Thursday, September 16, 2021

The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat by Matt Siegel, 270 pages

 An entertaining look at the little-known history surrounding the foods we know and loveIs Italian olive oil really  Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? Far from being a classic American dish, is apple pie actually . . . English?


“As a species, we’re hardwired to obsess over food,” Matt Siegel explains as he sets out “to uncover the hidden side of everything we put in our mouths.” Siegel also probes subjects ranging from the myths—and realities—of food as aphrodisiac, to how one of the rarest and most exotic spices in all the world (vanilla) became a synonym for uninspired sexual proclivities, to the role of food in fairy- and morality tales.



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