A History of Cooks and Cooking (The Food Series) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Never has there been so little need to cook. Yet Michael Symons maintains that to be truly human we need to become better cooks: practical and generous sharers of food. Fueled by James Boswell's definition of humans as cooking animals (for 'no beast can cook'), Symons sets out to explore the civilizing role of cooks in history. His wanderings take us to the clay ovens of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean and the bronze cauldrons of ancient China, to fabulous banquets in the temples and courts of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia, to medieval English cookshops and southeast Asian street markets, to palace kitchens, diners, and to modern fast-food eateries.Symons samples conceptions and perceptions of cooks and cooking, from Plato and Descartes to Marx and Virginia Woolf, asking why cooks, despite their vital and central role in sustaining life, have remained in the shadows, unheralded, unregarded, and underappreciated. 'People think of meals as occasions where you share food', he notes. 'They rarely think of cooks as sharers of food'. Considering such notions as the physical and political consequences of sauce, connections between food and love, and cooking as a regulator of clock and calendar, Symons provides a spirited and diverting defense of a cook-centered view of the world. Michael Symons is the author of "One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia" and "The Shared Table".

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252025806
• ISBN-13: 978-0252025808
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,899,926 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic in the Making, May 2, 2001

By	James Ellsworth (Caldwell, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Symons has written a book that is both fascinating and seminal. Serious amateur cooks, professional cooks and cooking educators will find plenty of reinforcement for their roles in the craft that "distinguishes man from other animals." Symons addresses a wide variety of issues--the place of food in society and culture, the practical functions of cooking ("predigestion, detoxification; preservation), the thread through history of anti-consumption/anti-gastronomy philosphies; a conceptual framework for cooking technologies...if you have an interest, Symons probably addresses it). Carefully chosen excerpts from major food historians, chefs and writers add to the fascination of this very accessible work. At the end, I had a better understanding of why the "hearth" has been considered to be the "center" of the home and a more structured sense of why I love to cook for my family.

2.0 out of 5 stars A Brief History of Cooks and Cooking, December 10, 2008

By	Aaron M. Slattery "Medic 1" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A History of Cooks and Cooking (The Food Series) (Paperback)

Random and Spurious. There is very little continuity and the choice of material the author chooses is more than a little confusing. The entry about knife's starts out with a server carving up her mother!? Also, the author overuses the annoying rhetorical device of Asyndeton; The sweet cakes, copuious libations, divinations of honey........
There were some compelling facts and tidbits, but not enough to make it worth purchasing and definately not worth the gradious title starting with "A History..."