The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat

From our past as hunter-gatherers of forest fodder to our modern gustatory menus, humans have slowly learned more about the edibles that both delight the senses and fuel the body. Packed in this remarkable book detailing the development of our different dietary choices, the author manages to divulge the unpleasant and disgusting aspects of much of the food that we ingest. Consider the lamprey pie, cleansed of slime but with its blood mixed with cinnamon from an eighteenth-century recipe. Check how corn has invaded all aspects of the diet from corn-fed beef, cornflour, corn syrup, cornstarch, and even in the wax that shines apples. Think twice when licking honey with its insect parts and of its past use on wounds and as a cadaver preserver. So many stories of how the once considered poisonous potato and now commercially tasteless tomato became fixed dietary staples. Filled with engrossing historical stories, written with ironic humor, the author has delved through a myriad number of resources, his pages are peppered with footnotes; all of which he assembles into this culinary expose of foods consumed in the past and transitions into the present.