Ian Crofton

I was really not thrilled with this book. I like food trivia and learning about international and historical dietary customs, but unfortunately this book is just too random and doesn't provide enough continuity or context to make its many brief food trivia bits stick together in a coherent book. The timeline format is only somewhat helpful, because the vignettes jump around so much from useless and curious recipes to poems that mention foods to silly and pointless stories about famous people that somehow involve food. The foods mentioned tend toward the sensational, so recipes for rats and pigeons are provided, and there are lots of brains and organ meats, but not much dessert and only a few vegetables, mostly greens and potatoes. I suppose as a book for kids, to be read in small bits, this would be a decent enough book, but I wanted a bit more information and better organization to tie together the information this book tries to present. As is, this book was just annoying. There were a few bits of trivia I enjoyed despite my frustration with the book, but since no references are provided and there is so little information provided for each factoid, I'd still have to google keywords and do my own research, as if I had not already read a whole book on food and culture.… (lisätietoja)

Short pieces about food some humorous, some disgusting by modern standards are setup like:

1906

Some Devil’s Definitions Ambrose Bierce supplied the following definition in his Devil’s Dictionary:
MACARONI, n. An Italian food made in the form of a slender, hollow tube. It consists of two parts—the tubing and the hole, the latter being the part that digests.
In the 1911 Enlarged Devil’s Dictionary, we find the following definitions:
CUSTARD, n. A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow and the cook.
RHUBARB, n. Vegetable essence of stomach ache.
* * *

Unrelatedly, the first Artichoke Queen, crowned in 1948 at the Artichoke Festival held in Castroville, California, was a certain Norma Jean Baker—later better known as Marilyn Monroe.

1956

Matzoh Balls When dining at the parents of her new husband, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe was offered matzoh balls. According to oral tradition, she replied, “Isn’t there another part of the matzoh you can eat?”

… (lisätietoja)