American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way

Hailed as a ?grand theory of the American appetite? (Rien Fertel, Wall Street Journal), food historian Paul Freedman’s American Cuisine demonstrates that there is an exuberant and diverse, if not always coherent, American cuisine that reflects the history of the nation itself. Combining historical rigor and culinary passion, Freedman underscores three recurrent themes?regionality, standardization, and variety?that shape a ?captivating history? (Drew Tewksbury, Los Angeles Times) of American culinary habits from postcolonial days to the present. The book is also filled with anecdotes that will delight food lovers: how dry cereal was created by William Kellogg for people with digestive problems; that Chicken Parmesan is actually an American invention; and that Florida Key lime pie goes back only to the 1940s and was based on a recipe developed by Borden’s condensed milk. A new standard in food writing, American Cuisine is a landmark work that sheds astonishing light on a history most of us never believed we had.