Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food

A fascinating book on a little known subject, packed with well documented information and written in a very pleasing style.

Have you ever wondered why we eat the way we eat and cook the way we cook? The background to our everyday eating and cooking habits is actually quite a history. In Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s book, Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food, he takes us through eight evolutions of how food came about and how food has revolutionized to what it is today. No one knows completely how food has come about and how we ever came to cooking the way we do today. Food is a huge necessity in our lives for survival and we may not realize how elaborate and garnished the foods we cook and eat today are. It is also not yet understood to know why we cook what we cook and why we like to dress our meals in certain ways. Fernández-Armesto gives great insight on how all of our food habits have been established today.“Food is more than a substance; food is supernatural”, (Fernández-Armesto, F., p. 117). This is shown by the eight evolutions that Fernández-Armesto discusses in his book which include, the invention of cooking, magic and rituals of food, domestication of animals, plant based agriculture, social differentiations, transformation of exchanges, ecological revolution, and food industries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The domestication of animals and the selective breeding of edible animal species is something Fernández-Armesto puts before his plant-based agriculture theory. He says, “At least one kind of animal husbandry was an earlier innovation than is generally admitted” (Fernández-Armesto, F., p. 119). This leads to his point of social differentiation of the competition of food from origins to modern times. The long-time period of trade and exchanges gave us today a transformation that revolutionized where our food came from and how we developed some of our eating habits. We then end up with the development of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how these effects have drawn us to our actions today. Today, it is very rare that we eat raw foods, meaning that no flavor, modification, and no fire is applied to the food we eat.Furthermore, Fernández-Armesto believes that the first natural food that humans found was the oyster because it is completely raw and can be found all over the world. This is important because this is where the evolution of food began; how we began to eat. Fernández-Armestto says that cooking started with an oyster. He comes to this conclusion because the oyster is a product of minimal modified natural selection from sea to lips. “It is the nearest thing we have to “natural” food- the only dish that deserves to be called “au naturel” without irony” (Fernández-Armesto, F., p. 154). The oyster is considered natural when eaten right from the shell, as soon as lemon juice or any type of flavor is added, that is when cooking became invented. Even when we begin to rinse our foods with water we begin to modify them; this even includes the berries and fruit we eat. This is important because, perhaps, this is how flavors began to develop and how we came about seasoning our meats and other foods.The next way Fernández-Armesto finds how we revolutionized our food today, is fire. A campfire even became a place of gathering and communion that people, even today, eat around. To put it another way, I agree with the evolution that Fernández-Armesto explains with the oyster and evolution of fire. These were the stepping stones that started our eating and cooking patterns. Cooking is a way for people and communities to come together. Cooking is a fascination for humans. Cooking and eating is a way of human life. This leads to when Fernández-Armesto gives his insight on cannibalism. Cannibalism is known to be the most environmentally friendly food ritual. There are few examples of cannibalism and the reason that humans came to this point in their lives. It is known that some cannibals ate the flesh out of dead bodies out of a sign of respect in order to not allow the body to rot. Cannibalism may be hard to understand, but Fernández-Armesto explains that this is just another part of the history of food.In addition, I agree on most of Fernández-Armesto’s work and his eight evolutions of food. One thing that I agree with the most is that culture brings is that when the raw gets cooked, and that cooking is a late innovation. A huge part of culture is food and we all have our own specialties that we love to eat and cook because of our culture. The first raw food being an oyster is hard to predict, but the first raw eaten food was probably from the ocean because that resource has always been there. I could argue and think that the first raw food eaten could have been some kind of insect of some sort, but an oyster would be much more appealing and filling. I enjoy his thoughts on how as soon as we begin to clean food we begin to transform them and they are not raw anymore. Fernández-Armesto’s theory on the evolution of fire, I agree with. The theory that in almost all theories of fire, the fire was started when flint was struck stands true to me. This book did not hit me in an emotional way, but more of an informative way. With that being said, I really enjoyed what Fernández-Armesto has to say about the history of food and I found it very interesting.This book has taught me a lot and has given me an even greater value of food. If you are interested in how food and cooking was revolutionized, then this is the book for you. Time, culture, and innovations have brought us to where we are today with food preparations and eating habits. The thoughts and knowledge that Fernández-Armesto has about this topic is incredible. His information he gives in the book will inspire your brain to think forward about this evolution. You will never think of eating the same again after reading this book! “It is possible to imagine an economy without money and reproduction without love, but not without food. Food, moreover, has a good claim to be considered the world’s most important subject. It is what matters the most to most people for most of time” (Fernández-Armesto, F., p. 54).

I wanted to get this book for a very long time. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto tells the fascinating story of food as cultural as well as culinary history. The product quality was perfect!!! The shipment was quick and the book was nicely and strongly packaged. Definitely recommended!!!

Great

not what i expected

IF you aren't reading Professor Fernandez-Armesto's various global, comparative texts: you've really missed out

This book is written with sophisticated language. It is well written and has been laued out in a manner that captures the readers interest.It is not merely about the historical facts surrounding food and cooking in different cultures. It is also a manifesto about the ways cooking has changed and how that effects society from the authors personal opinion. This aspect of the book seems more based on the authors personal biases than on imperical, psychological observation or study of modern societies and historical societies.As for the perspective the book is written from, it would be obvious to anyone who is reading it that its written from a "traditional," "patriarchal society" view point.I would have preferred a book about the history of food with less concern for the gender rolls perceived to be carried out in the societies. It seems the author added unneccesary examples, unrelated to the history of food. When discussing different historical methods of cooking he speaks of "Californian tribes, for instance, used to put women who had just given birth and pubescent girls into ovens dug into the ground..." While interesting, I don't find this information pertinent to food history, unless the girls were to be eaten, which they were not, only slowly roasted to death.He speaks of Ethiopian practice in which "Occasionally a slice of meat would be passed over a man's shoulder to the women and children who stood in silence behind the diners."Later in the same chapter he states that "the anti-cooking movement is now more than a hundred years old; it started among feminists and socialists... In effect this meant eliminating it (cooking) from people's lives..." even to the extent of having kitchenless homes.This statement may contain truth but sounds like a laughable exaggeration to say that "feminists" are "anti-cooking" and want to eliminate kitchens from modern architecture.The book is written from a perspective that deems certain examples, excerpts, and social practices as acceptable, interesting and noteworthy that other perspectives might find subtract from the educational value of the book. Any one person can find any such number examples from different societies that coincide with their own way of thinking.The author definitely approaches certain subjects in the book in the manner of a persuasive essay.I will give it four stars because a lot of work has obviously gone into the writing of this book. The language and sentence struture is quite impressive.

The topic is interesting and I have enjoyed other books exploring food-cultural issues. And this book is good for maybe the first half....until the author starts politicizing everything. Then his inner European Socialist takes over, and suddenly food is seen through a Marxist/anticolonial/anti-Western perspective. Not worth reading.

Libro interesantísimo con montones de anécdotas entretenidas. El capítulo sobre la revolución que sucedió en la comida tras el descubrimiento de América y el traslado de cultivos entre continentes, es fascinante. Como contra, es un libro escrito con letra pequeña, por lo que resulta más largo de lo que aparentan sus 220 páginas.

Great...absolutely a great work

Another good read on food history.

ペーパーバック: 272ページFree Press; Reprint版 (2003/8/26)ISBN-10: 0743227409　のレビュー。分厚い著作をたくさん出しているフェリペ・フェルナンデス＝アルメストの短めのエッセー風著作。エッセー風といえども、万巻の史料を渉猟したエッセンスであり、学術的バックグラウンドに関しては文句のつけどころがない著者でしょう。学問的スタンスとしては、アルフレッド・クロスビーなどの環境・文明論に近く、マーヴィン・ハリスのようなごりごりの唯物論ではなく、かといってレヴィ・ストロースのように難解でもない。ジャレド・ダイアモンドに史料読み込み力をプラスした感じ。たいへん面白く読めた。文章は史料引用部分など難解な部分があるが、ユーモアと皮肉が効いた語り口がよい。エッセー風であるが、構成にも気を配っており、一冊の本としてのまとまりがよい。歴史書であるが、あらゆる料理・食物に関するウンチク本としても読める。人肉食のようなキワモノ的話題も楽しいが、農耕・牧畜の発生、新世界と旧世界のエコシステム、現代の大量生産商品、などなど古くからの話題も新鮮な視点で描いている。なお、USAアマゾンで否定的なレビューが多いのは、著者がアメリカの栄養学や家政学、ニューエイジ風精神世界をみごとにおちょくっているからでしょう。その方面に縁がない日本の読者は著者の皮肉な見方に賛同すると思う。簡単だが索引あり。邦訳も同様らしいが、引用注はあるが、参考文献一覧や読書案内はない。地図・写真まったくなし。

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is, as always, a total joy to read. He presents plenty to think about, to enjoy and he presents new ways of looking at hitherto unquestioned opinions.