Once synonymous with food novelty, gelatin has re-emerged as an attention-grabbing element of creative cuisine and avant-garde drinkology. Ken Albala’s most fearless food exploration yet takes readers into the sublime world of aspics past and present. Blending history with his trademark zeal for experimentation, Albala traces gelatin’s ever-changing fortunes alongside one-of-a-kind recipes that inspire, delight, and terrify as only jello can do. Gelatin’s wondrous arrival in the medieval era was part of a technological watershed. Today, it reflects our high-tech zeitgeist. Albala encourages readers to celebrate gelatin's return with advice on creating a base and making silicone molds while his outrageous original creations dare you to add some jiggle to breakfast (Eggs Benedict in Champagne Jello), a nightcap (Froot Loop Negroni), or any culinary moment in between. A lighthearted manifesto for the new age of aspics, The Great Gelatin Revival rattles our very understanding of what food can be.

Every day, noodle shops around the globe ladle out quick meals that fuel our go-go lives. But Ken Albala has a mission: to get YOU in the kitchen making noodle soup. This primer offers the recipes and techniques for mastering quick-slurper staples and luxurious from-scratch feasts. Albala made a different noodle soup every day for two years. His obsession yielded all you need to know about making stock bases, using dried or fresh noodles, and choosing from a huge variety of garnishes, flavorings, and accompaniments. He lays out innovative techniques for mixing and matching bases and noodles with grains, vegetables, and other ingredients drawn from an international array of cuisines. In addition to recipes both cutting edge and classic, Albala describes new soup discoveries he created along the way. There's advice on utensils, cooking tools, and the oft-overlooked necessity of matching a soup to the proper bowl. Finally, he sprinkles in charming historical details that cover everything from ancient Chinese millet noodles to that off-brand Malaysian ramen at the back of the ethnic grocery store. Filled with more than seventy color photos and dozens of recipes, Noodle Soup is an indispensable guide for cooking, eating, and loving a universal favorite.

Discovering Singaporean identity through cooking and cuisine While eating is a universal experience, for Singaporeans it carries strong national connotations. The popular Singaporean-English phrase "Die die must try" is not so much hyperbole as it is a reflection of the lengths that Singaporeans will go to find great dishes. In Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore, Nicole Tarulevicz argues that in a society that has undergone substantial change in a relatively short amount of time, food serves Singaporeans as a poignant connection to the past. Eating has provided a unifying practice for a diverse society, a metaphor for multiracialism and recognizable national symbols for a fledgling state. Covering the period from British settlement in 1819 to the present and focusing on the post–1965 postcolonial era, Tarulevicz tells the story of Singapore through the production and consumption of food. Analyzing a variety of sources that range from cookbooks to architectural and city plans, Tarulevicz offer a thematic history of this unusual country, which was colonized by the British and operated as a port within Malaya. Connecting food culture to the larger history of Singapore, she discusses various topics including domesticity and home economics, housing and architecture, advertising, and the regulation of food-related manners and public behavior such as hawking, littering, and chewing gum. Moving away from the predominantly political and economic focus of other histories of Singapore, Eating Her Curries and Kway provides an important alternative reading of Singaporean society.

In 1611 Francisco Martínez Montiño, chef to Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV of Spain, published what would become the most recognized Spanish cookbook for centuries: Arte de cocina, pastelería, vizcochería y conservería. This first English translation of The Art of Cooking, Pie Making, Pastry Making, and Preserving will delight and surprise readers with the rich array of ingredients and techniques found in the early modern kitchen. Based on her substantial research and hands-on experimentation, Carolyn A. Nadeau reveals how early cookbooks were organized and read and presents an in-depth analysis of the ingredients featured in the book. She also introduces Martínez Montiño and his contributions to culinary history, and provides an assessment of taste at court and an explanation of regional, ethnic, and international foodstuffs and recipes. The 506 recipes and treatises reproduced in The Art of Cooking, Pie Making, Pastry Making, and Preserving outline everything from rules for kitchen cleanliness to abstinence foods to seasonal banquet menus, providing insight into why this cookbook, penned by the chef of kings, stayed in production for centuries.

A history of cooking and fine dining in Western Europe from 1520 to 1660

"Food historian Andrew F. Smith presents the turkey in ten courses, beginning with the bird itself (actually, several species of it) in the wild. The Turkey subsequently includes discussions of practically every aspect of the icon, including its arrival in early America, how it came to be called "turkey," its domestication and mating habits, the expansion of the bird's territory into Europe, conditions in modern turkey processing plants, and the surprising boom-or-bust cycles in turkey husbandry. The bird's ascension to holiday mainstay - and the techniques of stuffing - are also discussed." "As one of the easiest foods to cook, the turkey's culinary possibilities have been widely explored if little noted. The second half of this book is a collection of more than a hundred historical and modern turkey recipes from across America and Europe."--BOOK JACKET.