From large-scale cattle farming to water pollution, meat— more than any other food—has had an enormous impact on our environment. Historically, Americans have been among the most avid meat-eaters in the world, but long before that meat was not even considered a key ingredient in most civilizations’ diets. Labor historian Wilson Warren, who has studied the meat industry for more than a decade, provides this global history of meat to help us understand how it entered the daily diet, and at what costs and benefits to society.

Spanning from the nineteenth century to current and future trends, Warren walks us through the economic theory of food, the discovery of protein, the Japanese eugenics debate around meat, and the environmental impact of livestock, among other topics. Through his comprehensive, multifaceted research, he provides readers with the political, economic, social, and cultural factors behind meat consumption over the last two centuries. With a special focus on East Asia, Meat Makes People Powerful reveals how national governments regulated and oversaw meat production, helping transform virtually vegetarian cultures into major meat consumers at record speed.

As more and more Americans pay attention to the sources of the meat they consume, Warren’s compelling study will help them not only better understand the industry, but also make more informed personal choices. Providing an international perspective that will appeal to scholars and nutritionists alike, this timely examination will forever change the way you see the food on your plate.

Sweet, succulent, cooling, and often with a beguiling floral fragrance, a ripe melon can be one of the most delicious things you sink your teeth into. As Sylvia Lovegren shows in this book, the melon’s complex flavor profile is matched by an equally complex history. Cutting into the melon’s past, she takes us on a whirlwind trip around the world, from the sandy stretches of the Kalahari desert to the ancient kingdom of Ur in Mesopotamia, from the exotic oases of the Silk Road to Jesuit outposts in northern Canada, from slave plantations in Brazil to Japanese farms—where perfect melons are grown in glass boxes and sold at exorbitant prices.
           
Along the way, Lovegren details the impact the melon has had on humankind. Moving from ancient and medieval medical recipes to folk tales, stories, growing contests, and genetics, she explores the diverse ways we have cultivated, enjoyed, and sometimes even feared this fruit. She explores how we have improved modern melons over centuries of breeding, and how some growers and scientists today are trying to preserve and even revive ancient melon strains. Richly illustrated and with a host of ancient, medieval, and modern recipes, Melon is a delightful look at the surprising history of one of the world’s most sumptuous fruits.  

Milk—“It does a body good.” It’s difficult to deny the truth of the American Dairy Council’s former advertising campaign. From birth milk is the sustaining and essential food of all mammals. It is the first food we ever taste. And yet, despite that natural relationship to milk, the majority of the world’s population cannot digest it in the form most often available to adults—cow’s milk.

            In Milk, Hannah Velten explores the myths and misconceptions surrounding the ubiquitous drink. Modern milk processing produces a safe, clean beverage that is very different from pure milk straight from the cow. Nonetheless, there are many advocates of raw milk that long for the days before pasteurization, homogenization, and standardization. Yet milk in the time before these scientific processes was even less natural than today—known then as the white poison, it was bacteria-ridden, mixed with additives to make it look like milk after the cream was removed, filled with chemicals to promote its shelf life, and extremely watered down.

Now that milk is considered a staple of a healthy and balanced diet, Velten investigates how and why conceptions of milk have shifted in the public consciousness, from the science of nutrition to the dairy industry’s advertising campaigns. This highly illustrated exploration of one of the most fundamental foods and drinks also includes recipes for ice-cream, milkshakes, and even milk paint.  Milk will surprise and entertain in equal measure.

You might think moonshine only comes from ramshackle stills hidden away in the Appalachian Mountains, but the fact of the matter is we’ve been improvising spirits all around the world for centuries. No matter where you go, there is a local bootleg liquor, whether it’s bathtub gin, peatreek, or hjemmebrent. In this book, Kevin R. Kosar tells the colorful and, at times, blinding history of moonshine, a history that’s always been about the people: from crusading lawmen and clever tinkerers to sly smugglers and ruthless gangsters, from pontificating poets and mountain men to beleaguered day-laborers and foolhardy frat boys. 
           
Kosar first surveys all the things we’ve made moonshine from, including grapes, grains, sugar, tree bark, horse milk, and much more. But despite the diversity of its possible ingredients, all moonshine has two characteristics: it is extremely alcoholic, and it is, in most places, illegal. Indeed, the history of DIY distilling is a history of criminality and the human ingenuity that has prevailed out of officials’ sights: from cleverly designed stills to the secret smuggling operations that got the goods to market. Kosar also highlights the dark side: completely unregulated, many moonshines are downright toxic and dangerous to drink. Spanning the centuries and the globe, this entertaining book will appeal to any food and drink lover who enjoys a little mischief.  
 

 

Whether grainy or smooth, spicy or sweet, Dijon, American, or English, mustard accompanies our food and flavors our life around the globe. It has been a source of pleasure, health, and myth from ancient times to the present day, its tiny seed a symbol of faith and its pungent flavor a testimony to refined taste. There are stories of mustard plasters used to treat melancholy, runners eating mustard to prevent cramps, and Christians spreading mustard seeds along pilgrimage trails.

In this delightful global history of all things Grey Poupon and gleaming yellow, Demet Güzey takes readers on a tour of the ubiquitous mustard, exploring its origins, its use in medicine and in the kitchen, its place in literature, language, and religion, and its strong symbolism of sharpness, perseverance, and strength. Packed with entertaining mustard facts and illustrations as well as a selection of historic and modern recipes, this surprising history of one of the world’s most loved condiments will appeal to all food history aficionados.