Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat [Paperback]

Sarah Murray (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312428146 | ISBN-13: 978-0312428143 | Publication Date: October 28, 2008 | Edition: First Edition

Today the things we eat and drink have crossed oceans, continents, and even airspace before reaching the dinner table. The complex systems and technologies devised throughout the centuries to deliver our food supply reveal surprising things about politics, culture, economies--and our appetites. In Mumbai, India's chaotic commercial capital, men use local trains, bicycles, and their feet to transport more than 170,000 lunches a day from housewives to their husbands, with almost no mix-ups. Modern shipping containers allow companies to send frozen salmon to China, where it can be cheaply thawed, filleted, and refrozen, before traveling back to the United States where it's sold in supermarkets as fresh fish. Moveable Feasts takes a novel look at the economics, logistics, and environmental impact of food, and brings new perspective to debates about where we get our meals.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Murray, a Financial Times contributor, takes a look at the literal journey of food through multilayered essays of the history of food transportation. From the banana export business of Central America (which was rife with America's economic gain and political manhandling) to the creation of the barrel (which revolutionized transcontinental trading and contributed a new dimension to the art of winemaking), the dozen chapters each start with a straightforward item-the shipping container, a tin can, a tub of yogurt, etc.-and delve into topics of greater significance like globalization, empire building, localized farming and food aid programs. For example, her essay on the amphora, a container used to carry olive oil throughout the ancient Roman Empire, not only depicts the social and economic importance of olive oil in Roman times but also leads into the contemporary debate of regional designation of origins for foods like Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese or Newcastle brown ale. Erudite and thoroughly researched, this is a fascinating read for both foodies and those who love how the minutiae of life often provide a fresh lens with which to view the world. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A fascinating chronicle of mankind's efforts to move food throughout history."--The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)

"[Murray's] investigations are detailed, sophisticated, and intellectually satisfying."--The Washington Post

"Hugely enjoyable . . . I've read more than my share of books about food, and this one really stands out for being well researched and highly entertaining."--Tim Zagat, cocreator and publisher of the Zagat Survey guides

"Packed with fascinating information."--The Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312428146
• ISBN-13: 978-0312428143
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A feast of a book, November 25, 2007

By 

Cait Murphy (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (Hardcover)

With a disarming combination of humor, insight and expertise, Sarah Murray tells a wonderful story -- or rather, a bunch of stories - of how food moves. Studded with fascinating examples, she ranges effortlessly from ancient Rome to modern Bombay to show how the movement of food has shaped history, as well as our own times. To be honest, this is not a question I had considered before; since reading this book, though, I find myself looking at the grocery shelves with new appreciation. Moreover, Murray makes a real contribution to the debate over "food miles," arguing persuasively it makes much more sense to look at the life cycle of food production, rather than just how many miles an item has traveled, when judging its environmental impact.
Highly recommended: Foodies, of course, will love it, but so should anyone interested in history and the environment.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A culinary adventure, October 27, 2007

By 

HORAK (Zug, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (Hardcover)

Grapes eaten in Iowa may have been on a complicated voyage from Chile. The French beans we consume come from Kenya, flown thousands of miles in refrigerated containers to London. In Beijing or Shanghai people now enjoy Italian olive oil and Japanese noodles, Belgian chocolates and French cheese. The author shows that most of what we consume travels thousands of miles from its origins to the dinner table.
Shipping food across the world has challenged the ingenuity and technical expertise of engineers and inventors of the earliest times. Today, fish is frozen and sent on a ship to China where it is defrosted and filleted before being refrozen and sent back to America or Europe. These are the sort of voyages this book describes. It shows that the movement of food, often over vast distances, has for centuries been part of human life. It also shows the complex tradeoffs that emerge as we try to ensure that our food supply, which relies heavily on fossil fuels, is sustainable. The book is very well documented and readers will realise that the things we eat and drink are eminently moveable.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable and fascinating read, December 17, 2007

By 

Jonathan H. Zeitlin (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (Hardcover)

"Food transport" sounds like a prosaic topic for a book but this work is the product of an intellectually curious mind. Sarah Murray has gone to great lengths to bring readers this entertaining and highly informative read; eating fermented mare's milk in Mongolia, squeezing into crowded train compartments with the Tiffin Wallas of India, and joining a flight crew for an emergency food drop from a UN World Food Transport plane.

My favorite chapter was the author's fascinating retelling of the Berlin Airlift. A topic that most of us learned at school is brought new life and energy by the author's in-depth interviews with the pilots who brought off this logistically flawless operation.

For anybody interested in history, economics, and how capitalism both solves and creates problems, I recommend, "Moveable Feasts." If you liked Tom Friedman's "The World Is Flat," you'll love this book.