularly strict diets (e.g. paleo) not only demonstrate to others that you have the willpower to eschew harmful luxuries, you're also invoking the presumed strengths of the ancients.

Absorbing as those status/identity concerns are, more interesting are the details about how religions informed cuisines. Nearly every religion has some sort of dietary stricture or custom on how foods should be prepared or consumed, and so often changes in cuisines were driven by the rise and fall of religious conquest. Alexander, Ashoka, Mohammed, Jesus, and the Buddha all had profound effects on the way that people ate, even if their ideologies were being spread for quite different reasons. Since they were less familiar to me, I found the sections about the spread of Buddhist ideas into China to be fascinating - I did not know that it was Buddhist missionaries, attempting to proselytize their reluctance to eat meat, who originally introduced tofu to Chinese cooking. The Colombian Exchange is the most famous example of the transmission of foodstuffs, but it's interesting to see that cooking techniques have been getting swapped for thousands of years.

One weakness of the book is that often when she's discussing cuisines she'll present a long lists of dishes or ingredients that someone ate or served at a meal. Lists are perhaps unavoidable, and even occasionally desirable, but occasionally it's hard to tell how the specific ingredients in each cuisine belong to it or help define it. I'm loathe to encourage Great Man ("Great Meal"?)-type history, but maybe some focus of the Planet Taco or The World in Six Glasses variety would have been nice. She makes good points about the nature of "fusion" cuisines, which is that there are rarely completely seamless meldings of cooking styles, but rather deliberate adaptations of certain elements, piece by piece, to make the foreign more familiar. An example that comes to mind is the Korean taco, where typically a single Korean food item like bulgogi or kimchi is placed in a Mexican context, rather than a total merging of Korean and Mexican ingredients and preparation styles. What would the reverse look like, with Mexican meats like picadillo imported into Korean banchan, for example? What will the future bring, as global commerce brings even the most obscure cuisines to cities across the world?

The modern era is unique in that food innovation has taken place peacefully rather than by force. The great global accumulation of wealth that has continued since the Industrial Revolution has made it easier than ever for the development and propagation of "middling cuisines", Laudan's term for cuisines that everyone can eat, not exclusively the upper classes or the peasantry. An immense amount of ingenuity has gone into satisfying our desires for food, and this book makes you see cookbooks differently, as a repository of culture rather than mere recipes. I think her closing discussion of middling cuisines is spot-on, with many lessons for how we should think about food:

"The challenge is to acknowledge that not all is right with modern cuisines without romanticizing earlier ones; to recognize that contemporary cuisines have problems with health and equity without jumping to the conclusion that this is new; to face up to new nutritional challenges of abundance without being paternalist or authoritarian; to extend the benefits of industrialized food processing to all those who still labor with pestles and mortars; and to realize that the problem of feeding the world is a matter not simply of providing enough calories but of extending to everyone the choice, the responsibility, the dignity, and the pleasure of a middling cuisine."

[Aaron Curmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been eyeing this book for quite awhile and finally got around to reading it. I heard about it from a favorite podcast, Gastropod, which covers food science and history.

I really appreciate how well sourced this book is, especially given just how massive the topic is. While the earliest sections are more difficult to source, for obvious reasons, I felt Laudan did a great job of following through with the most likely trends of culinary progression based on how history unfolded. Some areas got a bit heavy on lists of specific dishes for me, but I think this is mostly just a personal preference. It did, however, teach me a lot of new ingredient names which I enjoyed learning about and digging into in my own time. It also gave me some ideas for new dishes to cook and use.
My favorite sections were the later ones, which dealt with 19th-20th century cuisines and are more visible in our daily lives today. Or rather, certain remnants are.

Overall, this book is quite niche and I would only recommend it for folks like me who are especially interested in food history. It is quite dense, so be prepared.

[Tetra Glucido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda, dentro de la literatura histórica respecto al impacto de la gastronomía en los desarrollos históricos, este es uno de los libros más fundamentales para comprender precisamente como la relación producción/ideología penetra nuestra realidad de la manera más naturalizada.

Aún así, si bien el libro me parece prácticamente excelente, se ven pequeñas carencias que a mí parecer se echan de menos. Ya que si bien se denomina como un libro de gastronomía global, hay una fijación en la gastronomía norte-europea o estadounidense. Se echan de menos profundizaciones en gastronomías balcánicas, del sudeste asiático o incluso de países europeos de relevancia como España o Portugal.

Ahora bien, si bien existen estas pequeñas carencias, lo cierto es que el volumen de contenido que presenta ya es lo suficientemente sorprendente como para merecerse la cuasiperfeccion. Las reflexiones respecto al material estudiado, por ejemplo, me parecen no solo pertinentes, sino que además permiten una mayor comprensión del tema que se trata en el libro.

Puede que no llegue a tratar toda la historia gastronómica, pero si que consigue infundir en el lector un aprecio por la gastronomia como una fuente relevante de conocimiento.

[Reagan Kuennen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay food history is just not for me😭 this is for my food history research class.

[Michal · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the beginning of the book, I was excited. It even made me think I could do a cooking workshop again. But I guess I'm not that much interested in this topic. At least, about in the middle of the book, I stopped reading and started scanning for some enjoyable parts. For sure the book contains interesting information, but it is packed with a very boring text of many long enumerations. It is super hard to follow it. Even more, if I don't know some mentioned food, or if I cannot imagine all the implications quickly. I would prefer if the book was less of an academical list of facts and included more of an analysis for the reader to understand it better.

[Nss2108 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an interesting history of the formation of cuisine from a few different angles--I think a history of food and cooking in general seems to require too much generalization to get beyond the textbook survey. The earlier chapters were a bit better than the later ones, but you also get the sense that it is pretty diffiuclt to say a ton about cuisines in any particularity in the premodern periods. I was hoping for a bit more analysis, and there was a lot of description and listing of dishes; would have also benefited from some more discussion of the Columbian exchange.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Food History

Rachel Laudan’s Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History is one of those sweeping, ambitious works that zooms far beyond recipes and restaurants—it’s a history of humanity itself told through pots, plates, and palates. When I first read it, I felt as if I was looking at food not as something cooked in a kitchen, but as something cooked in the crucible of empires, religions, and revolutions.

Laudan organises her narrative around “cuisines”, treating them as systems of cooking tied to power structures. From ancient grain gruels to the ritual feasts of Rome, from mediaeval Islamic refinement to modern industrialised food systems, she shows how the ruling powers shaped what people ate—and how ordinary cooks adapted, resisted, and sometimes transformed those influences. The book insists that there is no “pure” cuisine; everything is layered, borrowed, conquered, and reimagined.

What I loved most is how she dismantles the romantic notion of “traditional food”. For instance, much of what we think of as “authentic” is often the byproduct of empire—whether it’s Spanish colonists introducing wheat and cattle to the Americas, or colonial trade routes that turned sugar and spices into everyday staples. The way Laudan links the Protestant Reformation to plainer cooking styles, or industrial capitalism to the rise of fast, convenient food, is just dazzling.

It’s not a light read—it’s dense, meticulously researched, and sweeping in scope. But that’s exactly what makes it rewarding. Instead of narrowing down on one country or cuisine, Laudan keeps reminding us that food history is global. Empires expanded not just with armies but also with bread, rice, and maize. The flow of culinary ideas was as transformative as the flow of goods and gold.

By the end, I found myself reflecting on how every meal I eat is a palimpsest of world history. My rice might carry echoes of Asian domestication, the tomatoes in my curry a legacy of trans-Atlantic exchange, the very idea of three meals a day shaped by European norms. Laudan succeeds in showing that food is never just fuel—it is ideology, power, and history served on a plate.

If Freedman’s Ten Restaurants That Changed America is about how dining shaped American culture, Laudan’s Cuisine and Empire is the panoramic counterpart, reminding us that to taste the present, we must also taste the long, messy, glorious history of empire.

[Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

I forgot how I came across this book but the title grabbed me: food can be political, and there are lots of conversations about the "imperialism" of food: see how US fast food is gaining traction around the world, the questions of "appropriation" or "authenticity", etc. Author Lauden takes the reader though various cuisines around the world and how they developed along with whatever culture/empire.

It is a long, expansive and quite frankly really dry read. There is a ton of information in here, but as other negative reviews point out: there is no single narrative or narrative at all. Lauden talks about one period/culture/peoples/etc. and then moves on to the next one. To be fair, it is probably tough to track a single food item (pick one, like say rice or the tomato, etc.) through history but I did feel like I was reading a bunch of articles or novellas within one very long book.

Overall, there is food for thought (yes yes), and there is definitely stuff to consider when a conquering people takes over and that can affect diet and cuisine, etc. how foods and dishes change with history, time, colonialism, etc. There are movements of Indigenous peoples to highlight/sell/retake/etc. their foods and cuisines, which were lost or pushed aside in favor of the harvesting or processing or cooking the foods of the conquerors, so this was interesting in that context.

Would be unsurprised to find this as a college-level syllabus for history, food histories, etc. For a layperson, I would say you would probably need a specific interest and patience to read though a really dry and academic take on this topic. Some people really liked this but overall I'm glad I did not buy this book.

Library borrow was best for me.

[Rita Lei Chen 雷晨 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dual research of technology and concept is excellent. The whole book revolves around "what to eat (or not to eat), eat like this (or not like this)", and explore its inner ideological texture in depth. In general, the engine of food revolution comes from luxury goods rather than necessities. High-end food is endorsed by capital, technology, and transportation. Low-end food is isolated from innovative exchanges due to the constraints of localism. The medium-sized diet in the middle of the 19th century will not be produced until the industrial revolution matures, the middle class rises, the market expands, and the urbanization and industrialization are in place in the second half of the 19th century. In this process, the dietary universe philosophy also transitioned from the traditional hierarchy and fluid balance to the modern nutritional theory, and combined with the political concepts of republicans, liberals, nationalists and other political concepts to challenge authoritarianism, denying "dietary decisions and reflections" The concept of "social hierarchy". The author's ridicule of the yin and yang of French haute cuisine shows that the author is a temperamental person, and the irony of the so-called "pure natural" advocacy of contemporary food is even more thought-provoking.

[Evan Þ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this history of global food and attitudes about food, from the Babylonian Empire through the present. So much was eye-opening: from the interplay of cuisine between nomads and settled regions, to the waves of wheat and rice cuisines in East and South Asia, to the ancient and medieval theories of nutrition which greatly influenced upper-class cuisine. (In retrospect it feels obvious they'd have their own theories and be just as concerned about nutrition as we are - but I hadn't considered that till reading this!)

As someone who likes very different sorts of food, I feel now how much a privilege it is to live in an age of globalized cuisine, and an age where I can eat most any sort of fruits and vegetables all through the year. But more than that, I'm reminded of how unusual on a historical scale it is to live in an era of such food security. As Laudan reminds us, even though modern cuisine isn't perfect, it's given more people more nutrition than we had at any time in the past. And what's more, it's done that on a more equal and democratic basis than any time in the past.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book, even if sort of wish the focus had been less specific to "high" cuisine and discussed agriculture and subsistence techniques more broadly. In particular, I thought that the discussion in the last chapters about how European foodways diverged from the rest of the world's over the past 400 years, first due to an alchemically-motivated switch from valuing complex spice combinations and sugar to a rejection of sugar and focus on fat and broth as the important component of food, and then due to a 19th-Century obsession with wheat and beef as the "ideal" food, largely motivated by an attempt to imitate the British diet. (This deserves a much longer review and summary, but since it is due back at the library in a couple of days and I am very busy with work right now, this is the best it's going to get.)

[Jennie Rosenblum · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author begins the book with her main theme – Humans are the animals that cook. While I am not much of a cook – I do love food and history. The book is broken down into time periods such as Mastering Grain Cookery 20,000-300 B.C.E., Buddhism Transforms the Cuisines 260 B.C.E. – 800 C.E. all the way to Modern Cuisines 1920-2000. While this book makes a great textbook for a college level class it is still enjoyable for the lay person like me. Every once in a while I like jumping into a book that challenges me to think and take my time to absorb what I am reading. I really found it interesting to follow the author as she explained how cuisine traveled with the spread of religion. This one made my brain work in a very enjoyable way.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly dense, slow reading, but well worth it. Laudan's focus is the way different cuisines have spread or shrunk across the planet: brought by conquerors, borrowed by conquerors, transferred by trade, divided by social status (contrary to the idea of national cuisines, most countries eventually developed a high cuisine separate from peasant food) and constantly challenged by transnational religious movements, various reform movements (frowning on fancy food as self-indulgence goes back centuries) and of course shaped by modern science and mass production. Got it from the library, and promptly ordered a copy for myself.

[Nefeli Georgiou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delicious journey through history! Beginning from the 2nd millenium BC ending with the 2000s, Laudan takes you on a journey through the cuisines of the major empires around the world. As you 'eat' with them, Laudan explains not only their food, but through it, their values and worldviews! What a lens through which to view these great civilizations! While the book is extremely dense with information, it NEVER got tiring. It absorbs you, and the information seems to flow naturally without requiring significant brain power to comprehend- that is truly impressive for a purely historical book. I could not put it down, and I am sure I will go back to it again and again

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuisine and Empire gives an in-depth review of how people have created cuisines throughout history, with a specific focus on the impact of nations, immigration, and trade. As a foodie who loves cooking international dishes, I found this fascinating. If you want to learn about the spread of wheat through Eurasia and the introduction of fruits, vegetables, and grains from the new world, ancient cooking techniques, and the reason why French cuisine is considered high-end, this book is for you. It is a slow read because of its density (I spent six months on it), but it's so worth it.

[jph · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, thorough overview of the history of food, from the discovery of fire to the modern era. It is surprisingly comprehensive and doesn't make the mistake of dwelling too much on only European cuisine. The movement from starchy vegetables to grains and the artificiality of national peasant cuisines were very interesting points I hadn't really encountered before.

It is long and specialised, but honestly anyone who picks up the book, sees how thick it is, and reads the title should expect exactly that. It delivers what it advertises well.

[Simon Eskildsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was way more academic than I anticipated, so I ended up mostly skimming before finally putting it down. What intrigued me to pick this up was this endlessly fascinating image mapping the Mongol expansion on the spread of the dumpling:



Unfortunately, that's a lonely peak in this book.

[Ashwani Gupta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book, jam-packed with facts and big ideas, written by an author with an encyclopedic command of food history. This is essentially a world history written from the perspective of food.

If you've only read political history (wars & conquest, kings and queen, presidents and prime ministers,...), you'll find this alternate approach full of surprises. After all, food is much more fundamental than politics and, perhaps, the main driver of the world's political history.

On my (virtual) bookshelf, this gem of a book belongs right next to a paradigm changing world history like Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads. I highly recommend it.

[Carolyn McWilliams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating Food History for Foodies

Although the book starts slowly and felt very academic at the beginning, it was not long before I was riveted.i will look at food in a whole new way and recommend it to anyone with a combined interest in World History, World Cultures, and current cuisines.

[Mick de Waart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laudan shows that cuisine might be one of the greatest examples of memes (as in cultural equivalent of gene). The greatest culinary innovations spreading like wildfire and evolving over time by constantly being adopted and adapted. All modern cuisines stand on the shoulders of giants and I’m here for it.

[Kevin Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book with a lot of material to digest.

If you like history and connecting the dots for wide array of information, this is that kind of book albeit centered on food and politics. I definitely recommend this book.