An Edible History of Humanity

5 Responses to “An Edible History of Humanity”

1. Scott Anderson says:

   September 18, 2010 at 10:12 pm

   Once you get past the thought that the book starts with evolution as a replacement for of creation you can really find some clean and appealing facts on a variety of foods, from spices to grains and so into the world.

   Right food has been the backbone of society. If you don’t eat you don’t live, therefore you must hunt, gather, kill or grow what you need to survive.

   With that being said you will get the point right off the bat from leader and then have it replayed to you pages later and then again several pages later. I’m not sure why the points have to be hammered home but they certainly make for dull reading and if you choose to skip yet to be you will feel as if you are being sucked into a black hole and being forced to read the same items over again.

   The book does have it moments and you can certainly gain from reading this work but I find the constant repetition of thoughts to be rather dull and lifeless. This was not an simple read and I’ll pick it up again in the distant future to see what various nuggets of wisdom I may have missed. Certain books just have that feel about them that gives the reader a warm fuzzy or a better understanding of the topic discussed. I don’t get that from this work.

   Right the points are appealing but I just don’t agree with everything spelled out within these pages. Only time will tell, and on a side note if the leader had thrown in a few recipes from the past the work would certainly been more captivating and thought provoking. A history of food lacking recipes is a glossary with words and no definitions.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
2. Kula says:

   September 19, 2010 at 12:57 am

   I really liked this book, but i thought it read a small too much like a text book. An Edible History of Humanity is a dry read, but excellent for anyone who likes facts, as I do. And this book is full of appealing facts, but there was not too much that was new information. But I liked how it chronicled how food was used throughout time, as money, for bartering, etc. I especially liked the part on genetically modified food, something that we should all be interested in because it directly effects us.
   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
3. M. Stewart says:

   September 19, 2010 at 3:04 am

   When I first read the title of this book, I assumed it would be an attempt to make a light-hearted contrived attempt to link food and history. Well it is really a well written, well researched book on how food has really helped shape history. It is full of appealing things that will help shatter predictable assumptions. We assume the very ancient hunter-gatherer people probably spent most of their time gathering food, when recent research of modern isolated hunter-gatherer communities really have the equivalent of a 2 day work week, and a 5 day weekend!

   There are 6 parts:

   * Part 1 – Edible Foundations of Civilization, where the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture is covered. The leader provides documentation that the go to agriculture wasn’t automatically a excellent one in terms of life expectancy and well-being.

   * Part 2 – Food and Social Structure: How food equals wealth and power.

   * Part 3 – Global Highways of Food covers the flavor trade and sugar production, and the atrocities linked with them. In spite of what I learned in elementary school, Christopher Columbus wasn’t trying to prove the world was round; that was generally accepted at the time. His main goal was to get spices. And he might have gotten the thought from Paulo Toscanelli.

   * Part 4 – Food, Energy and Industrialization

   * Part 5 – Food as a Weapon. The regularly tragic results of food’s role in wars and ideology is chronicled.

   * Part 6 – Food, Population, and Development. Brilliant information on how our resources can best be used to feed the world, and how better crop yields have made dramatic differences in sinking poverty worldwide. The topic of carbon impact of food is clearly dealt with; it is better to import meat from New Zealand to England as that is a better use of all resources. And the United States’ flawed policy of turning corn into ethanol is made painfully clear.

   This book is both entertaining, enlightening, and has valuable information on how to help deal with global food shortages.
   
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
4. Jacx says:

   September 19, 2010 at 4:38 am

   If you only have time to read one book on food in all-purpose and its part in history this one fit’s the bill.
   
   Read a bit like a text book for me but got appealing when it went into the flavor trade. I selected up small appealing tidbits through out. Had some eye opening rethinking to do after reading about local food versus global, corn as fuel, food as weapons, famine for political causes. I wish it had been more detailed as it got more appealing as it went yet seemed to only skim the surface. Written in a way that helps to see things from a different point of view.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
5. Margaret H. Bonham says:

   September 19, 2010 at 6:19 am

   I got this book thinking how dull it might be, as a replacement for, I was in for a treat. Standage presents a fascinating glimpse into crops and domestication — and how our foods have domesticated mankind as much as we’ve domesticated animals and plants.

   I learned some appealing things too. How food has shaped cultures such as the Mayans who sacrificed people because blood and maize were considered on in the same and how food shaped societies over the years. A really worthwhile and fascinating read.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5