Near a Thousand Tables : A History of Food by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Positives: rambly accounts of food history, ecology, cultural and political significance, etc. Lots of great anecdotes – mozzarella from water buffalos! The chocolate bar invented partially as a temperance object to keep people from drinking! (Which sent me lunging for the internet to find out how long it took someone to invent chocolate liqueur. My faith in humanity is sustained by learning that alcoholic chocolate beverages actually predate the chocolate bar by nearly two centuries. Priorities, people).



Negatives: Cheerful use of the phrase “cultural miscegenation,” coupled with an occasionally . . . weird tone when discussing imperial and colonial relationships significant to food history.



Cultural miscegenation? Seriously?





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