The Cooking of History
The Cooking of History

Author: Stephan Palmié

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-06-14

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 022601973X

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Over a lifetime of studying Cuban Santería and other religions related to Orisha worship—a practice also found among the Yoruba in West Africa—Stephan Palmié has grown progressively uneasy with the assumptions inherent in the very term Afro-Cuban religion. In The Cooking of History he provides a comprehensive analysis of these assumptions, in the process offering an incisive critique both of the anthropology of religion and of scholarship on the cultural history of the Afro-Atlantic World. Understood largely through its rituals and ceremonies, Santería and related religions have been a challenge for anthropologists to link to a hypothetical African past. But, Palmié argues, precisely by relying on the notion of an aboriginal African past, and by claiming to authenticate these religions via their findings, anthropologists—some of whom have converted to these religions—have exerted considerable influence upon contemporary practices. Critiquing widespread and damaging simplifications that posit religious practices as stable and self-contained, Palmié calls for a drastic new approach that properly situates cultural origins within the complex social environments and scholarly fields in which they are investigated.

The Cooking of History
The Cooking of History

Author: Stephan Palmié

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-06-14

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 022601942X

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Over a lifetime of studying Cuban Santería and other religions related to Orisha worship—a practice also found among the Yoruba in West Africa—Stephan Palmié has grown progressively uneasy with the assumptions inherent in the very term Afro-Cuban religion. In The Cooking of History he provides a comprehensive analysis of these assumptions, in the process offering an incisive critique both of the anthropology of religion and of scholarship on the cultural history of the Afro-Atlantic World. Understood largely through its rituals and ceremonies, Santería and related religions have been a challenge for anthropologists to link to a hypothetical African past. But, Palmié argues, precisely by relying on the notion of an aboriginal African past, and by claiming to authenticate these religions via their findings, anthropologists—some of whom have converted to these religions—have exerted considerable influence upon contemporary practices. Critiquing widespread and damaging simplifications that posit religious practices as stable and self-contained, Palmié calls for a drastic new approach that properly situates cultural origins within the complex social environments and scholarly fields in which they are investigated.

The Cooking Gene
The Cooking Gene

Author: Michael W. Twitty

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-07-31

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 0062876570

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2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts

A History of Cookbooks
A History of Cookbooks

Author: Henry Notaker

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0520294009

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Prologue: a rendez-vous -- The cook -- Writer and author -- Origin and early development of modern cookbooks -- Printed cookbooks: diffusion, translation, and plagiarism -- Organizing the cookbook -- Naming the recipes -- Pedagogical and didactic aspects -- Paratexts in cookbooks -- The recipe form -- The cookbook genre -- Cookbooks for rich and poor -- Health and medicine in cookbooks -- Recipes for fat and lean days -- Vegetarian cookbooks -- Jewish cookbooks -- Cookbooks and aspects of nationalism -- Decoration, illusion, and entertainment -- Taste and pleasure -- Gender in cookbooks and household books -- Epilogue: cookbooks and the future

Cooking through History [2 volumes]
Cooking through History [2 volumes]

Author: Melanie Byrd

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-12-02

Total Pages: 1137

ISBN-13:

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From the prehistoric era to the present, food culture has helped to define civilizations. This reference surveys food culture and cooking from antiquity to the modern era, providing background information along with menus and recipes. Food culture has been central to world civilizations since prehistory. While early societies were limited in terms of their resources and cooking technology, methods of food preparation have flourished throughout history, with food central to social gatherings, celebrations, religious functions, and other aspects of daily life. This book surveys the history of cooking from the ancient world through the modern era. The first volume looks at the history of cooking from antiquity through the Early Modern era, while the second focuses on the modern world. Each volume includes a chronology, historical introduction, and topical chapters on foodstuffs, food preparation, eating habits, and other subjects. Sections on particular civilizations follow, with each section offering a historical overview, recipes, menus, primary source documents, and suggestions for further reading. The work closes with a selected, general bibliography of resources suitable for student research.

A History of Cooks and Cooking
A History of Cooks and Cooking

Author: Michael Symons

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2003-10-15

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780252071928

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Never has there been so little need to cook. Yet Michael Symons maintains that to be truly human we need to become better cooks: practical and generous sharers of food.Fueled by James Boswell's definition of humans as cooking animals (for "no beast can cook"), Symons sets out to explore the civilizing role of cooks in history. His wanderings take us to the clay ovens of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean and the bronze cauldrons of ancient China, to fabulous banquets in the temples and courts of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia, to medieval English cookshops and southeast Asian street markets, to palace kitchens, diners, and to modern fast-food eateries.Symons samples conceptions and perceptions of cooks and cooking, from Plato and Descartes to Marx and Virginia Woolf, asking why cooks, despite their vital and central role in sustaining life, have remained in the shadows, unheralded, unregarded, and underappreciated. "People think of meals as occasions where you share food," he notes. "They rarely think of cooks as sharers of food."Considering such notions as the physical and political consequences of sauce, connections between food and love, and cooking as a regulator of clock and calendar, Symons provides a spirited and diverting defense of a cook-centered view of the world.Michael Symons is the author of One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia and The Shared Table.

Food
Food

Author: Jean-Louis Flandrin

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-05-21

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 023111155X

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When did we first serve meals at regular hours? Why did we begin using individual plates and utensils to eat? When did "cuisine" become a concept and how did we come to judge food by its method of preparation, manner of consumption, and gastronomic merit? Food: A Culinary History explores culinary evolution and eating habits from prehistoric times to the present, offering surprising insights into our social and agricultural practices, religious beliefs, and most unreflected habits. The volume dispels myths such as the tale that Marco Polo brought pasta to Europe from China, that the original recipe for chocolate contained chili instead of sugar, and more. As it builds its history, the text also reveals the dietary rules of the ancient Hebrews, the contributions of Arabic cookery to European cuisine, the table etiquette of the Middle Ages, and the evolution of beverage styles in early America. It concludes with a discussion on the McDonaldization of food and growing popularity of foreign foods today.

History of American Cooking
History of American Cooking

Author: Merril D. Smith

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-01-09

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13:

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Ideal for American history and food history students as well as general readers, this book spans 500 years of cooking in what is now the United States, supplying recipes and covering the "how" and "why" of eating. This book examines the history and practice of cooking in what is now the United States from approximately the 15th century to the present day, covering everything from the hot-stone cooking techniques of the Nootka people of the Pacific Northwest to the influence of Crisco—a shortening product intended as a substitute for lard—upon American cooking in the 20th century. Learning how American cooking has evolved throughout the centuries provides valuable insights into life in the past and offers hints to our future. The author describes cooking methods used throughout American history, spotlighting why particular methods were used and how they were used to produce particular dishes. The historical presentation of information will be particularly useful to high school students studying U.S. history and learning about how wartime and new technology affects life across society. General readers will enjoy learning about the topics mentioned above, as well as the in-depth discussions of such dishes as fried chicken, donuts, and Thanksgiving turkey. Numerous sample recipes are also included.

What's Cooking?
What's Cooking?

Author: Sylvia Whitman

Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9780822517320

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A look at food in the United States from colonial times to the present, describing what we have eaten, where it came from, and how it reflected events in American history.

Cooked
Cooked

Author: Michael Pollan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-04-29

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0143125338

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Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, How to Change Your Mind, and This is Your Mind on Plants explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen in Cooked. "Having described what's wrong with American food in his best-selling The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), New York Times contributor Pollan delivers a more optimistic but equally fascinating account of how to do it right. . . . A delightful chronicle of the education of a cook who steps back frequently to extol the scientific and philosophical basis of this deeply satisfying human activity." —Kirkus (starred review) Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that focuses on the four kinds of "transformations" that occur in cooking. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and starring Michael Pollan, Cooked teases out the links between science, culture and the flavors we love. In Cooked, Pollan discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us. The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.