Food: A History

Food: A History

New 1 available
Only 1 left – grab it before it’s gone!
R250.00
Want to pay less?
Shipping
R35.00 Standard shipping using one of our trusted couriers applies to most areas in South Africa. Some areas may attract a R30.00 surcharge. This will be calculated at checkout if applicable.
Check my rate
The seller allows collection for this item. Buyers will receive the collection address and time once the order is ready.
The seller has indicated that they will usually have this item ready to ship within 2 business days. Shipping time depends on your delivery address. The most accurate delivery time will be calculated at checkout, but in general, the following shipping times apply:
 
Standard Delivery
Main centres:  1-3 business days
Regional areas: 3-4 business days
Remote areas: 3-5 business days
Seller
Buyer protection
Get it now, pay later

Product details

Condition
New
Location
South Africa
Product code
msc1s1
Bob Shop ID
651413052
Published by Macmillan , 2001, hardcover, illustrated, index, 287 pages, condition: as new.
How best to grasp food's place in history? Historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto places its beginnings in cooking, a social act that forges culture (and is perhaps responsible for it), then pursues it as a series of "revolutions"--from the inception of cooking, herding, and agriculture to food industrialization and, finally, modern globalization. Informatively dense yet spry and aphoristic, the book explores food as rite and magic (it "binds those who believe, brands those who don't"); the domestication of animals (snails are the world's oldest "cattle"); farming and food's use as an index of rank ("greatness goes with greatness of girth"--or at least it did); food's role in trade and cultural exchange (Tex-Mex cooking as a form of colonial miscegenation); and as a force in and for industrialization (canning as the cooking of the Industrial Revolution). In the end, we are brought to "the loneliness of the fast food eater" and the "dissocializing" effect of microwave cooking and other forms of modern food manipulation that alienate us from the communal act that "made" culture. "Food gives pleasure," Fernández-Armesto writes, and "can change the eater for better or worse." He concludes, "the role of the next revolution will be to subvert the last."

This is a fascinating book that shows us ourselves: like the cannibal, who eats his enemy to appropriate his power, we believe in food's transformative effect, which through devotion to vegetarianism and other special diets will make us "better." It paints a picture both sweeping and precise. --Arthur Boehm

Add to cart

Recently viewed

See more
Op die plaas - C. M. Van den Heever (Hard cover with no dj)
Secondhand
R99.00
You Let's Cook Top 500+ Recipes 2 compiled by Carmen Niehaus
Secondhand
R85.00
Fire Fighting Renus Hand Gun
New
R565.00
USA 1936 Scott #784 Susan B. Anthony 3c Purple
Secondhand
R4.00

Similar products

Food: A History
New
R250.00
Rude Food - Nude Food - Good Food - Jenny Morris
Secondhand
R70.00
Fast food, real food
Secondhand
R30.00
Best Food Fast - Food for Friends (Paperback)
Secondhand
R40.00