Customer Reviews

Why We Eat What We Eat: How Columbus Changed the Way the World Eats

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One cannot help but be impressed by the prodigious research that preceeded this book. As in his other works, the author travels at a steady pace, casually informing and experiencing and reporting as he goes.

The premise offered here is quite revolutionary: Namely, that it was Spain, through its colonization in the New World and particularly Mexico, initiated a culinary melting pot that has been bubbling ever faster since Columbus's voyages. At first, the idea sounds preposterous but the evidence is overwhelming. He shows that many "African" foods were orginially New World foods, that the chili we associate with Thai, Indian and Korean cooking had its origins in colonial Mexico. The latter also provided chocolate, corn, the tomato, various fruits and another colony (Peru) gave us the potato.

He goes on to demonstrate that French, Italian, Spanish, German and the other national European cuisines are rather recent inventions. The tomato plays an exceptionally large role in the world of food and this despite the tirades and "scientific" arguments against it well into the 19th century. Spanish food affected South America which affected Africa. Some foods, paprika for example, traveled a circuitous route - from Brazil to Iran to the Arab lands to Europe. Thus, the underbelly of Europe - Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia - to this day use the stuff in huge amounts.

Final chapters covered "American" food, what the term really meant and what our future portends. Especially endearing were the tales of lonely innovators, scientists, industrialists and plain folk who - through sheer ingenuity and curiousity - added to the pleasure of mankind.

It is a shame that this book has been let go out of print. Someone ought to get to Penguin or Dover and ask them to bring it back to availability. The text is fascinating, and, rather like good science fiction, makes you stop and rethink your assumptions about "the way things are." Our assumptions that the food on today's tables and menus has always been much the same are fascinatingly wrong. The authors treats several places in both the "new" and "old" worlds as to the effect of ingredients imported after 1492, and then looks in more detail at several of the seminal products, such as corn and potatoes. Particularly if you like "ethnic" cuisine, you will never look at a recipe or menu in the same way again.

This is a very readable and entertaining history of the revolution in cuisine with the introduction
of foods from the New World. It includes some marginal political history necessary to
understand the subject, but is filled with interesting anecdotes. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the evolution of cuisine or just a good read.

This book reports on some of Sokolov's favorite cuisines, especially those of Latin America, the Philippines, and the U.S. The stated intention is to examine how the new lines of communication between the Old World and the New affected world culinary culture, with new ingredients and cooking methods flowing in both directions. The book is divided into 7 sections, including "The Colonial Laboratory," "Ingredients for Change," and "Rediscovering America." The book includes an index, but no references or suggestions for further reading. Indeed, this is very much a book about Sokolov's personal culinary adventures and preferences than an academic exploration of the topic.

In his first chapter, Sokolov retells Columbus' first exposure to the American foods that would soon become staples around the world: maize, sweet potatoes, manioc and chili peppers. Other important American ingredients include potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolate, which are examined elsewhere in the book. One American food that Sokolov never mentions, though, is beans--kidney beans and pintos and all similar beans were originally from the New World, but perhaps haven't become as well known as potatoes, tomatoes, or maize in the Old World because their food cultures still feature native legumes, like favas, lentils, chickpeas, and soybeans. From the title of the book and blurb on the jacket, I expected the text to focus on the American ingredients, and how they have been incorporated into the food cultures of the world. Instead, Sokolov devotes much of his time describing culinary traditions around the world and how they have been affected by contact with each other. Towards the end of the book, he notes: "authenticity is as slippery a notion as happiness." It seems when you scrutinize "traditional" foods closely, much that is traditional or universal in the region seems to wiggle away--no cuisine is an island.

When it comes to writing about science and nutrition, Sokolov can be a bit careless. For example, when describing the popularity of coconut in the diet of Cartagena, he states that it contains much cholesterol, forgetting that only animal products contain cholesterol. While coconut is high in saturated fat, which is associated with raising blood cholesterol levels, it doesn't actually contain any cholesterol itself, since it is a plant rather than animal product. He also seems to agree with the notion that North America is still too young to have developed a native food culture of its own, overlooking such all-American delicacies as baked beans, corn muffins, clam chowder, corn chowder, brown bread, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, corn-on-the-cob, root beer, stuffed turkey, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, blackened catfish, blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, etc. To find out what's native, you need to serve a lot of foreigners, and when they give you a look of surprise and say "Wow, what is that?," you know you've served something American.

Sokolov does a splenid job of tracking down the world cuisines and how they came to be what they are today.

The event that backed most of today's eating habits was the world exploration and development by the Portuguese and Spaniards. From Mexico to the Americas, from South America to Mexico and the Caribbean, they served as the carriers of exotic foodstuffs to the far corners of the earth and then back again.

Potato to tomato, chocolate to manioc, the gourmet ingredients are traced out from their roots to adaptation.

Nouvelle cuisine and american regional cooking are essayed as to their development.

Great reading to shed light on how Chinese had originally no hot spices to why Italians had no pasta.

Enlightening and entertaining for the interested reader.

I give a lot of lectures about Philippine food both in the US, Europe and in the Philippines. I cannot give a lecture without citing this book because Sokolov lays out one of the most basic concepts by which to view cuisines. Every cuisine has basically two components: food that was originally there in one's environment and food that was borrowed and made theirs. As a Filipino, Sokolov's conclusion that the Filipinos were unique in the way that they were able to preserve indigenous food and made borrowed foods happily co-exist with what was theirs, was like someone turning on a light bulb for me. At last, there was now an intellectual handle with which we could start studying our own food and culture. most people generally start describing our food by enumerating dishes, but lists don't really tell us anything about what happened to our palates and our food. Conceptual clarity is such a powerful tool and it should be shared dto as many people as possible.

There is nothing about cuisine in this book that has not already been written about before in other publications. The author re-hashes New World foods, which already are widely known. For over 500 years it was common knowledge that maize, manioc, tomatoes, potatoes and corn were "Discoverd" by Columbus. The author of this book acts as though he is the first person to ever realize this. Everything in the book is old news - and I don't think it is worth the price of the book - even used, to purchase information that is already widely disseminated for the last 500 years.

I am uncomfortable with the authors preface introduction to this book which blithely glides over the genocide, horrific oppression of indigenious peoples - the author rationalizes it and justifies it because "Columbus is responsible for discovering all these wonderful New World foods". The author posits that the genocide against indigenous people of the Americas was justified, because the diet of Western culture was improved. I don't care for the authors smug and self congratulatory tone which rationalizes and justifies genocide against indigenous people all so he can enjoy a wider selection of foods and cuisine.

In the preface introduction, the author makes racist statetments about Muslims in Spain - alleging they are "notorious Anti-Semites." It is a historical fact that in medieval Muslim Spain, the Moors made a point of practicing religious tolerance and Christans AND Jews were given freedom of religion during the Moors rule of Spain. The author is clearly racist agains Muslims and historically innacurate - you can confirm my statement that Muslims in Moorish Spain practiced considerable religious tolerance both towards Christains and Muslims for the several hundred years the Muslims ruled Spain. Check this out in any history book or Wikkipedia.
Moors did not destroy synagogues in Muslim Spain - it was the Vatican, Catholic Church that created the Spanish Inquistion - in fact, the Vatican Catholic Church instigated horrendous persecution against BOTH Muslims and Jews. At that point in time, around 1492 - there was actually quite a bit of solidarity and feelings of alliance between Muslims and Jews who were BOTH expelled from Spain by the Catholic Church!

How the author managed to ignore this historical fact and publish rubbish against Muslims is beyond my comprehension. The author plays fast and loose with historical facts.

Anyone with a high school education and basic knowledge of history understands that anti-semitism in Spain began with the Fall of the Caliphate of Alhambra in 1492. When the Moors/Muslims lost rule of Spain, the Catholic Church in collusion with the crypto-facist Spanish Royal Crown began the anti-semetic diaspora which enforced an edict expelling Muslims and Jews from Catholic Spain.

And just for the record - I was raised Catholic so please don't think I am trying to "bash" the Vatican - my sole intent is purely to set the record straight and post historical accuracy which documents the author of this book lies and fudges about historical facts.

There are dozens of other books which all wrote about the cuisine of the New World and all the new foods which resulted in the improvement of Europeans diet. This book just re-hashes information already previously published in a plethora of books over the last 500 years. I wouldn't waste your money on this book. You can read the introduction online on the Amazon site and you can see for yourself the racist tone of the author that justifies genocide against indiegenous people and the racist remark the author makes against Moslems.

If you want to read truly fantastic book about cuisine - please read Michael Pollans book "The Omnivores Dilmena" it is an incredible book and much better written than this book. I wanted to end my review with something POSITIVE and a constructive recommendation for "foodies" and folks who are interested in the history of cuisine.