Three World Cuisines http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Three-World-Cuisines-Ken-Albala/9780759121256

Italian, Mexican, Chinese (Altamira Studies in Food and Gastronomy)

By Ken Albala

Table of Contents

List of Figures List of Recipes A Note on the Recipes Introduction: A Theory of Gastronomy Chapter 1. Historical Background Chapter 2. Technology, Utensils, and Techniques Chapter 3. Grains and Starches Chapter 4. Vegetables Chapter 5. Fruits and Nuts Chapter 6. Meat, Poultry, and Dairy Products Chapter 7. Fish and Shellfish Chapter 8. Fats and Flavorings Chapter 9. Beverages Glossary Bibliography Index

About the Author

Ken Albala is professor of history at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he has taught courses on food history. He also teaches in the gastronomy program at Boston University. He is the author of many books on food, including Eating Right in the Renaissance (2002), Food in Early Modern Europe (2003), Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650 (2005), and Beans: A History (2008). His co-authored cookbook is The Lost Art of Real Cooking (2010). Albala has also edited or co-edited a number of works such as the Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia and served as series editor for Food Culture around the World and Cooking Up History series. He is the general editor of AltaMira Studies in Food and Gastronomy and the co-editor of the journal Food, Culture and Society.

Reviews

Ken Albala is a leader in the movement to unite academic food studies with the practices of cooking. He offers new understandings of Chinese, Italian, and Mexican cuisines by comparing their historical development and material culture. This is serious history informed by mouth-watering recipes. -- Jeffrey M. Pilcher, University of Minnesota This is a great book for students of culinary cultures and for people who love to cook and [learn about] the ideas underlying cooking. I'm a great fan of Albala and his work. He's an academic and brings that intelligence to the work, but he writes for the cook in us all, and I love how he intertwines, scholarship, passion, cooking know-how, and a love of life and food. -- Michael Ruhlman, journalist and author of Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto Historian and gastronomer Albala notes in his introduction, "that every culture discussed here...harbored various and often opposing food ideologies, each of which made their rival claims upon every individual." After the opening chapter's impressively quick-paced historical overview of cuisine in Italy, Mexico, and China, Albala approaches modernity via individual foodstuffs. He demonstrates how all three cultures cook and serve porridge, then moves through vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, desserts, and beverages...This text should be recognized as an impressive, if imperfect, addition to the culinary or history classroom. Publishers Weekly