I know, I know. Technically this book does not belong in this category, I found it stuffed in between "An Everlasting Meal" and "Blood, Butter, and Bones" on the shelf at Half Priced Books and couldn't resist. It is a red herring (sorry). I was expecting this to be a book about how certain foods became human staples, I guess. But no, instead the book explores the amazing role of food, especially plant food in history--as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion.
The book spans the time from the emergence of farming in China by 7,500 BCE to today's use of corn and sugar to produce ethanol, it is a different way of looking at history that is both eye-opening and changed the way I view the world. I found it to be a bit of a palate cleanser--it took me out of the "tiny" back of the house world of individual restaurants to looking at food from a much larger perspective.
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