Thus The Guardian spoke about this most unusual approach to social history, in which C. Anne Wilson traces culinary practices and preferences from our earliest prehistoric forbears all the way down to the generation of the Industrial Revolution, and offers an extraordianary taste of the times. This work of first-rate scholarship is enornously readable and entertaining; its publication in the UK was greeted with wild enthusiasm, and the author has prepared a new introduction and updated bibliography for this first US edition.
American readers will become acquainted with the sources of many of our current tastes and conventions. Discover "macrows," the prototype of macaroni, and that "whales, porpoises and sturgeon were all royal fish." Meringue, to the Elizabethans, was a "dishful of snow," and rather difficult to whip up before the advent of the fork in the late 17th century. Before the Reformation, all buns were "hot cross" in order to "ward off evil spirits that might prevent the bread rising." Wilson provides a tabletop perspective on class structure, religion, politics, and social custom, generously seasoned with such culinary and cultural tidbits as the importance of salt in English history, and the role of romance in England's first taste of the wines of southernmost France.
Adventurous eaters who wish to dine as their ancestors did may do so; Ms. Wilson includes many recipes-such as 17th century rice pudding-which add flavor of a unique kind. This cornucopia of custom and cuisine provides plenty of food for thought for everyone, and what could be of more interest if we are, indeed, what we eat?
