Read more
"Reading Richard Pillsbury's remarkable No Foreign Food, like the grand opening of a new restaurant in one's neighborhood, is an exciting and pleasurable event. He engagingly chronicles the amazing diversity of America's food ways that are so central to our history and culture, but he also tells us why our eating habits are much more than mere gastronomic experiences." Karl Raitz UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY "No Foreign Food is the only serious up-to-date treatment of American food habits that I know-a subject unaccountably neglected by most students of the American scene. In Pillsbury's skillful hands, American food habits become more than just a set of cranky likes and dislikes, but instead a mirror to America's larger culture. ... It is an indispensable book for any serious student of the American scene." Pierce Lewis PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY No Foreign Food explores the evolution and transformation of the American diet from colonial times to the present. How and why did our bland colonial diet evolve into today's restless melange of exotic foods? Why are Hoppin' John, lutefisk, and scrapple, once so important, seldom eaten today? How has the restaurant shaped our daily menus? These and hundreds of other questions are addressed in this examination of the changing American diet.
List of contents
Concept and Content: An Introduction -- Concept: On What We Eat and What We Don’t -- Content: A Traditional American Diet -- Stocking the Pantry: Technology and the Food Supply -- Too Busy to Cook: The Coming of Prepared Foods -- Marketing to the Masses -- Cooking by the Book -- Imported Tastes: Immigration and the American Diet -- Eating on the Town: Restaurants and the Diet -- A Contemporary American Diet -- Cuisine Regions: Concept and Content -- Continuity and Transformation: Last Thoughts
About the author
Richard Pillsbury
Summary
This book explores the evolution and transformation of the American diet from colonial times to the present. It explains how and why did our bland colonial diet evolve into today's restless melange of exotic foods and how has the restaurant shaped our daily menus.
