What We Eat

A Global History of Food
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-0-231-22147-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 360 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History

Ketchup seems iconically American, but the word comes from a Southeast Asian anchovy sauce, and today it is made largely from Chinese tomato paste. Japan’s beloved ramen arose from the meeting of Chinese noodles and American wheat flour before attaining worldwide popularity in both gourmet and convenience-food forms. The baguette is mythologized as a product of the French Revolution, but in fact it emerged during late-nineteenth-century urbanization. Colonialism brought baguettes to Vietnam, where street vendors devised a new dish: banh mi, which refugees took with them around the world.

Telling these tales and many others, What We Eat explores world history through the lens of the global journeys of nearly ninety food products. Leading historians trace the origins and popularization of items commonly found in supermarkets, showing how each food illuminates wider histories. They consider the tension between the role of cuisine in shaping particular cultural identities and the standardization associated with globalization, and they demonstrate how foods have transformed as different societies have borrowed them. Chapters reveal the surprising sagas of coffee, cornflakes, gin, guacamole, hot dogs, hummus, naan, pet food, pizza, sparkling water, sushi, and many more. At once an intimate and a global history, What We Eat shows readers the everyday items on grocery store shelves in a new light.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Singaravelou, Pierre

Singaravélou, Pierre

Venayre, Sylvain

Weitere Mitwirkende

Sawyer, Stephen W.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Kochen, Essen, Trinken
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Sawyer, Stephen W.
Stephen W. Sawyer (Professor) teaches history and political thought at the American University of Paris. He has previously co-edited two volumes on French political thought of the late twentieth century and has published two monographs on the history of democracy and state-building in the nineteenth century.

Pierre Singaravélou is professor of history at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former British Academy Global Professor of History at King’s College London.

Sylvain Venayre is professor of contemporary history at the University of Grenoble-Alpes.

Stephen W. Sawyer is the Ballantine-Leavitt Professor of History and director of the Center for Critical Democracy Studies at the American University of Paris.