Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)
Starred Review. With an incisive style, food writer and editor Smith (Hamburger: A Global History) cuts deep into the origins of modern American culture with 30 succinct servings of U.S. food history. Beginning with Oliver Evan's automated mill in 1784 and ending with the present-day development of food conglomerates like Kraft Foods, Smith offers ample context for the way Americans currently consume (and think about) food. Easy-to-digest prose and modest portions make these stories compulsively readable, and reveal new angles on old stories, like Sarah Hale's successful efforts to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, the first food magazine (recently-shuttered Gourmet), to a recurring examination of the American obsession with French cuisine. Exhaustively researched by a professional expert, Smith can be slowed by lists of names and numbers (especially in the mergers section), but anyone interested in food will learn much, especially about the serious consequences of decisions regarding our food supply.