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Food. We spend a good part of every day buying, preparing, eating, and savouring it. Only sleep and work take more time out of our lives. Margaret Visser uses the ingredients of an ordinary meal as a jumping-off point for an engaging, thoroughly researched look into one of our essential obsessions. Did you know that lettuce is a member of the daisy family? That sea salt is cultivated in salt gardens? From a mini-history of Will Kellogg and his corn flakes to the staple dish of the Tibetans (tsampa: barley flour, salted tea, and yak butter), Visser feeds our endless hunger for stories and anecdotes on food that can be shared around the groaning board.
Visser is the author of three other books: The Rituals of Dinner, The Way We Are, and a study of an Italian church, The Geography of Love. In all her work she manages to make sometimes bizarre history utterly fascinating. Aztec cannibals, for instance, were fond of eating something called “man-stew” mixed with maize. Grisly details aside, this fine book will leave you thoroughly sated and ready for an after-dinner cognac. --Mark Frutkin
Book Description
Named one of the best books of the year by
The New York Times Book Review and
Publishers Weekly, and winner of the Glenfiddich Prize for Food Book of the Year in the UK.“
