Kitchen in Corfu or Moveable Feasts

Kitchen in Corfu

Author: James Chatto

Since Odysseus died on mezethes and spit-roasted meat on Corfu in the Homeric epic, the island has been conquered by Rome and Byzantium; taken by Norman adventurers, Genoese pirates and the Angevin kings of Naples; and held for four hundred years by the Venetians. Through the vicissitudes of war and peace the classical Greek cooking has become distinctly Corfiot.

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Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food

Author: Gregory McName

Food has functioned both as a source of continuity and as a subject of adaptation over the course of human history. Onions have been a staple of the European diet since the Paleolithic era; by contrast, the orange is once again being cultivated in large quantities in southern China, where it was originally grown. Other foods remain staples of their original regions as well as of the world diet at large. Still others are now grown in places that would have seemed impossible in the past—bananas in heated greenhouses in Iceland, corn on the fringes of the Gobi Desert, tomatoes on the International Space Station. But how did humans discover how to grow and incorporate these foods into their diet in the first place? How were they chosen over competing foods? In this charming and frequently surprising compendium, Moveable Feasts gathers revelations from history, anthropology, chemistry, biology, and many other fields and spins them into entertaining tales of discovery while adding more than ninety delicious recipes from various culinary traditions around the world.  Among the thirty types of food discussed in the course of this alphabetically arranged work are the apple, the banana, chocolate, coffee, corn, garlic, honey, millet, the olive, the peanut, the pineapple, the plum, rice, the soybean, the tomato, and the watermelon. All the recipes accompanying these diverse food histories have been adapted for re-creation in the modern kitchen.

KLIATT

Have you ever wondered about the history of a particular food? Well, here is a delightful book that answers those questions. Each chapter contains a brief history of the food, basic nutritional information and trivia, all related in a conversational tone, followed by several recipes containing the featured ingredient and suggestions for further reading. Some of the 30 foods discussed are: apple, chocolate, coffee, garlic, honey, peanut, plum, soybean, tomato and watermelon. All recipes accompanying these diverse food histories have been adapted for the modern kitchen. Gregory McNamee is the author of 28 books and has also published articles in a wide variety of periodicals including Smithsonian and Sierra. He is also a contributing editor for Encyclopedia Britannica. This is a fascinating book. Reviewer: Shirley Reis

Pauline Baughman - Library Journal

All food is the product of history, but who ate the first tomatoes and garlic, and how did they become so important in our diet and ubiquitous at the grocery store? Writer, journalist, editor, and critic McNamee presents a cultural geography of how food, such as broccoli, corn, rice, and honey, has moved about the planet. Each chapter contains a brief history of the food, basic nutritional information, and trivia, spun together in a chatty, conversational tone, followed by several recipes containing the featured ingredient and suggestions for further reading. While the primary focus is supposedly history, this title is heavy on anecdote with its true focus on storytelling. Recipes seem like a bit of an afterthought and, on occasion, in some ways unrelated to the text. Nevertheless, this amusing volume will likely appeal to casual readers; serious scholars of food history, as well as those writing reports, will want to explore further reading. For larger collections.