A Revolution In Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America (Arts and Traditions of the Table) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: frontier beverage, culinary development, regional foodways, Native Americans, New England, West Indies (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"[T]he way [colonial] Americans thought about food was integral to the way they thought about politics," McWilliams persuasively argues in this survey of the creation of American cuisine. The Texas State University–San Marcos history professor explores what the colonists ate and why, how that affected their emerging political and cultural values, how their farms and their rights intersected and how "food remained at the core of America's Revolution." At the root of American cuisine, McWilliams finds, is the immeasurable impact of Native American agricultural practices. He explores the effect of the staple crop peculiar to each area of colonial America upon the development of regional foodways, as well as upon their economic and social practices. With remarkable clarity, he delineates the technical aspects of various agricultural tasks, from crop cultivation (sugar cane, rice, tobacco, corn, wheat) to more domestic work (building a kitchen garden, churning butter). The broad range of scholarship, the smooth weaving of political and social history and the full notes and fat bibliography will inform historians, while the lucid style and jaunty tone (the Quakers were "a people who made a virtue of frugality while making frugality more elaborate than anyone could have imagined") make this accessible to all. (July)
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Review

"The lucid style and jaunty tone...make this accessible to all." -- Publishers Weekly "Delicious from start to finish." -- Kirkus Reviews "Meticulously researched and packed with fascinating detail, this book provides an excellent account of the culinary development of Colonial America." -- Library Journal " A Revolution in Eating, a lively new tour of Colonial American 'foodways.'" -- Joshua Glenn, Boston Globe "Flexibility, even tolerance may well have contributed to the uniqueness of American food, according to historian McWilliams in this extremely rich, readable book." -- The FOOD Museum Online "Fascinating...Anyone curious about the cultural history of that meatloaf on the dinner plate will gobble it up." -- Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly "McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques through out colonial America." -- Staten Island Star Reporter "McWilliams's examination of the culinary history of Colonial America is more than a... gastronomic tour... A lively and informative read." -- New Yorker "[A] fresh perspective is well worth the read. Instead of learning our origins through a well-worn trail of war and peace on a time line, it takes us on a more pleasant route from pewter spoon to mouth." -- Shelley Preston, Ledger " A Revolution in Eating gives its readers much to chew over, and whets the appetite for further work on the development of American Cooking." -- Claire Hopley, The Washington Times "McWilliams has penned an illuminating account of the evolution of foodways in the colonial Americas." -- Josh Friedland, Washington Post Book World "Pleasingly filling." -- Susannah Meadows, New York Times Book Review "For the cook who likes history or the history buff who likes to cook." -- Linda Bassett, Georgetown Record "McWilliams vividly illustrates the intimate knowledge and relationship colonial Americans had with their food." -- Claudia Kousoulas, Books-for-cooks.com: Appetite for Books "McWilliam's perspective... provides an essential link from the past to the present and into the future. It's a fascinating foray." -- Dona's Kitchen Kapers "McWilliams manages to be simultaneously instructive and entertaining." -- MM Pack, Austin Chronicle "McWilliams brings colonial times to life through vivid detail." -- William R. Wood, Kalamazoo Gazette "Don't let the fact that its publisher is Columbia University Press fool you into thinking this is a book for scholars only." -- Margot Cleary, Daily Hampshire Gazette "McWilliams manages to show food and drink as an integral part of history... Recommended." -- Choice "[An] exciting work of comparative colonial history." -- Journal of Popular Culture "McWilliams has contributed a valuable book to early American history." -- Michael A. LaCombe, The Journal of Southern History "A lively investigation of Colonial eating habits and how they shaped the revolutionary views of the new Americans." -- Paulette Beete, American Spirit

" A Revolution in Eating gives its readers much to chew over, and whets the appetite for further work on the development of American Cooking." -- Claire Hopley, The Washington Times

" A Revolution in Eating, a lively new tour of Colonial American 'foodways.'" -- Joshua Glenn, Boston Globe

"A delightfully incisive account of a fascinating subject. McWilliams traces the culinary folkways of Americans of the colonial period and demonstrates that we are what they ate." -- H. W. Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin

"Delicious from start to finish." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Don't let the fact that its publisher is Columbia University Press fool you into thinking this is a book for scholars only." -- Margot Cleary, Daily Hampshire Gazette

"Fascinating...Anyone curious about the cultural history of that meatloaf on the dinner plate will gobble it up." -- Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

"Flexibility, even tolerance may well have contributed to the uniqueness of American food, according to historian McWilliams in this extremely rich, readable book." -- The FOOD Museum Online

"For the cook who likes history or the history buff who likes to cook." -- Linda Bassett, Georgetown Record

"McWilliam's perspective... provides an essential link from the past to the present and into the future. It's a fascinating foray." -- Dona's Kitchen Kapers

"McWilliams brings colonial times to life through vivid detail." -- William R. Wood, Kalamazoo Gazette

"McWilliams has contributed a valuable book to early American history." -- Michael A. LaCombe, The Journal of Southern History

"McWilliams has penned an illuminating account of the evolution of foodways in the colonial Americas." -- Josh Friedland, Washington Post Book World

"McWilliams manages to be simultaneously instructive and entertaining." -- MM Pack, Austin Chronicle

"McWilliams manages to show food and drink as an integral part of history... Recommended." -- Choice

"McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques through out colonial America." -- Staten Island Star Reporter

"McWilliams vividly illustrates the intimate knowledge and relationship colonial Americans had with their food." -- Claudia Kousoulas, Books-for-cooks.com: Appetite for Books

"McWilliams's examination of the culinary history of Colonial America is more than a... gastronomic tour... A lively and informative read." -- New Yorker

"Meticulously researched and packed with fascinating detail, this book provides an excellent account of the culinary development of Colonial America." -- Library Journal

"Pleasingly filling." -- Susannah Meadows, New York Times Book Review

"The lucid style and jaunty tone...make this accessible to all." -- Publishers Weekly

"[A] fresh perspective is well worth the read. Instead of learning our origins through a well-worn trail of war and peace on a time line, it takes us on a more pleasant route from pewter spoon to mouth." -- Shelley Preston, Ledger

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1ST edition (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231129920
• ISBN-13: 978-0231129923
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #707,182 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The New World according to food., January 16, 2006

By	Julius Kusuma (Cambridge, MA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

McWilliams' book is an exposition of how and why "traditional American" food as we know it today evolved in various places, and how and why these culinary evolutions in turn influenced historical movements.

We tend to take the task of gathering, planting, processing, and preserving food for granted in our 21st century lives; in truth, these are the most important tasks for our survival! McWilliams adeptly compared how culinary traditions evolved and developed distinct characters in New England, the Caribbeans, and everything in-between, depending on local resources and the people who lived in those areas. The latter part is determined by relations between the white settlers and the native Americans, and the West African slaves forcefully translated to the New World.

One fascinating aspect of the book is how closely the nature of work (or in many cases here, forced labor) and food are interconnected. Areas that grow sugar as a cash crop develop culinary traditions distinct from those that grow tobacco, and not only because of the obvious geographical difference. Social reality also had a strong interconnection to how food is cultivated or gathered.

McWilliams interspersed interesting re-examinations of the menu items that we take for granted today: How did smoked meats enter the American tradition? Why is Hoopin' John historically significant? What about the New England vegetable gardens come about?

Unfortunately, McWilliams tend to rely too much on including quotations of diary entries of people of the different eras. Rarely a page goes without any exultation of some random dairy farmer, or plantation operator, or inspector, or European visitor, on the "bountiful harvest of dis [sic] soiles [sic] .... " and "... are very resorrsful [sic] in gathering ... " After a while these quotations lose their charm and become bothersome and unnecessarily slows the pace of the main story.

Overall, this is an excellent and educational read. The subjects are well-researched and gives a fresh perspective of the "traditional" American cuisine as we know it today.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A tad clunky, July 24, 2008

By	jannnnn (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

I quite like food history and environmental history and so came to this book with high expectations, based on the very positive reviews here.

On the whole, it does a credible job of giving a detailed, source-based overview of food in the American British colonies from settlement through the first post-revolutionary generation.

Yet, the while the descriptions are rich on detail, a poor editing decision to remove any call-outs for endnotes makes sourcing those details cumbersome and annoying. And when I did look through some of the endnotes, I found that quite a number of the primary sources were being cited only via other secondary literature.

This all the more disappointing as the author rarely interrogates such sources or questions the qualities of evidence they demonstrate or the viewpoints at stake. With some of the sources, his interpretations seem quite solid, but with other topics, such as the issue of Native American temperance movements in particular, his readings are frustratingly surface-level.

And when we pull back from the details, we see that they are assembled mostly in a descriptive fashion, such that they don't seem to this reader to actually prove the author's theses conclusively, while the theses themselves are at times so bland or vague that they feel merely tacked on.

So while I did enjoy the book enough to read it as my main accompanying pleasure literature for three months, by the end of the experience, I cannot say that I was left all that satisfied.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The link between food and freedom., June 28, 2006

By	R. Ray (Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

McWilliams' book is fascinating and completely unexpected. I'd never given a thought to what explorers, settlers, slaves, and/or Native Americans ate beyond the traditional stuff of Thanksgiving. A Revolution in Eating starts with survival basics and takes you through New World regional "foodways" and drinking habits to a new undestanding of all sorts of familiar American traditions and beliefs about people, places, and things that turn out to be fundamental to our social, economic, and political independence as a nation. I couldn't put it down.