Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture [Paperback]

Marvin Harris (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1577660153 | ISBN-13: 978-1577660156 | Publication Date: July 1998

Why are human food habits so diverse? Why do Americans recoil at the thought of dog meat? Jews and Moslems, pork? Hindus, beef? Why do Asians abhor milk? In Good to Eat, bestselling author Marvin Harris leads readers on an informative detective adventure to solve the world's major food puzzles. He explains the diversity of the world's gastronomic customs, demonstrating that what appear at first glance to be irrational food tastes turn out really to have been shaped by practical, or economic, or political necessity. In addition, his smart and spirited treatment sheds wisdom on such topics as why there has been an explosion in fast food, why history indicates that it's "bad" to eat people but "good" to kill them, and why children universally reject spinach. Good to Eat is more than an intellectual adventure in food for thought. It is a highly readable, scientifically accurate, and fascinating work that demystifies the causes of myriad human cultural differences.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Author of Cannibals and Kings and other notable studies, anthropologist Harris here presents his findings on the "puzzling eating habits" of humans. Drawing from his research on a wide range of ancient and modern societies, he offers his theories of the effects that religious laws and customs have had on cultural attitudes toward foods. There are chapters on the approved and the forbidden: beef, horsemeat and the flesh of other animals, including humans, fish, insects. Harris documents his provocative views on regulations governing comestibles in various cultures. For instance, he concludes that swineherding was impractical for nomadic desert dwellers, hence pork became taboo not because pigs were unclean but because they needed too much care. As for taste preferences, Harris notes that "good to eat" translates as "good to sell" in profit-conscious countries like the U.S. Macmillan Book Club selection; Library of Science and Natural Science alternate; foreign rights: Marcella Berger, S & S. January 8
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Why are the world's food habits or "foodways," as Harris refers to them, so diverse? In this scholarly yet fast-paced and very readable work, anthropologist Harris argues that "major differences in world cuisines can be traced to ecological restraints and opportunities which differ from one region to another." He explores varied cultural phenomena including preoccupation with meat-eating; avoidance of killing cows among Hindus; Jews' and Moslems' abomination of pork; American's aversion to horsemeat; Southeast Asians' loathing of milk; avoidance of eating insects and pets; and cannibalismall having, in Harris's interpretation, a rational basis in circumstances, costs, and benefits, rather than stemming from arbitrary symbolism. This well-documented book is entertaining as well as informative, and both laypersons and scholars will find it of interest. Joan W. Gartland, Detroit
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 289 pages
• Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1577660153
• ISBN-13: 978-1577660156
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and unsettling, August 29, 2000

By 

Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (Paperback)

Harris is a gifted writer of expository prose who knows how to connect with his readership. Nonetheless some of this is a little depressing since it is about eating insects and human beings. If you can get past that, it's fascinating.

"Warfare cannibalism" is a concept encountered here. That's what the Aztecs practiced. Harris explains it all. Modern states don't practice cannibalism because the power structure benefits more from keeping the vanquished alive and producing for the state. Before the rise of the state, the bands and village societies had not the bureaucracy nor the technology to take advantage of the labor of prisoners and slaves, so it was more cost effective to eat them. And they did. Before reading Harris I used to think the Conquistadors were horrible and I despised the Spanish state and all of Christendom; however now that I know the nature of the savages of America, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Harris makes it clear that we don't eat horsemeat because the horse is less effective at turning grass into meat than ruminants and so horse meat would be more expensive than beef. He shows how horses were extremely valuable as instruments of war. Calvary troops easily defeated infantry. He recalls the Asiatic pastorales who became the mongrel hoards who learned to ride their little horses so effectively that they conquered vast areas from China to Europe. They would ride practically from birth, more on a horse than off. They kept several horses in a caravan and cut the artery in the horse's neck on a ten-day or so rotation and drank the blood. They rode their horses until they dropped and then ate them, but only then.

The Europeans learned from them to use the horse as an instrument of war. The European horses were breed much larger to hold a man and a hundred pounds of armor, and to pull wagons and plows. Horses were only eaten after the horse was too old to work. It became a clear status symbol to own horses, and so eating horseflesh became something the upper classes would never do, but something the lower classes were sometimes reduced to.

Meat hunger and fat hunger have been facts of life for humans for the millennia. Our populations have always increased to the point that meat and fat became hard to get for the poorer people, and in many cases, impossible. Reading Harris makes one believe that the single most important detriment to human well-being is overpopulation. Again and again humans overwhelmed their resources. Today we have so much here in America while in India and places like that most people are hungry, especially for meat and fat. It is only the amazing explosion in technology and the use of fossil fuels that has allowed the current population growth. Still we have too many people.

Insects are eaten by most societies, but seldom as an important source of protein because the supply is unstable. Monkeys that jump from branch to branch eating a bite of fruit and then throwing it down and grabbing another to eat just a bite or two before discarding it are actually looking for insects. They want the apple with the worm in it! Humans typically eat insects that swarm or are otherwise in large supply at once. When the locusts come you might as well eat them because they won't be leaving much plant food to eat. But it is in the tropical climes that most insects are eaten since jungles do not provide a convenient large-animal, ruminant source of meat to satisfy protein needs. Locusts and grubs, termites and ants, especially the fat-rich sexual forms, are the best insects to eat. The giant water bug of Southeast Asian is much prized. Eating insects would provide essential protein if we would do it, and we would, if it were necessary. The chitin of the skeletons cannot be digested, but that is a minor problem. Some people roast and/or boil the insects and then pick off the legs before ingesting. Eating water bugs is apparently a little like eating a small lobster. They pick out the flesh with little sticks.

If you haven't read Marvin Harris, you are missing one of the great writers from anthropology.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good to Read!, March 2, 2001

By 

NancyMc "gerette" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (Paperback)

As with anything by Harris, a thoroughly enjoyable read. It is mind-boggling that Harris's work and his cultural materialist theories are not better known than the sociobiological garbage so beloved of the media and academia these days. In spite of the sociobio claims that virtually anything that humans do is based on genetics, Harris consistently trumps their arguments with examples of the variability of cultural beliefs, from refusing to eat foods because the gods don't want us to, to beliefs that perfectly edible foods are disgusting, to the belief that the gods want us to eat human flesh. And he demonstrates how all that talk about the food preferences of the gods is really a smokescreen for (originally) practical survival issues.

4.0 out of 5 stars Used, but suitable, December 22, 2011

By 

Nicole3555 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (Paperback)

I wanted to start reading more books about other cultures, especially food cultures. This book was great for what I wanted, and the price was very reasonable! I'm so glad that Amazon has such a wide variety of sellers and used books. Happe Holidays to myself! :)