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Raymond A. Sokolov

Why We Eat What We Eat: How Columbus Changed the Way the World Eats Paperback – April 5, 1993

by Raymond Sokolov (Author)

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Sokolov says that Columbus greatly influenced our eating habits when such New World delights as tomatoes, chocolate, green beans, chili peppers, and maize were introduced into cuisine throughout the world and when the delicacies of the Old World found their way into the cooking pots of America. Sokolov is the Leisure & Arts Editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Atria Books
Publication date

April 5, 1993
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.7 x 8.44 inches
ISBN-10

0671797913
ISBN-13

978-0671797911
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Product details

Publisher : Atria Books; Reprint edition (April 5, 1993)
Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 0671797913
ISBN-13 : 978-0671797911
Item Weight : 11.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.44 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,274,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #54,626 in Cookbooks, Food & Wine (Books)

Customer Reviews:
16 ratings

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Food History Detective

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2003

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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.

10 people found this helpful

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REG

Great book for foodies!

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2019

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A great story on the reasons why we have the food items we do! A fantastic book for anyone looking for more information on why we have what we eat!

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Prize

like sokolov's mind

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2013

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had fun reading it with many anecdotes. It is a compiling of various chapters, some of which are a more interesting read than orders. Lots of interesting culinary history.

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Carey

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

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interesting, though sometimes a bit wordy.

One person found this helpful

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Cynthia E. Ledbetter

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2013

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If you have ever wondered why some groups of people eat or don't eat certain foods, you'll find the answers in this very readable book.

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What do people eat?

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2007

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.

3 people found this helpful

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Avid Reader

Cuisine for the Mind

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2003

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.

10 people found this helpful

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Kent Louis

Still a valuable read about the origins of the Western diet

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2016

This book is about food, not genocide (as if the main mission of Spanish Conquistadors was to slaughter every last native American in the hemisphere) as another angry reviewer believes it ought to be. To this day, most Americans, no matter their are clueless as to how tomatoes got into pizza, or how potatoes became an Irish staple. The author is a great storyteller and makes the history of how tomatoes, potatoes and other New World food became part of the Northern American and European diet. I, for one, don't consider myself an ignoramus, but there was still a great deal in this book that I did not know before. I read it when it was first published, and found it to be original and entertaining back then. It is still a valuable and educational read now.

3 people found this helpful

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