Rachel Laudan is the prize-winning author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage and a coeditor of the Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science.

"During my forty year culinary career, there have been a select number of books that became touchstones, volumes that seemed to arrive just when inspiration was needed or direction was appropriate, books that somehow enhanced my sense of having found my calling. The newest addition to the list is a work of culinary history by Rachel Laudan." -- Virginia B. Wood The Austin Chronicle, on the range "It seems like every time you hear someone mention processed food, it's accompanied with the words 'bad' or 'unhealthy,' plus a shaking finger. Unless you're author Rachel Laudan." Los Angeles Times Daily Dish "Magnificent ... Some of Laudan's 'diffusion maps' of particular styles of cuisine are miniature masterpieces of cultural history." TLS "Epic in range... Its solidity and substance make a change from the day-to-day scatter of information delivered and consumed in tweets and sound bites." The Daily Spud "A fascinating account of the rise and fall of cuisines... Touching on all parts of the globe, Rachel explores human development through the vastly understated tool of food." Blue Lifestyle Minute "A new standard for global culinary history." Repast

• List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Mastering Grain Cookery, 20,000--300 B.C.E. 2. The Barley-Wheat Cuisines of the Ancient Empires, 500 B.C.E.--400 C.E. 3. Buddhist Cuisines, 260 B.C.E.--4800 C.E. 4. Islam Transforms the Cuisines of Central and West Asia, 800--1650 C.E. 5. Christianity Transforms the Cuisines of Europe and the Americas, 100--1650 C.E. 6. Prelude to Modern Cuisines: Northern Europe, 1650--1840 7. Modern Cuisines: The Expansion of Middling Cuisines, 1810--1920 8. Modern Cuisines: The Globalization of Middling Cuisines, 1920--2000 Notes Bibliography Index