The first recipes to have survived in Latin, from the 2nd century BC, it is a particularly important resource. Cato wrote the earliest surviving complete work of Latin prose literature. It was this treatise: a book of instruction about the cultivation of vines, olives and fruit, the management of slaves and contract labour, the rituals consequent on ownership and even cookery for humans and the pharmacy.

The New York Times bestselling work of undercover journalism in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed that fully investigates our food system to explain what keeps Americans from eating well—and what we can do about it.When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? A...

Join Texas food writer Robb Walsh on a grand tour complete with larger-than-life characters, colorful yarns, rare archival photographs, and a savory assortment of more than 100 recipes for crispy, crunchy Tex-Mex foods.From the Mexican pioneers of the sixteenth century, who first brought horses and cattle to Texas, to the Spanish mission era when cumin and garlic were introduced, to the 1890s when the Chile Queens of San Antonio sold their peppery stews to gringos ...

Provence, 1970 is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery. Without quite realizing it, they were shaping today’s tastes and culture, the way we ...

From a James Beard Award–winning author, a fresh take on traditional recipes from England, Scotland and Wales.The British Table: A New Look at the Traditional Cooking of England, Scotland, and Wales celebrates the best of British cuisine old and new. Drawing on a vast number of sources, both historical and modern, the book includes more than 150 recipes, from traditional regional specialties to modern gastropub reinventions of rustic fare. Dishes like fish...

The essence of Japan is captured right here in this beautiful Japanese cookbook!More than any other cuisine in the world, Japanese food is a complete aesthetic experience—a delight for the eyes, the nose and the palate. The desire to enhance rather than to alter the essential quality of fresh seasonal ingredients results in a cuisine that is unique, a tribute to nature and what people can create from it.In Authentic Recipes from Japan, the essence ...

A surprise–filled shellfish survey dishes up “ample oyster facts, figures and literary lore” (Publishers Weekly).When award–winning Texas food writer Robb Walsh discovers that the local Galveston Bay oysters are being passed off as Blue Points and Chincoteagues in other parts of the country, he decides to look into the matter. Thus begins a five–year journey into the culture of one of the world’s oldest delicacies. Walsh’s through–the–looking–glass adventu...

This book provides an excellent overview of Tudor food and eating habits. Chapters cover food and society in the sixteenth century, kitchens and cooking, what people drank, food and health (including Tudor ideas on healthy eating), setting the table and table manners, feasting and banquets.Alison Sim shows that dining habits in the sixteenth century were not the same as those of the Middle Ages and that tudor dining, at least for the wealthier section of the popula...

Barbara Haber, one of America's most respected authorities on the history of food, has spent years excavating fascinating stories of the ways in which meals cooked and served by women have shaped American history. As any cook knows, every meal, and every diet, has a story -- whether it relates to presidents and first ladies or to the poorest of urban immigrants. From Hardtack to Home Fries brings together the best and most inspiring of those stories, from the 1840s to the present,...

The category of "charity cookbook" is a favorite in American culinary history. Funds raised by sales of these cookbooks, with recipes donated by women's groups and church societies, were used to aid a wide variety of local causes and charities. Housekeeping in the Blue Grass belongs in this category—an excellent example of regional cooking styles of the post-Civil War Midwest.Several hundred recipes compiled by the Ladies of the Presbyterian Church in Paris, Kentucky, to r...

Once and for all, America learns the likely inventor of its beloved bourbon.Bourbon is not just alcohol--this amber-colored drink is deeply ingrained in American culture and tangled in American history. From the early days of raw corn liquor to the myriad distilleries that have proliferated around the country today, bourbon has come to symbolize America. In Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey, award-winning spirits author Fred Minni...

Warning: This is Not a Cookbook!Food and Feast does, however, contain over two hundred recipes–medieval recipes in their original medieval form, medieval recipes in modern terms, traditional Scottish recipes, modern midwest American, recipes for eating in the wilderness, and even exotic and slightly dangerous recipes, drawn from scenes in the acclaimed Blue Bells Chronicles.In an eclectic mix, Food and Feast also digs into tasty morsels of history, succulent songs, meaty me...