Lauded by Calvin Trillin as a man who "does not have to make to with translations like 'Shredded Three Kinds' in Chinese restaurants," in The Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters, James D. McCawley offers everyone a guide to deciphering the mysteries of Chinese menus and the opportunity to enjoy new eating experiences. An accessible primer as well as a handy reference, this book shows how Chinese characters are written and referred to, both in script and in type. McCawley provides a guide to pronunciation and includes helpful exercises so users can practice ordering. His novel system of arranging the extensive glossary—which ranges from basics such as "rice" and "fish" to exotica like "Buddha Jumps Wall"—enables even the beginner to find characters quickly and surely. He also includes the nonstandard forms of characters that often turn up on menus.

With this guide in hand, English speakers hold the key to a world of tantalizing—and otherwise unavailable—Chinese dishes.

Eating the Enlightenment offers a new perspective on the history of food, looking at writings about cuisine, diet, and food chemistry as a key to larger debates over the state of the nation in Old Regime France. Embracing a wide range of authors and scientific or medical practitioners—from physicians and poets to philosophes and playwrights—E. C. Spary demonstrates how public discussions of eating and drinking were used to articulate concerns about the state of civilization versus that of nature, about the effects of consumption upon the identities of individuals and nations, and about the proper form and practice of scholarship. En route, Spary devotes extensive attention to the manufacture, trade, and eating of foods, focusing upon coffee and liqueurs in particular, and also considers controversies over specific issues such as the chemistry of digestion and the nature of alcohol. Familiar figures such as Fontenelle, Diderot, and Rousseau appear alongside little-known individuals from the margins of the world of letters: the draughts-playing café owner Charles Manoury, the “Turkish envoy” Soliman Aga, and the natural philosopher Jacques Gautier d’Agoty. Equally entertaining and enlightening, Eating the Enlightenment will be an original contribution to discussions of the dissemination of knowledge and the nature of scientific authority.

 

An insightful map of the landscape of social meals, Eating Together: Food, Friendship, and Inequality argues that the ways in which Americans eat together play a central role in social life in the United States. Delving into a wide range of research, Alice P. Julier analyzes etiquette and entertaining books from the past century and conducts interviews and observations of dozens of hosts and guests at dinner parties, potlucks, and buffets. She finds that when people invite friends, neighbors, or family members to share meals within their households, social inequalities involving race, economics, and gender reveal themselves in interesting ways: relationships are defined, boundaries of intimacy or distance are set, and people find themselves either excluded or included.

Most of us like to look at them, but why on earth would anyone want to eat them? As Constance L. Kirker and Mary Newman show in this book, however, flowers have a long history as a tasty ingredient in a variety of cuisines. The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Ottomans, Mayans, Chinese, and Indians all knew how to cook with them for centuries, and today contemporary chefs use them to add something special to their dishes.
            Edible Flowers is the fascinating history of how flowers have been used in cooking, from ancient Greek dishes to the today’s molecular gastronomy and farm-to-table restaurants. Looking at flowers’ natural qualities: their unique and beautiful appearance, their pungent fragrance, and their surprisingly good taste, Kirker and Newman proffer a bouquet of dishes—from soups to stews to desserts to beverages—that use them in interesting ways. Tying this culinary history into a larger cultural one, they show how flowers’ cultural, symbolic, and religious connotations have added value and meaning to dishes in daily life and special occasions. From fried squash blossoms to marigold dressings, this book rediscovers the flower not just as something beautiful but as something absolutely delicious.
 

Each week during the growing season, farmers’ markets offer up such delicious treasures as brandywine tomatoes, cosmic purple carrots, pink pearl apples, and chioggia beets—varieties of fruits and vegetables that are prized by home chefs and carefully stewarded by farmers from year to year. These are the heirlooms and the antiques of the food world, endowed with their own rich histories. While cooking techniques and flavor fads have changed from generation to generation, a Ribston Pippin apple today can taste just as flavorful as it did in the eighteenth century. But how does an apple become an antique and a tomato an heirloom? In Edible Memory, Jennifer A. Jordan examines the ways that people around the world have sought to identify and preserve old-fashioned varieties of produce. In doing so, Jordan shows that these fruits and vegetables offer a powerful emotional and physical connection to a shared genetic, cultural, and culinary past.
 
Jordan begins with the heirloom tomato, inquiring into its botanical origins in South America and its culinary beginnings in Aztec cooking to show how the homely and homegrown tomato has since grown to be an object of wealth and taste, as well as a popular symbol of the farm-to-table and heritage foods movements.  She shows how a shift in the 1940s away from open pollination resulted in a narrow range of hybrid tomato crops. But memory and the pursuit of flavor led to intense seed-saving efforts increasing in the 1970s, as local produce and seeds began to be recognized as living windows to the past. In the chapters that follow, Jordan combines lush description and thorough research as she investigates the long history of antique apples; changing tastes in turnips and related foods like kale and parsnips; the movement of vegetables and fruits around the globe in the wake of Columbus; and the poignant, perishable world of stone fruits and tropical fruit, in order to reveal the connections—the edible memories—these heirlooms offer for farmers, gardeners, chefs, diners, and home cooks. This deep culinary connection to the past influences not only the foods we grow and consume, but the ways we shape and imagine our farms, gardens, and local landscapes.
 
From the farmers’ market to the seed bank to the neighborhood bistro, these foods offer essential keys not only to our past but also to the future of agriculture, the environment, and taste. By cultivating these edible memories, Jordan reveals, we can stay connected to a delicious heritage of historic flavors, and to the pleasures and possibilities for generations of feasts to come.

Unusual shapes and colors make many mushrooms alluring to the eye, while the exotic flavors and textures of edible mushrooms are a gourmet delicacy for the palate. Yet many people never venture beyond the supermarket offerings, fearing that all other mushrooms are poisonous.

With amateur mushroom hunters especially in mind, David Fischer and Alan Bessette have prepared Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America. This field guide presents more than 100 species of the most delicious mushrooms, along with detailed information on how to find, gather, store, and prepare them for the table. More than 70 savory recipes, ranging from soups and salads to casseroles, canapes, quiches, and even a dessert, are included.

Throughout, the authors constantly emphasize the need for correct identification of species for safe eating. Each species is described in detailed, nontechnical language, accompanied by a list of key identifying characteristics that reliably rule out all but the target species. Superb color photographs also aid in identification. Poisonous "lookalikes" are described and illustrated, and the authors also assess the risks of allergic or idiosyncratic reactions to edible species and the possibilities of chemical or bacterial contamination.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In Hindu scripture, the world began as an egg. Laid by a swan floating on the waters of chaos, after a year the egg split into silver and gold halves, with the silver becoming the earth and the gold transforming into the sky. Throughout history, the egg has taken on numerous meanings outside of the famous philosophical dilemma: it was used for curing the evil eye by the Mayans, as protection against lightning in Greece, and to signify rebirth in Christian tradition. In Eggs, Diane Toops offers a fascinating tour of egg history and lore, looking at how its significance has represented the preoccupations of the cultures that consume it.
 
After explaining the many varieties of eggs and the places that favor them, Toops sketches a history of its uses from its origins until the present day, when it has become an integral part of modern cuisine. She explores how eggs are today marketed as a health food and discusses the debates over their nutritional status. Filled with appetizing recipes and beguiling images, this protein-packed book will enthrall anyone with an interest in cuisine or cultural history.