Cooking - History

What's on the Menu? An interesting progression of menus of the meals served at the majestic Hotel St. Catherine on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles, California. It also contains advertising brochures, post cards, match covers and other memorabilia for a...

The nineteenth-century West saw extraordinary economic growth and cultural change. This volume explores and explains the birth of the modern world through the food it produced and consumed. Food security vastly improved though malnutrition and famines persisted. Scientific research radically altered the ways in...

The warmth of the oven and the smell of fresh-baked bread conjure comforting memories of tradition and place. Aside from being a staple on every table in the South, these breads and their recipes detail the storied history of the region. Biscuits emerged from...

""The Social History of Bourbon: An Unhurried Account of Our Star-Spangled American Drink"" by Gerald Carson is a comprehensive and engaging exploration of the history of bourbon whiskey in the United States. The book traces the origins of bourbon from its early days as...

Originally published in 1879, this cooking classic was praised by Mrs. President Rutherford B. Hayes, Mrs. Chief Justice M. H. Waite, Mrs. Secretary of State W. M. Evarts, and a wide range of wives of Senators and Governors. The editor was the granddaughter of...

Nineteenth-century Britain was one of the birthplaces of modern vegetarianism in the west, and was to become a reform movement attracting thousands of people. From the Vegetarian Society's foundation in 1847, men, women and their families abandoned conventional diet for reasons as varied as...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

In commemoration of its fiftieth anniversary, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Council has created a beautiful cookbook, Masterpieces: A Celebration of Food and Art in Virginia, which offers a magnificent selection of recipes and artwork from around Virginia. Masterpieces, the second cookbook published...

Alison K. Smith examines changing attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs about the production and consumption of food in Russia from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. She focuses on the way that competing ideas based either in "traditional" Russian practice or in new...

Combining the study of food culture with gender studies and using per­spectives from historical, literary, environmental, and American studies, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt examines what southern women's choices about food tell us about race, class, gender, and social power. Shaken by the legacies of...

Transnational in scope, this much-needed volume explores how modernist writers and artists address and critique the dramatic changes to food systems that took place in the early twentieth century. During this period, small farms were being replaced with industrial agriculture, political upheavals exacerbated food...

Meatloaf, fried chicken, Jell-O, cake-because foods are so very common, we rarely think about them much in depth. The authors of Cooking Lessons however, believe that food is deserving of our critical scrutiny and that such analysis yields many important lessons about American society...

Food is critical to military performance, but it is also central to social interaction and fundamental to our sense of identity. The soldiers of the Great War did not shed their eating preferences with their civilian clothes, and the army rations, heavily reliant on...

Look. Swirl. Sniff. Taste. Savor. Whether you're tasting a refreshing white or an aromatic red, these well-known steps are the only proper way to take the first sip of wine. Oenophiles have never been rare, but over the past decade, wine culture has exploded....

The renowned California wine industry, famous for northern vintages, actually was born near El Pueblo de Los Angeles. Spanish missionaries harvested the first vintage in 1782 at Mission San Juan Capistrano and then cultivated enormous vineyards at Mission San Gabriel. Their replanted vine-cuttings took...

One of the most influential cooking primers of the Old SouthOriginally published in 1867 as Mrs. Hill's New Cook Book this encyclopedic treasury of recipes, cooking advice, and household hints brims with insight into the culinary heritage of the South in general and Georgia...

Sweets and the Sunshine State are a match made in heaven. Centuries ago, native Floridians used honey to sweeten dishes, as well as prickly pears and other wild fruits and berries. Spanish explorers introduced citrus to the area, leading to a major industry. Florida...

Long before the era of the foodie, the little coal-mining town of Krebs set the standard for celebrating food in Oklahoma. Its reputation as the Sooner State's Little Italy began in the mid-1870s when Italian immigrants chased the coal boom to Pittsburg County, deep...

This book is the original 18th century cookbook retyped in modern print. It is a complete reproduction exactly as Elizabeth wrote it. For more information about Elizabeth's fascinating life please see my other book about her, The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester, available on...

Olives are at once a mythical food--bringing to mind scenes from ancient Rome and the Bible--and an everyday food, given the ubiquity of olive oil in contemporary diets. In this succinct and engaging history, Fabrizia Lanza traces the olive's roots from antiquity, when olive...

Other than that it tastes delicious with butter, what do you know about the knobbily-armoured, scarlet creature staring back at you from your fancy dinner plate? Food writer Elisabeth Townsend here charts the global rise of the lobster as delicacy. Part of the Edible...

Milk--"It does a body good." It's difficult to deny the truth of the American Dairy Council's former advertising campaign. From birth milk is the sustaining and essential food of all mammals. It is the first food we ever taste. And yet, despite that natural...

Where would eggs benedict be without hollandaise, spaghetti without Bolognese, tortilla chips without salsa, or French fries without ketchup? A world without sauces is a dull and dry world indeed. But what exactly are sauces? How did they become a crucial element in every...

Lusciously sweet and with a complex texture, figs are both a nutritious culinary delicacy and an important symbol in religion and culture. Associated with Christmas since the time of Charles Dickens--not to mention Dionysus or the Garden of Eden--the fig is steeped in history....

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In Hindu scripture, the world began as an egg. Laid by a swan floating on the waters of chaos, after a year the egg split into silver and gold halves, with the silver becoming the earth...

If there is one thing the United States takes seriously (outside of sports), it's barbecue. Different in every region, barbecuing is an art, and Americans take pride in their special blend of slow-cooked meat, spices, and tangy sauces. But the US didn't invent the...

Hamburgers, pot roast, stew, steak, brisket--these mouthwatering dishes all have cows in common. But while the answer to the question, "Where's the beef?" may be, "everywhere," links to obesity and heart disease, mad-cow disease, and global warming have caused consumers to turn a suspicious...

"Man has been distinguished from other animals in various ways; but perhaps there is no particular in which he exhibits so marked a difference from the rest of creation-not even in the prehensile faculty resident in his hand-as in the objection to raw food,...

As the traditional British folk song that the rock group Traffic made famous in the 1970s and that lends its name to this book's title demonstrates, the battle against John Barleycorn was a losing one: "And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl /...

The old adage "you are what you eat" has never seemed more true than in this era, when ethics, politics, and the environment figure so prominently in what we ingest and in what we think about it. Then there are connoisseurs, whose approaches to...

This cookbook covers the years 1840 through 1945, a time during which American cookery underwent a full-scale revolution. Gas and electric stoves replaced hearth cookery. Milk products came from commercial dairy farms rather than the family cow. Daily meals were no longer bound by...

Students, Anglophiles, and literature hounds will want to delve into this delightful survey of foodways of a culture both ancient and cutting edge. Only in recent years have modern kitchen conveniences become taken for granted all over Britain. British cooking has also made tremendous...

Food and sex. Hunger and the psyche. These are the forces that shape our lives. "The sex life of food" doesn't mean that the strawberries have fallen in love with the oatmeal. It's a look at food--and sex--and how they go together in our...

There are no recipes for what the Indians ate in Colonial times, but this cookbook uses period quotations to detail what and how the foodstuffs were prepared. The bulk of the cookbook is devoted to what the European immigrants cooked and what evolved into...

Here is the book that Frank J. Prial in the New York Times Book Review called "delightful...it weaves history, geography, wine, and some of the fascinating people who make it into a downright enthralling tale." It is the grape that has been stepped on,...

From the one-time editor of the #1 bestselling The Good Food Guide, award-winning writer Drew Smith's Oyster: A Gastronomic History offers readers a global view of the oyster, tracing its role in cooking, art, literature, and politics from the dawn of time to the...

Have you ever wondered about the place-names that appear on Scotch whisky bottles? What language the names come from, what they mean or if they are even real places? If you feel baffled about where to start looking for such information, then this reliable...

In "Cooked," Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he 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...

The popularity of chocolate is never in doubt, but what are the true origins of this most delicious of treats? Who are the greatest chocolatiers? Which countries eat more than others? Is dark chocolate really good for you? Answers to all these questions and...

This is the classic cookbook, in its entirety - Over 100 french recipes. "Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere," wrote Mesdames Beck, Bertholle, and Child, "with the right instruction." And here is the book that, for more than forty years, has been...

Pasta and pizza, in all their infinitely delicious and universally appealing varieties, are inextricably connected to Italian identity. These familiar foods not only represent Italy's culinary traditions, according to anthropologist Franco La Cecla, they have unified the Italian people and spread Italian culture worldwide....

Before Hollywood goddesses like Gwyneth and Beyonc ; before Deliciously Ella and Vegan Before Six, there was Mrs Richter, the trailblazing nutritional guru who opened the world's first ever raw, vegan restaurant. Having opened its doors in 1917, the Eutropheon served up a delicious...

Barbecue is a word that means different things to different people. It can be a verb or a noun. It can be pulled pork or beef ribs. And, especially in the American South, it can cause intense debate and stir regional pride. Perhaps, then,...

Winner of the 2013 New York Book Show Award in Scholarly/Professional Book Design From Ernest and Julio Gallo to Francis Ford Coppola, Italians have shaped the history of California wine. More than any other group, Italian immigrants and their families have made California viticulture...

This book explores the origins and significance of the French concept of terroir, demonstrating that the way the French eat their food and drink their wine today derives from a cultural mythology that developed between the Renaissance and the Revolution. Through close readings and...

Montgomery County's Agricultural Reserve, created in 1980, was a history-making decision that is a model for land preservation.Montgomery County's earliest residents, Native Americans, developed agricultural communities and used the shores of the Potomac as a trading spot. European settlers farmed tobacco, eventually collapsing the...

Recipes born in the city of starsLos Angeles is a city where film mingles with food. From healthful salads to sweet treats inspired by California's agricultural bounty, the innovative fare mirrors the rise from a sleepy, western outpost to celluloid dream, where food has...

In a town that prides itself on buying local and all things Lowcountry, it s no surprise that artisanal craft beer has taken the Holy City by storm. With four established breweries, dedicated retail stores and bars, a home brewing club and the annual...

Nothing causes a stir on social media platforms like a topical discussion on the latest food trend. Modern-day chefs like to think that they are creative and often claim to push boundaries of food creation, but if we want to explore real culinary creativity...

Chris Fair has dined with soldiers in the Khyber Pass and with prostitutes in Delhi, rummaged for fish in Jaffna, and sipped Taliban tea in Peshawar. Cuisines of the Axis of Evil is a sophisticated, fun, and provocative cookbook with easy-to-follow recipes from both...