Andrew F. Smith

the history, legends, & cookery of America's favorite snack food.

A Social History of Popcorn in America

Popped Culture

"Sugar is one of the most beloved substances consumed by humans, and also one of the most reviled. It has come to dominate our diets--whether in candy, desserts, soft drinks or even bread and pasta sauces--for better and for worse. This fascinating history of this addictive ingredient reveals its incredible value as a global commodity and explores its darker legacies of slavery and widespread obesity."--Dust jacket.

a global history

Sugar

About one-third of all food grown for human consumption is lost or discarded every year, despite financial, environmental, and ethical reasons not to waste food. We grow enough food to adequately feed everyone on the planet, yet hundreds of millions of people suffer from hunger, malnutrition, or food insecurity. Together, this food waste accounts for about eight percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. So, if wasting food is such a patently bad idea, why do we discard so much? In Why Waste Food?, Andrew F. Smith investigates one of today’s most pressing topics, examining the causes of avoidable food waste across the supply chain and highlighting the ways in which everyone can do something to tackle this global concern.

Why Waste Food?

Prologue -- Oliver Evans's automated mill -- The Erie Canal -- Delmonico's -- Sylvester Graham's reforms -- Cyrus McCormick's reaper -- A multiethnic smorgasbord -- Giving thanks -- Gail Borden's canned milk -- The homogenizing war -- The transcontinental railroad -- Fair food -- Henry Crowell's Quaker special -- Wilbur O. Atwater's calorimeter -- The Cracker Jack snack -- Fannie Farmer's cookbook -- The Kelloggs' corn flakes -- Upton Sinclair's Jungle -- Frozen seafood and TV dinners -- Michael Cullen's super market -- Earle MacAusland's Gourmet -- Jerome I. Rodale's Organic gardening -- Percy Spencer's radar -- Frances Roth and Katharine Angell's CIA -- McDonald's drive-in -- Julia Child, the French chef -- Jean Nidetch's diet -- Alice Waters's Chez Panisse -- TVFN -- The Flavr Savr -- Mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs -- Epilogue.

30 Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine

Eating History

Chock-full of photos, advertisements, and peanut recipes from as early as 1847, this entertaining and enlightening volume is a testament to the culinary potential and lasting popularity of the goober pea. 24 photos.

The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea

Peanuts

A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism

Offers an account of an eating history in America which focuses on a variety of topics, ingredients, and cooking styles.

In a lively account of the American tuna industry's fortunes and misfortunes over the past century, a celebrated food writer relates how tuna went from being sold primarily as a fertiliser to becoming the most commonly consumed fish in the US. Tuna is both the subject and the backdrop for other facets of American history.

The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food

American Tuna

• More than 700 A–Z entries on fast food, comfort food, and junk food, ranging from breakfast cereals to burgers and fries to snack chips and candy • A chronology of the significant events in the history of junk food and fast food • A bibliography containing more than 200 entries with citations to books, articles, and websites • A glossary of important terms used in the encyclopedia • A Resource Guide containing important DVDs, films and videos, and television series

An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat

Fast Food and Junk Food

This fascinating and revealing work examines the incredible power of junk food and fast food—how nostalgic we are about them, the influence of the companies that manufacture or sell them, and their alarming effect on our country's state of health. • More than 700 A–Z entries on fast food, comfort food, and junk food, ranging from breakfast cereals to burgers and fries to snack chips and candy • A chronology of the significant events in the history of junk food and fast food • A bibliography containing more than 200 entries with citations to books, articles, and websites • A glossary of important terms used in the encyclopedia • A Resource Guide containing important DVDs, films and videos, and television series

Fast Food and Junk Food: An Encyclopedia of What We Love to Eat [2 volumes]

This three-volume work examines all facets of the modern U.S. food system, including the nation's most important food and agriculture laws, the political forces that shape modern food policy, and the food production trends that are directly impacting the lives of every American family. • Examines a breadth of contemporary food controversies and offers diverse viewpoints on them, placing these perspectives fairly into a broader historical context • Presents a multidisciplinary approach to the subject of food that highlights related issues in transportation, business, diet and nutrition, public health, the environment, and public policy • Includes primary documents that illuminate important laws, policies, and perspectives on the environmental, public health, and economic impact of food • Provides readers with the latest information about food controversies as well as extensive resources for further study on major food controversies

Food in America: The Past, Present, and Future of Food, Farming, and the Family Meal [3 volumes]

A historian's new look at how Union blockades brought about the defeat of a hungry Confederacy In April 1861, Lincoln ordered a blockade of Southern ports used by the Confederacy for cotton and tobacco exporting as well as for the importation of food. The Army of the Confederacy grew thin while Union dinner tables groaned and Northern canning operations kept Grant's army strong. In Starving the South, Andrew Smith takes a gastronomical look at the war's outcome and legacy. While the war split the country in a way that still affects race and politics today, it also affected the way we eat: It transformed local markets into nationalized food suppliers, forced the development of a Northern canning industry, established Thanksgiving as a national holiday and forged the first true national cuisine from the recipes of emancipated slaves who migrated north. On the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, Andrew Smith is the first to ask "Did hunger defeat the Confederacy?".

How the North Won the Civil War

Starving the South

Uses tomato soup as a lens through which to investigate the histories of soup, tomatoes, and canning.

The Story of America's Favorite Food

Souper Tomatoes

The single most influential culinary trend of our time is fast food. It has spawned an industry that has changed eating, the most fundamental of human activities. From the first flipping of burgers in tiny shacks in the western United States to the forging of neon signs that spell out “Pizza Hut” in Cyrillic or Arabic scripts, the fast food industry has exploded into dominance, becoming one of the leading examples of global corporate success. And with this success it has become one of the largest targets of political criticism, blamed for widespread obesity, cultural erasure, oppressive labor practices, and environmental destruction on massive scales. In this book, expert culinary historian Andrew F. Smith explores why the fast food industry has been so successful and examines the myriad ethical lines it has crossed to become so. As he shows, fast food—plain and simple—devised a perfect retail model, one that works everywhere, providing highly flavored calories with speed, economy, and convenience. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, they say, and the costs with fast food have been enormous: an assault on proper nutrition, a minimum-wage labor standard, and a powerful pressure on farmers and ranchers to deploy some of the worst agricultural practices in history. As Smith shows, we have long known about these problems, and the fast food industry for nearly all of its existence has been beset with scathing exposés, boycotts, protests, and government interventions, which it has sometimes met with real changes but more often with token gestures, blame-passing, and an unrelenting gauntlet of lawyers and lobbyists. Fast Food ultimately looks at food as a business, an examination of the industry’s options and those of consumers, and a serious inquiry into what society can do to ameliorate the problems this cheap and tasty product has created.

The Good, the Bad and the Hungry

Fast Food

It’s no surprise that sugar has been on our minds for millennia. First cultivated in New Guinea around 8,000 B.C.E., this addictive sweetener has since come to dominate our appetites—whether in candy, desserts, soft drinks, or even pasta sauces—for better and for worse. In this book, Andrew F. Smith offers a fascinating history of this simultaneously beloved and reviled ingredient, holding its incredible value as a global commodity up against its darker legacies of slavery and widespread obesity. As Smith demonstrates, sugar’s past is chockfull of determined adventurers: relentless sugar barons and plantation owners who worked alongside plant breeders, food processors, distributors, and politicians to build a business based on our cravings. Exploring both the sugarcane and sugar beet industries, he tells story after story of those who have made fortunes and those who have met demise all because of sugar’s simple but profound hold on our palates. Delightful and surprisingly action-packed, this book offers a layered and definitive tale of sugar and the many people who have been caught in its spell—from barons to slaves, from chefs to the countless among us born with that insatiable devil, the sweet tooth.

A Global History

New York City’s first food biography showcases all the vibrancy, innovation, diversity, influence, and taste of this most-celebrated American metropolis. Its cuisine has developed as a lively potluck supper, where discrete culinary traditions have survived, thrived, and interacted. For almost 400 years New York’s culinary influence has been felt in other cities and communities worldwide. New York’s restaurants, such as Delmonico’s, created and sustained haute cuisine in this country. Grocery stores and supermarkets that were launched here became models for national food distribution. More cookbooks have been published in New York than in all other American cities combined. Foreign and “fancy” foods, including hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, Waldorf salad, and baked Alaska, were introduced to Americans through New York’s colorful street vendors, cooks, and restaurateurs. As Smith shows here, the city’s ever-changing culinary life continues to fascinate and satiate both natives and visitors alike.

A Food Biography

New York City

A panoramic history of the culinary traditions, culture, and evolution of American food and drink features nearly one thousand entries, essays, and articles on such topics as fast food, celebrity chefs, regional and ethnic cuisine, social and cultural food history, food science, and more, along with hundreds of photographs and lists of food museums, Web sites, festivals, and organizations.

The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink

This three-volume encyclopedia on the history of American food and beverages covers topics ranging from early American Indian foods to mandatory nutrition information at fast food restaurants.

A "Full Course" Encyclopedia

Food and Drink in American History

When Andrew F. Smith began researching the heritage of America's favorite condiment, he uncovered the makings of a great story: exotic and mysterious beginnings, unusual and colorful characters, evil adulterators and contaminators, strong-willed commercial competitors, high-minded government regulators, and, finally, a relentless quest for a global market. From his large store of historical ketchup recipes, Smith offers a representative sampling of the appetizing, the intriguing, and the outlandish. Reflecting the diversity of the condiment's myriad incarnations, the volume includes recipes for more than 110 ketchup varieties made from such unexpected ingredients as apricots, beer, celery, cucumbers, lemons, liver, raspberries, and rum.

Andrew F. Smith

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