America's First Cuisines (Paperback)

~ Sophie D. Coe (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Provides tantalizing snapshots of Native American cuisine and culture, especially at the first intersection with the Europeans. . . . It must not be missed by anyone professing a serious interest in America's cuisines for scientific or gustatory reasons. . . . Appropriate for any interested reader as well as for the academic consumer, this volume presents a wealth of excellent information and is a marvelous read. -- Review

Review

Sophie Coe, anthropologist and culinary historian, gives us a cook's tour of the nuclear areas of New World civilization. Her book is a botanically, zoologically, and nutritionally informed synthesis of information on the New World's contribution to the world's inventory of foodstuffs and, most importantly, on how the use of these foodstuffs coalesced in the culinary cultures of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca. It is the first work of its kind on the past civilizations of the New World. . . . This book is essential reading for Americanist anthropologists as well as scholars in a variety of other disciplines, and it constitutes serious pleasure reading for lay readers who are cooks, eaters, and students of foodways. (American Anthropologist )

Provides tantalizing snapshots of Native American cuisine and culture, especially at the first intersection with the Europeans. . . . It must not be missed by anyone professing a serious interest in America's cuisines for scientific or gustatory reasons. . . . Appropriate for any interested reader as well as for the academic consumer, this volume presents a wealth of excellent information and is a marvelous read. (Nahua Newsletter )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1 edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029271159X
• ISBN-13: 978-0292711594
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #492,267 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the history of my favorite foods!, December 19, 2000

By	AK "ak6" (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This book is one of my favorites in recent years. I have become interested in the history of foods and Sophie Coe was an incredible scholar. Her books are great reading and amusing. Unfortunately she is no longer with us but she has left us with two wonderful books on the foods of the Americas (The True History of Chocolate--finished by her husband Michael Coe, another great writer of history. I highly reccommend this one as well).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What the Indians Ate , September 10, 2006

By	Smallchief - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The list of food products discovered or created by the American Indians seems endless: corn, manioc (cassava, yuka, or tapioca) squash, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, pineapples, avocados, vanilla, and chile peppers -- plus for your Thanksgiving table, turkey, and for your wicked moments, tobacco, coca, and magic mushrooms. Conversely, there's been very little written about pre-Columbian cusine. Coe's book fills this lacunae.

The Spanish destroyed every aspect of Indian culture they could but enough accounts of Indian food were recorded to partially construct what they ate. Coe focuses on the food of the three main civilizations in the Americas at the time of Columbus: the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. A lot more information survived about the food of the Aztecs than the other two.

Working with fragmentary information Coe has reconstructed the cuisines of these civilizations -- and rich indeed were the foods they ate -- dozens of variations of tortillas and tamales, a heavy reliance on chiles, innumerable varieties of potatoes, and a huge variety of chocolate dishes that seem ripe for the exploration by culinary adventurers, entrepreneurs, and writers of cook books. The notion, often advanced, that the pre-Columbian diet was boring, primitive, or deficient is refuted persuasively here.

The book suffers a bit from being an overly broad summary that left me hungry (groan!!!) for more information about many foods only barely mentioned. There's plenty of material here for additional books and questions to be answered. To echo an earlier reviewer: what did the Italians eat before the tomato amd the Irish before the potato?

Smallchief

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book!, May 14, 2000

By	Susan (California) - See all my reviews

I purchased this book based entirely on the review by kneisl. I am glad that I did. I had no idea that so much of our everyday food came from the "New World." Peanuts, vanilla, tomatoes, chocolate, potatoes, beans, squash, tortillas, tamales, etc. all were eaten by the Aztec/Maya/ Inca Indians long before the Europeans arrived. Some of these food types date back to 7000 BC. I found this stunning. I had always incorrectly believed that most Mexican food came from Spain.

The book is thouroughly researched, well-written and easy to understand. There are more foods mentioned than those I have just described, so you'll have to read the book.