Customer Reviews

America's First Cuisines

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This book is one of my favorites in recent years. I have become interested in the history of foods and Sophie Coe was an incredible scholar. Her books are great reading and amusing. Unfortunately she is no longer with us but she has left us with two wonderful books on the foods of the Americas (The True History of Chocolate--finished by her husband Michael Coe, another great writer of history. I highly reccommend this one as well).

The list of food products discovered or created by the American Indians seems endless: corn, manioc (cassava, yuka, or tapioca) squash, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, pineapples, avocados, vanilla, and chile peppers -- plus for your Thanksgiving table, turkey, and for your wicked moments, tobacco, coca, and magic mushrooms. Conversely, there's been very little written about pre-Columbian cusine. Coe's book fills this lacunae.

The Spanish destroyed every aspect of Indian culture they could but enough accounts of Indian food were recorded to partially construct what they ate. Coe focuses on the food of the three main civilizations in the Americas at the time of Columbus: the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. A lot more information survived about the food of the Aztecs than the other two.

Working with fragmentary information Coe has reconstructed the cuisines of these civilizations -- and rich indeed were the foods they ate -- dozens of variations of tortillas and tamales, a heavy reliance on chiles, innumerable varieties of potatoes, and a huge variety of chocolate dishes that seem ripe for the exploration by culinary adventurers, entrepreneurs, and writers of cook books. The notion, often advanced, that the pre-Columbian diet was boring, primitive, or deficient is refuted persuasively here.

The book suffers a bit from being an overly broad summary that left me hungry (groan!!!) for more information about many foods only barely mentioned. There's plenty of material here for additional books and questions to be answered. To echo an earlier reviewer: what did the Italians eat before the tomato amd the Irish before the potato?

Smallchief

I have interests in cooking and history. This book covers both and in an excellent way. The author's writing style is engaging and entertaining. I felt drawn into the book immediately and have a hard time putting it down. Ms. Coe's insights are funny and the amount of detail presented feels just right. She covers first the foodstuffs unique to the Americas then dives into the specifics for the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Inca. She discusses both pre-European contact and post-European contact cuisines and cultures.

It isn't really a recipe book but her descriptions of the food gave me many ideas on how to prepare some of the dishes listed. It is truly a culinary anthropology book but don't let that put you off; it is easy and worthwhile even for us lay-folk. I also have a copy of her book on chocolate and am looking forward to reading that when this one is done.

I recommend it if you have any interest in cooking, history, the Americas, or any of the cultures listed.