by Reay Tannahill
There was a time before grains were cultivated, before cooking pots and ovens were used, before even Homo erectus discovered that heat might make some foods more digestible. Yet there has never been a time when food was not firmly at the centre of human culture and existence, influencing world history and playing a key part in our very development as a species.
Packed with absorbing anecdotes and surprising insights, Food in History looks at our relationship with food and its far-reaching effects from as far back as the Neolithic era: how agricultural as opposed to hunter-gatherer societies changed the relationship between the sexes; how the spice trade made and toppled empires; why the cow became sacred in India; and how a new kind of plough helped to spark off the Crusades. Tannahill explores both the exotic tastes of our wealthy ancestors (peacock eggs and roast thrush), and the unvarying diets of the poorer mass of humanity (grain paste and bread). In times of famine, practically all communities, she claims, would resort to cannibalism, called variously ‘long pig’, ‘two-legged mutton’ and ‘tlacatlaolli’ (maize-and-man stew).
No less compelling are the observations that Food in History makes on how we eat today. What soon becomes clear is that there is nothing new in human experience. In the late Bronze Age, olive and vine cash crops led to devastating deforestation and the agricultural collapse of Greece, a reminder that the food we eat has always had an impact far beyond hearth and home.
978-0-517-88404-1