Showing results for "Food Politics" in Customs & Traditions

Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today.

Tracing culinary customs from the Stone Age to the stovetop range, from the raw to the nuked, this book elucidates the factors and myths shaping Americans' eating habits. The diversity of food habits and rituals is considered from a psychological perspective. Explored are questions such as 'Why does the working class prefer sweet drinks over bitter?', 'Why do the affluent tend to roast their potatoes?', and 'What is so comforting about macaroni and cheese anyway?'