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The Lost Art of Real Cooking
Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger Henderson
A food historian and a recipe tester revisit old-fashioned cooking and provide recipes and techniques for making food the inconvenient and difficult-but highly rewarding-way, from pickles to pastry dough.
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Pancake: a global history
Ken Albala
Round, thin, and made of starchy batter cooked on a flat surface, it is a food that goes by many names: flapjack, crêpe, and okonomiyaki, to name just a few. The pancake is a treasured food the world over, and now Ken Albala unearths the surprisingly rich history of pancakes and their sizzling goodness.
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Human Cuisine
Ken Albala and Gary Allen
There's something about the idea of munching on a nice leg o' man that makes everyone want to be a comedian. We use jokes to hide anxiety about touchy subjects, of course, but it's more than nervous laughter. People like to discuss eating people--once someone else brings up the subject. William Bueller Seabrook, a man who acquired more firsthand knowledge about the fundamental facts of cannibalism than most of the civilized people who talk about it, wrote about cannibals in 1931, 'Even aside from their delightful humorous aspect they are a highly interesting and wholly legitimate subject, whether for the adventurer or the learned anthropologist.'" There's no doubt about it--cannibalism is fascinating. The stories, essays, poetry and drama in this anthology reveal that cannibalism can also be disgusting, sometimes frightening, sometimes hysterically funny, sometimes touching--but always interesting (at least once you get past the gag reflex). Includes (untested) recipes.
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Beans: A History
Ken Albala
This is the story of the bean, the staple food cultivated by humans for over 10,000 years. From the lentil to the soybean, every civilization on the planet has cultivated its own species of bean." "The humble bean has always attracted attention - from Pythagoras' notion that the bean hosted a human soul to St. Jerome's indictment against bean-eating in convents (because they "tickle the genitals"), to current research into the deadly toxins contained in the most commonly eaten beans." "Over time, the bean has been both scorned as "poor man's meat" and praised as health-giving, even patriotic. Attitudes toward this most basic of foodstuffs reveal a great deal about the society that consumes them.
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The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe
Ken Albala
A history of cooking and fine dining in Western Europe from 1520 to 1660
The importance of the banquet in the late Renaissance is impossible to overlook. Banquets showcased a host’s wealth and power, provided an occasion for nobles from distant places to gather together, and even served as a form of political propaganda. But what was it really like to cater to the tastes and habits of high society at the banquets of nobles, royalty, and popes? What did they eat and how did they eat it?
In The Banquet, Ken Albala covers the transitional period between the heavily spiced and colored cuisine of the Middle Ages and classical French haute cuisine. This development involved increasing use of dairy products, a move toward lighter meats such as veal and chicken, increasing identification of national food customs, more sweetness and aromatics, and a refined aesthetic sense, surprisingly in line with the late-Renaissance styles found in other arts.
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The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries
Ken Albala and Gary Allen
The business of food and drink is for better and worse the business of our nation and our planet, and to most consumers how it works remains largely a mystery. This encyclopedia takes readers as consumers behind the scenes of the food and drink industries. The contributors come from a wide range of fields, and the scope of this encyclopedia is broad, covering from food companies and brands to the environment, health, science and technology, culture, finance, and more. The more than 150 essay entries also cover those issues that have been and continue to be of perennial importance. Historical context is emphasized and the focus is mainly on business in the United States.
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Cooking in Europe: 1250-1650
Ken Albala and Lisa Cooperman
Ever get a yen for hemp seed soup, digestive pottage, carp fritters, jasper of milk, or frog pie? Would you like to test your culinary skills whipping up some edible counterfeit snow or nun's bozolati? Perhaps you have an assignment to make a typical Renaissance dish. The cookbook presents 171 unadulterated recipes from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Elizabethan eras. Most are translated from French, Italian, or Spanish into English for the first time. Some English recipes from the Elizabethan era are presented only in the original if they are close enough to modern English to present an easy exercise in translation. Expert commentary helps readers to be able to replicate the food as nearly as possible in their own kitchens.
An introduction overviews cuisine and food culture in these time periods and prepares the reader to replicate period food with advice on equipment, cooking methods, finding ingredients, and reading period recipes. The recipes are grouped by period and then type of food or course. Three lists of recipes-organized by how they appear in the book and by country and by special occasions-in the frontmatter help to quickly identify the type of dish desired. Some recipes will not appeal to modern tastes or sensibilities. This cookbook does not sanitize them for the modern palate. Most everything in this book is perfectly edible and, according to the author, noted food historian Ken Albala, delicious!
Illustrations by Lisa Cooperman, University of the Pacific
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Opening Up North America
Ken Albala and Caroline Cox
Describes the history of voyages to the United States and Canada, including those of Alexander Mackenzie, John Cabot, Giovanni da Verrazano, Jacques Cartier, and David Thompson. Opens with Alexander MacKenzie's 1793 journey across North America to the Pacific Ocean and covers discovery and exploration in North America from 1497 through 1800. An examination of some of the earliest accounts of Egyptian and Mesopotamian explorations. An account of Dr. David Livingstone's search for the source of the Nile River in the jungles of central Africa in 1871. The exciting story of the ascent to the summit of Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain, by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. A description of the race to the North Pole and all that it entailed, including various explorers' theories on how to achieve this goal. The epic saga of Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery and their journey across America. The dramatic story of the explosion that damaged Apollo 13 and the three-day struggle of the men inside, along with those in mission command on the ground, culminating in their safe return to Earth, and more. Each book's gripping narrative shares these events appeal with readers while firsthand accounts of characters, climate, and terrain will help them see discovery and exploration from a fresh perspective. Includes black-and-white illustrations, maps, sidebars, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.
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