the best food reference work ever to appear in the English language ... read it and be dazzled''Bee Wilson, New StatesmanFirst published in 1999, the ground-breaking Oxford Companion to Food was an immediate success and won prizes and accolades around the world. Its blend of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, was and remains unique. Interest in food, cooking, and the culture surrounding food has grown enormously in the intervening period, as has the study of food and food history. University departments, international societies, and academic journals have sprung up dedicated to exploring the meaning of food in the daily lives of people around the world, alongside an ever-increasing number of articles, books, programmes, and websites in the general media devoted to the discussion of food, making the Oxford Companion to Food more relevant than ever.Already a food writing classic, this Companion combines an exhaustive catalogue of foods, be they biscuits named after battles, divas or revolutionaries; body parts (from nose to tail, toe to cerebellum); or breads from the steppes of Asia or the well-built ovens of the Mediterranean; with a richly allusive commentary on the culture of food, expressed in literature and cookery books, or as dishes peculiar to a country or community. While building on the Companion''s existing strengths, Tom Jaine has taken the opportunity to update the text and alert readers to new perspectives in food studies. There is new coverage of attitudes to food consumption, production and perception, such as food and genetics, food and sociology, and obesity. New entries include terms such as convenience foods, drugs and food, Ethiopia, leftovers, medicine and food, pasta, and many more. There are also new entries on important personalities who are of special significance within the world of food, among them Clarence Birdseye, Henri Nestlé, and Louis Pasteur.In its new edition the Companion maintains its place as the foremost food reference resource for study and home use.

A treatise on the Art of Bread-Making is England's first complete book on the subject. Published in London in 1805, it was the work of a medical man, little known for any other books, save a couple of pamphlets on gout and sore throats and fever, which he observed in his native Uxbridge in Middlesex. His book on bread is by no means medical, but rather an entertaining and instructive tour through the whole process of bread-making from growing and harvesting the wheat, to developing satisfactory yeasts, running an effective bakehouse and investigating a whole variety of recipes for breads made not only from wheat, but also other grains, potatoes and rice. The book ends with a resume of current laws relating to the sale of bread and an appendix containing the witness statements to a parliamentary committee on baking in 1804. This is a modern transcription of the original, now exceptionally rare and costing more than $1,500 in the antiquarian book trade. There is a short introduction, but otherwise no editorial matter. An earlier version of this transcript was published by Prospect Books in 1993, but the edition is long since exhausted and the clamor for a reprint from enthusiasts of break-making has been loud. The literature of bread-making in Britain is by no means as full as that on the continent of Europe. Because baking was a trade craft, practiced by people barely on the verge of literacy, most instructions and technical lore were transmitted by word of mouth from master to apprentice down through the years. These instructions were deemed "secrets" and the very idea of publishing them in a printed book would have been anathema. For this reason, there are surprisingly few recipes in domestic cookery books of the period, the authors reckoning that cooks would leave it to the bakers. The literature did not really kick off until the Victorian period, and only rose to a flood in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. After Edlin, the next person to tackle the subject was a trained baker in 1828; the value, therefore of this first book is especially great, as no others exist.

the best food reference work ever to appear in the English language ... read it and be dazzled''Bee Wilson, New StatesmanFirst published in 1999, the ground-breaking Oxford Companion to Food was an immediate success and won prizes and accolades around the world. Its blend of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, was and remains unique. Interest in food, cooking, and the culture surrounding food has grown enormously in the intervening period, as has the study of food and food history. University departments, international societies, and academic journals have sprung up dedicated to exploring the meaning of food in the daily lives of people around the world, alongside an ever-increasing number of articles, books, programmes, and websites in the general media devoted to the discussion of food, making the Oxford Companion to Food more relevant than ever.Already a food writing classic, this Companion combines an exhaustive catalogue of foods, be they biscuits named after battles, divas or revolutionaries; body parts (from nose to tail, toe to cerebellum); or breads from the steppes of Asia or the well-built ovens of the Mediterranean; with a richly allusive commentary on the culture of food, expressed in literature and cookery books, or as dishes peculiar to a country or community. While building on the Companion''s existing strengths, Tom Jaine has taken the opportunity to update the text and alert readers to new perspectives in food studies. There is new coverage of attitudes to food consumption, production and perception, such as food and genetics, food and sociology, and obesity. New entries include terms such as convenience foods, drugs and food, Ethiopia, leftovers, medicine and food, pasta, and many more. There are also new entries on important personalities who are of special significance within the world of food, among them Clarence Birdseye, Henri Nestlé, and Louis Pasteur.In its new edition the Companion maintains its place as the foremost food reference resource for study and home use.

A treatise on the Art of Bread-Making is England's first complete book on the subject. Published in London in 1805, it was the work of a medical man, little known for any other books, save a couple of pamphlets on gout and sore throats and fever, which he observed in his native Uxbridge in Middlesex. His book on bread is by no means medical, but rather an entertaining and instructive tour through the whole process of bread-making from growing and harvesting the wheat, to developing satisfactory yeasts, running an effective bakehouse and investigating a whole variety of recipes for breads made not only from wheat, but also other grains, potatoes and rice. The book ends with a resume of current laws relating to the sale of bread and an appendix containing the witness statements to a parliamentary committee on baking in 1804. This is a modern transcription of the original, now exceptionally rare and costing more than $1,500 in the antiquarian book trade. There is a short introduction, but otherwise no editorial matter. An earlier version of this transcript was published by Prospect Books in 1993, but the edition is long since exhausted and the clamor for a reprint from enthusiasts of break-making has been loud. The literature of bread-making in Britain is by no means as full as that on the continent of Europe. Because baking was a trade craft, practiced by people barely on the verge of literacy, most instructions and technical lore were transmitted by word of mouth from master to apprentice down through the years. These instructions were deemed "secrets" and the very idea of publishing them in a printed book would have been anathema. For this reason, there are surprisingly few recipes in domestic cookery books of the period, the authors reckoning that cooks would leave it to the bakers. The literature did not really kick off until the Victorian period, and only rose to a flood in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. After Edlin, the next person to tackle the subject was a trained baker in 1828; the value, therefore of this first book is especially great, as no others exist.