Showing titles in Gastronomy

In this fascinating social history of food in Britain, Pen Vogler examines the origins of our eating habits and reveals how they are loaded with centuries of class prejudice. Covering such topics as fish and chips, roast beef, avocados, tripe, fish knives and the surprising origins of breakfast, Scoff reveals how in Britain we have become experts at using eating habits to make judgements about social background.

The Apple: A Delicious History tells the engrossing and richly informative story of a fruit with a unique attachment to the human story. The 10,000-year tale of the round and pleasantly crunchy products of the trees of the genus Malus embraces not only culinary, horticultural, social and commercial history but also age-old traditions in mythology, folklore and religion.

It’s rare for someone to emerge in America who can change our attitudes, our beliefs, and our very culture. It’s even rarer when that someone is a middle-aged, six-foot three-inch woman whose first exposure to an unsuspecting public is cooking an omelet on a hot plate on a local TV station...

'A glorious freewheel through the culinary quirks and delights of the USA – an unmissable treat!' – Tim Spector When the nation’s ‘taster-in-chief’ Felicity Cloake announced her dream to cycle across America, the reactions were… mixed: “You’ll get squashed,” warned a...

The Widow Clicquot epitomizes glamour, style and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life – for the first time – the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband's death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world's first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.

In The Meaning of Beer, award-winning beer writer Jonny Garrett tells the stories of incredible human moments and inventions, taking listeners to some of the best-known beer destinations in the world–Munich and Oktoberfest, Carlsberg Brewery's historic laboratory, St Louis and the home of Budweiser–as well as those lesser-known, from a 5,000 year old brewery in the Egyptian desert to Arctic Svalbard, home to the world's most northerly pub.

Here is Anthony Bourdain's long-awaited sequel to Kitchen Confidential, the worldwide best seller. A lot has changed since then - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business, and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present.

Filled with accessible strategies to help you heal from within through the foods you eat, FOOD THERAPY explores the vital connection between nutrition, stress, and trauma recovery. Eating is arguably the most somatic type of therapy. It involves little thought, the body does most of it for you...

Long before the advent of conventional farming methods - which have focused on constant growth, human intervention, and genetic homogeneity - the apple had already grown to become the ubiquitous all-American symbol it is today. Known for their hardiness, ability to adapt to new environments, natural diversity, and plentiful bounty, wildly grown apples were once known as “America’s fruit” throughout the trading world.

The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

Here is the no-holds-barred autobiography, read by the author, of one of the nation's best-loved cooks. Her life has led her from wealth and privilege to alcoholism, bankruptcy, and eventually fame in Two Fat Ladies. With the stark honesty and the brilliant wit we love her for, Clarissa recounts the tale of a life lived to extremes.

‘Delightfully different’ – Delia Smith Ed Balls was just three weeks old when he tried his first meal: pureed roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. While perhaps ill-advised by modern weaning standards, it worked for him in 1967, and from that moment on he was hooked on food. Appetite is a...

In his second in-depth foray into the world of professional cooking, Michael Ruhlman journeys into the heart of the profession. Observing the rigorous Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country, Ruhlman enters the lives and kitchens of rising star Michael Symon and the renowned Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This fascinating audiobook will satisfy any listener's hunger for knowledge about cooking and food, the secrets of successful chefs, at what point cooking becomes an art form, and more.

With enough fast-food nostalgia to satisfy even the most fat-hardened foodie arteries as well as glorious dollops of nostalgia, Picky is a hymn to the gleam of the golden arches and the soft shine of worn formica as well as opulent marble and tweezered micro herbs. It is a generous, warm look at a life built around food: what it can mean, what it can stand for, and why you should always pay attention to what someone is eating.

Cheese Trekking recounts the author’s experiences visiting pastoral communities and cheesemakers in various countries and explains how cheeses can be local manifestations while also representing global archetypes, strategies that have been adopted in many places. It describes the constellations (a range of complementary milk foods that utilize all byproducts of cheesemaking) of various regions through a wide-angle lens. The central premise is that milk has a terroir, born from the plants and ecology of a landscape, that is concentrated via ruminant digestion and lactation.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Provence, 1970, a lively, dramatic account of the rise of French “nouvelle cuisine,” and the renegade chefs of the 1960s and 70s who revolutionized modern cooking.In The Secret History of French Cooking, Luke Barr takes readers inside the...

This is a revised and updated edition of an award-winning book, recognized as the authoritative work on the subject of British food. It is a breathtaking attempt to trace the changes to and influences on food in Britain from the Black Death through the Enclosures, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of Capitalism to the present day.

The way we buy our food today feels so ordinary, so effortless, that it’s easy to forget what an extraordinary invention the supermarket really is. Once upon a time, shopping for essentials meant visiting a half-dozen different shops, waiting for clerks to fetch and weigh each item, and relying on personal relationships with local merchants. Fast-forward to the modern world, and the weekly shop takes place under bright lights in vast aisles stocked with everything imaginable — a world of instant choice, convenience, and abundance.

Tanya Bush is adrift in the uncertainty of her early twenties—unemployed, uninspired, and stuck in a long-term relationship that's lost its spark. One day, just to do something, she decides to bake a cake. It's gooey in the center, woefully underbaked, an absolute disaster—but it also reminds her of the pleasures of baking: sugar crystals under her fingernails, flour in her hair, and the hard-earned satisfaction of following the steps of a recipe to the end.

More than just a companion to the hugely popular Travel Channel show, No Reservations is Bourdain's journal of his far-flung travels. The book traces his trips from New Zealand to New Jersey and everywhere in between, with Bourdain's outrageous commentary on what really happens when you give a bad-boy chef an open ticket to the world.