shopping cart
Save up to 30% on our Staff Picks
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Interviews | December 15, 2009

Jill Owens: IMG The Powells.com Interview with Eoin Colfer



eoincolferEoin Colfer is best known for his bestselling Artemis Fowl series, which inspires fanatical devotion in its fans. Entertainment Weekly raved: "The... Continue »
  1. $18.19 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$16.95
New Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Available for In-store Pickup
in 7 to 12 days
Qty Store Section
2 Remote Warehouse Cooking and Food- Historical Food and Cooking

Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food (At Table)

by Gregory Mcnamee

Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food (At Table) Cover

ISBN13: 9780803216327
ISBN10: 0803216327
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $16.95!

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

Review:

"In delightfully readable prose, McNamee considers some 30 assorted foods that make up a substantial part of the earths comestible bounty."-Mark Knoblauch, Booklist
(Mark Knoblauch, Booklist)

Review:

"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 hone, 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."-Library Journal
(Library Journal)

About the Author

Gregory McNamee is the author or editor of twenty-eight books and has published articles in a wide variety of periodicals, from Smithsonian and Sierra to the Washington Post. He is a contributing editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica, for which he writes about world geography and culture, including food.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780803216327
Subtitle:
The History, Science, and Lore of Food
Author:
Mcnamee, Gregory
Author:
McNamee, Gregory
Publisher:
University of Nebraska Press
Subject:
Sociology - General
Subject:
Cookery
Subject:
Food
Subject:
Life Sciences - Horticulture
Subject:
History
Subject:
Food -- History.
Subject:
Cookery -- History.
Series:
At Table
Publication Date:
April 2008
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
194
Dimensions:
8.99x6.25x.46 in. .66 lbs.

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.