From the McDonald's hot coffee case to the cattle ranchers' beef with Oprah Winfrey, from the old English "Assize of Bread" to current nutrition labeling laws, what we eat and how we eat are shaped as much by legal regulations as by personal taste. Barry M. Levenson, the curator of the world-famous (really!) Mount Horeb Mustard Museum and a self-proclaimed "recovering lawyer," offers in Habeas Codfish an entertaining and expert overview of the frustrating, frightening, and funny intersections of food and the law. Discover how Mr. Peanut shaped the law of trademark infringement for the entire food industry. Consider the plight of the restaurant owner besmirched by a journalist's negative review. Find out how traditional Jewish laws of kashrut ran afoul of the First Amendment. Prison meals, butter vs. margarine, definitions of organic food, undercover ABC reporters at the Food Lion, the Massachusetts Supreme Court case that saved fish chowder, even recipes--it's all in here, so tuck in!

From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways reveals the distinctive flavor of Jewish foods in the Midwest and tracks regional culinary changes through time. Exploring Jewish culinary innovation in America's heartland from the 1800s to today, Ellen F. Steinberg and Jack H. Prost examine recipes from numerous midwestern sources, both kosher and nonkosher, including Jewish homemakers' handwritten manuscripts and notebooks, published journals and newspaper columns, and interviews with Jewish cooks, bakers, and delicatessen owners. With the influx of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came new recipes and foodways that transformed the culture of the region. Settling into the cities, towns, and farm communities of Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, Jewish immigrants incorporated local fruits, vegetables, and other comestibles into traditional recipes. Such incomparable gustatory delights include Tzizel bagels and rye breads coated in midwestern cornmeal, baklava studded with locally grown cranberries, dark pumpernickel bread sprinkled with almonds and crunchy Iowa sunflower seeds, tangy ketchup concocted from wild sour grapes, Sephardic borekas (turnovers) made with sweet cherries from Michigan, rich Chicago cheesecakes, native huckleberry pie from St. Paul, and savory gefilte fish from Minnesota northern pike. Steinberg and Prost also consider the effect of improved preservation and transportation on rural and urban Jewish foodways, as reported in contemporary newspapers, magazines, and published accounts. They give special attention to the impact on these foodways of large-scale immigration, relocation, and Americanization processes during the nineteenth century and the efforts of social and culinary reformers to modify traditional Jewish food preparation and ingredients. Including dozens of sample recipes, From the Jewish Heartland: Two Centuries of Midwest Foodways takes readers on a memorable and unique tour of midwestern Jewish cooking and culture.

An illuminating account of how history shapes our diets-now revised and updated Why did the ancient Romans believe cinnamon grew in swamps guarded by giant killer bats? How did the African cultures imported by slavery influence cooking in the American South? What does the 700-seat McDonald's in Beijing serve in the age of globalization? With the answers to these and many more such questions, Cuisine and Culture, Second Edition presents an engaging, informative, and witty narrative of the interactions among history, culture, and food. From prehistory and the earliest societies around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to today's celebrity chefs, Cuisine and Culture, Second Edition presents a multicultural and multiethnic approach that draws connections between major historical events and how and why these events affected and defined the culinary traditions of different societies. Fully revised and updated, this Second Edition offers new and expanded features and coverage, including: New Crossing Cultures sections providing brief sketches of foods and food customs moving between cultures More holiday histories, food fables, and food chronologies Discussions of food in the Byzantine, Portuguese, Turkish/Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires Greater coverage of the scientific genetic modification of food, from Mendel in the 19th century to the contemporary GM vs. organic food debate Speculation on the future of food And much more! Complete with sample recipes and menus, as well as revealing photographs and illustrations, Cuisine and Culture, Second Edition is the essential survey history for students of food history.

Offering a panoramic view of the history and culture of food and drink in America with fascinating entries on everything from the smell of asparagus to the history of White Castle, and the origin of Bloody Marys to jambalaya, the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink provides a concise, authoritative, and exuberant look at this modern American obsession. Ideal for the food scholar and food enthusiast alike, it is equally appetizing for anyone fascinated by Americana, capturing our culture and history through what we love most--food! Building on the highly praised and deliciously browseable two-volume compendium the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, this new work serves up everything you could ever want to know about American consumables and their impact on popular culture and the culinary world. Within its pages for example, we learn that Lifesavers candy owes its success to the canny marketing idea of placing the original flavor, mint, next to cash registers at bars. Patrons who bought them to mask the smell of alcohol on their breath before heading home soon found they were just as tasty sober and the company began producing other flavors. Edited by Andrew Smith, a writer and lecturer on culinary history, the Companion serves up more than just trivia however, including hundreds of entries on fast food, celebrity chefs, fish, sandwiches, regional and ethnic cuisine, food science, and historical food traditions. It also dispels a few commonly held myths. Veganism, isn't simply the practice of a few "hippies," but is in fact wide-spread among elite athletic circles. Many of the top competitors in the Ironman and Ultramarathon events go even further, avoiding all animal products by following a strictly vegan diet. Anyone hungering to know what our nation has been cooking and eating for the last three centuries should own the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink.

The business of food and drink is for better and worse the business of our nation and our planet, and to most consumers how it works remains largely a mystery. This encyclopedia takes readers as consumers behind the scenes of the food and drink industries. The contributors come from a wide range of fields, and the scope of this encyclopedia is broad, covering from food companies and brands to the environment, health, science and technology, culture, finance, and more. The more than 150 essay entries also cover those issues that have been and continue to be of perennial importance. Historical context is emphasized and the focus is mainly on business in the United States. Most entries include Further Reading. The frontmatter includes an Alphabetical List of Entries and a Topical List of Entries to allow the reader to quickly find subjects of interest. Numerous cross-references in the entries and blind entries provide other search strategies. The person and subject index is another in-depth search tool. Sample entries: Advertising, Agribusiness, Altria, Animal Rights, Betty Crocker, Celebrity Chefs, Chain Restaurants, Commodities Exchange, Cooking Technology, Culinary Tourism, Eco-terrorism, Environmental Protection Agency, Ethnic Food Business, European Union, Flavors and Fragrances, Food Safety, Food Service Industry, Genetic Engineering, Internet, Labor and Labor Unions, Marketing to Children, McDonald's, Meat Packing, North American Free Trade Agreement, Nutrition Labeling, Organic Foods, Poultry Industry, Slow Food, SPAM, Television, Trader Joe's, Tupperware, TV Dinners, Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma, Wine Business

Home cooks and gourmets, chefs and restaurateurs, epicures, and simple food lovers of all stripes will delight in this smorgasbord of the history and culture of food and drink. Professor of Culinary History Andrew Smith and nearly 200 authors bring together in 770 entries the scholarship on wide-ranging topics from airline and funeral food to fad diets and fast food; drinks like lemonade, Kool-Aid, and Tang; foodstuffs like Jell-O, Twinkies, and Spam; and Dagwood, hoagie, and Sloppy Joe sandwiches.

Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways--padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds--such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters--increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as "genuine coffee" was anything but--and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking.