Overview

Hailed as a ?grand theory of the American appetite? (Rien Fertel, Wall Street Journal), food historian Paul Freedman's American Cuisine demonstrates that there is an exuberant and diverse, if not always coherent, American cuisine that reflects the history of the nation itself. Combining historical rigor and culinary passion, Freedman underscores three recurrent themes?regionality, standardization, and variety?that shape a ?captivating history? (Drew Tewksbury, Los Angeles Times) of American culinary habits from postcolonial days to the present. The book is also filled with anecdotes that will delight food lovers: how dry cereal was created by William Kellogg for people with digestive problems; that Chicken Parmesan is actually an American invention; and that Florida Key lime pie goes back only to the 1940s and was based on a recipe developed by Borden's condensed milk. A new standard in food writing, American Cuisine is a landmark work that sheds astonishing light on a history most of us never believed we had.

Full Product Details

9781631494628

Table of Contents

Reviews

In American Cuisine, Paul Freedman embarks on an epic quest, to locate the roots of American foodways and follow changing tastes through the decades, a search that takes him straight to the heart of American identity. It is an enormous, endlessly fascinating subject, and Freedman makes a wonderful tour guide, scholarly and wry. He travels the nation's highways and byways in search of regional styles, traces the rise of industrial food culture, and explores the California food revolution of the 1970s, a springboard to today's world of farm-to-table cuisine, organic foods, and restless experimentation. -- William Grimes, former New York Times restaurant critic Whether it's hasty pudding in 18th century Connecticut, or gluten-free waffles in today's Brooklyn, Americans have always liked their daily bread served with ample portions of sentiment, habit, folklore, and wishful thinking. Only a scholar who's also an avid raconteur could begin to do justice to this nation's complex, frequently unnerving relationship with food, which is where Paul Freedman comes in. Drawing on copious research -- and encouraged, clearly, by an excellent appetite -- he has untangled the messy strands of nostalgia and speculation that spill across culinary history like a vast helping of spaghetti and come up with a wonderfully engaging study of Americans at table. Anyone who wants to make sense of our edible past should start right here. -- Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate In American Cuisine, Paul Freedman, an eminent historian of medieval Europe, turns once more to modern history and to the United States. A splendid follow up to his Ten Restaurants That Changed America, American Cuisine affirms that we are what we eat (and were what we ate). More than just an excavation of what was and is American cuisine, Freedman's book is a revelation about what was and is American. Plus, it's a great read. Filled with forgotten foodways, recovered recipes, and fresh treats, American Cuisine is a book to be savored. -- Stephen Aron, author of The American West: A Very Short Introduction Although it is not easy to define, Yes! there is a genuine American Cuisine. In this essential book, Paul Freedman leads us from the food of colonial times to processed industrial food, to ethnic food, to the farm-to-table revolution of the 70s. American Cuisine is a brilliant synthesis which organizes the vast, eclectic, mixed American cooking into a comprehensive, coherent, credible and unified entity. -- Jacques Pepin

--Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate

In American Cuisine, Paul Freedman embarks on an epic quest, to locate the roots of American foodways and follow changing tastes through the decades, a search that takes him straight to the heart of American identity. It is an enormous, endlessly fascinating subject, and Freedman makes a wonderful tour guide, scholarly and wry. -- William Grimes, former New York Times restaurant critic

Author Information

Paul Freedman is a history professor at Yale University. The author of the highly acclaimed Ten Restaurants That Changed America, Freedman lives in Pelham, New York.  

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available