Food in History

Rating:
Summary: Food for Thought
Review: Food in History is an academic, yet readable, overview of food throughout history. From prehistoric hunting and gathering to modern day genetically modified crops, Tannahill looks at how food availability, preparation, and consumption have a profound affect on culture and politics.

The book is divided into broad time categories - first thousands of years and then hundreds. In each section, Tannahill explores food in different broad areas such as the Americas, Europe, Asia, India, Africa, etc. This is not a cookbook - don't expect historical recipes. Also keep in mind that it's an overview - don't expect details on the evolution of every single regional cuisine. Food in History is very well researched and comprehensively documented. Tannahill has a pleasant writing style, and just when the material threatens to get a bit too dry, up pops an interesting factoid or anecdote to recapture your interest.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in how food has helped shape our history.

Rating:
Summary: Great Synopsis of Food, and also World History
Review: Food in History is an excellent introduction to a piece of human history that is probably so obviously important it's not widely researched: the crucial part that food played and plays in human society. Sure, everyone learns about how the spice trade was a leading factor in the Age of Exploration, and the discovery of crop rotation in the early Middle Ages, which "killed more than one child's interest in history" as the author rightly points out. This book goes much farther than that, showing the development of eating habits from neolithic man up to the early/mid 20th Century. Along the way, the author points out some truths that will be unpleasant to the food faddists of the early 21st Century: Humans ARE omnivores by evolution, and salt is also an evolution-induced craving, are just two of the basic points in the story of humans and food. (Speaking of food fads, these aren't limited to our Century and the US, fruit was considered dangerous by more than one culture and for reasons that sound depressingly familiar concerning dietary recommendations today...)
In a survey like this one, it can't do justice to EVERY culture's cuisine, but it does come close. Roman, Arab, Indian, Asian, and the influence of the Americas on European foods are well covered. The prose is lively, much wittier than I thought it would be given the subject, but also scholastic.
Is this a "popular" history? Yeah, I would say so, but there is also great material in here for the student and historian. So much so, that Food in History would make a great supplemental book for a World History course. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Great Synopsis of Food, and also World History
Review: Food in History is an excellent introduction to a piece of human history that is probably so obviously important it's not widely researched: the crucial part that food played and plays in human society. Sure, everyone learns about how the spice trade was a leading factor in the Age of Exploration, and the discovery of crop rotation in the early Middle Ages, which "killed more than one child's interest in history" as the author rightly points out. This book goes much farther than that, showing the development of eating habits from neolithic man up to the early/mid 20th Century. Along the way, the author points out some truths that will be unpleasant to the food faddists of the early 21st Century: Humans ARE omnivores by evolution, and salt is also an evolution-induced craving, are just two of the basic points in the story of humans and food. (Speaking of food fads, these aren't limited to our Century and the US, fruit was considered dangerous by more than one culture and for reasons that sound depressingly familiar concerning dietary recommendations today...)
In a survey like this one, it can't do justice to EVERY culture's cuisine, but it does come close. Roman, Arab, Indian, Asian, and the influence of the Americas on European foods are well covered. The prose is lively, much wittier than I thought it would be given the subject, but also scholastic.
Is this a "popular" history? Yeah, I would say so, but there is also great material in here for the student and historian. So much so, that Food in History would make a great supplemental book for a World History course. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, yet not complete...
Review: I've learned a lot from "Food in History". It is very informative and at the same time far from being a boring history book. My only objection to it may not seem to be a very objective one, yet I believe it is. Reay Tannahill, whom it seems worked really hard on this book somehow missed to mention a very rich and cultivated cuisine. Turkish cuisine is accepted to be one of the most important cuisines of the world. There are many international food critics and chefs who replace it right after French and Chineese cuisines on their list. All through the book; neither during the last ages as Ottoman Cuisine, nor in our time as Turkish Cuisine, it existes for her. Both getting it's sources from the Imperial Ottoman cuisine, Turkey and Greece share a very valuable food heritage today. If an etimologist works on an ordinary Greec menu he can easily figure out that lots of food names have Turkish origins. And although even the people who live in Greece accept that the best examples of it could be tasted in Turkey, Reay Tannahill somehow doesn't mention it. While Russian cuisine is taking part at the "A Grand Gastronomical Tour" section of "Food in History" I really wonder why a cuisine that has -let alone the rest of it- more than 100 different aubergine dishes is unmentionable! I know Turkey is not a succesfull country when it comes to express it's own values. But I also believe that when someone intends to write such a book it is her own responsibility to find out the facts even if they had been misexpressed. If Reay Tannahill could do that, the word "turkey" wouldn't only mean poultry to her.

Hulya Eksigil

Rating:
Summary: Why the Religious Minded Won't like this Book.
Review: The book is a facinating look, much like the author's previous work "Sex in History", at what makes man so entertaining.

The religious reader will not like the book as it points out how many religious laws and prohibitions are based on cultural mores derived from common sense, not edicts from God. The Hindu belief in the Sacredness of Cows, the Jewish Kosher laws, Islam's ban on pork, all have their foundation in perfectly reasonable prohibitions for those cultures at a given time in history. The fact they became religious laws illustrates that religion was a convenient way to enforce societal rules in absence of a strong central authority. They served the same purpose as the fabled Ten Commandments of the nomadic tribal Jews. The threat of eternal damnation has always been and still is a persuasive deterrent to those with primitive, superstitious and unsophisticated minds.

India was conquered by a nomadic culture who imposed the common sense belief that a live milk producing cow could feed more people for a longer period than one that was butchered and eaten.
Pretty much common sense.

Like her previous work "Sex in History" the author is insightful and amusing in her presentation of facts too many people would
like to ignore, that illustrate the all too shaky and fragile basis for so many of our cherished beliefs.

Rating:
Summary: the connection between society and food through the ages
Review: The book shows how man has learned to use food to his advantage. It gives menues from roman times as well as how man hunted and gathered . It also goes into every aspect of cooking and food storage during the middle ages and later. I would rrecoment this book for any person interested in food.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: This book is a comprehensive overview of both the history of food and how food changed history. Tannahill describes what people ate all over the world from prehistoric times through the present. The book is divided into the following sections: prehistoric times, 3000 BC to 1000 AD, 1000 AD to 1492, 1492-1789, and 1789 to the present. In each section, there are separate chapters on areas of the world, such as China, India, the Arab World, Europe, and the Americas. One slightly annoying facet of the book is Tannahill's tendency to shift focus from one time or region to another as she describes a topic in detail (for example, in chapter 12 where she is describing the animals that were kept in medieval towns in Europe, she includes comments about 19th century New York.) Tannahill writes from a British vantage point, and occasionally displays some lack of understanding of American culture, which can be either amusing or annoying for American readers (such as when she suggests that America is "more hygiene-conscious than other countries" "because it played host to so many religious sects that held cleanliness inseparable from godliness"). Nevertheless, these shortcomings are quite small, and the book is extremely informative and interesting to read.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: This book is a comprehensive overview of both the history of food and how food changed history. Tannahill describes what people ate all over the world from prehistoric times through the present. The book is divided into the following sections: prehistoric times, 3000 BC to 1000 AD, 1000 AD to 1492, 1492-1789, and 1789 to the present. In each section, there are separate chapters on areas of the world, such as China, India, the Arab World, Europe, and the Americas. One slightly annoying facet of the book is Tannahill's tendency to shift focus from one time or region to another as she describes a topic in detail (for example, in chapter 12 where she is describing the animals that were kept in medieval towns in Europe, she includes comments about 19th century New York.) Tannahill writes from a British vantage point, and occasionally displays some lack of understanding of American culture, which can be either amusing or annoying for American readers (such as when she suggests that America is "more hygiene-conscious than other countries" "because it played host to so many religious sects that held cleanliness inseparable from godliness"). Nevertheless, these shortcomings are quite small, and the book is extremely informative and interesting to read.

Rating:
Summary: How food makes culture, and culture makes food...
Review: This book is a fascinating trip through history viewed from food - what people ate, why they ate it, how it changed them and the world. No recipes - but plenty of menus from pre-history to Rome, China, the Americas, the Industrial Revolution to the late 20th century.

Every aspect of the influence of food on human development and worl history is examined - everything from vegetarianism to cannibalism.

As for me, I finally know what "pease porridge" really is!

Rating:
Summary: Very informative and entertaining
Review: This is a great book for anyone who ever asked "I wonder where this food/recipe came from." It is well written being both informative and entertaining to read. If your interests are in history or cooking, this is a winner.