Eating Between the Lines

Food in History

Three Rivers Press, 424 pp., $16 (paper)

Every now and then I run into an old acquaintance, who, upon hearing that I write about food for a living, responds to my occupation with an empty, uncomprehending stare that is usually followed by the somewhat belittling comment, "Hmmm, really? Food?"

I know what they're thinking. They remember the aspiring National Geographic writer I was at 23, or the international photo agency reporter I was at 28, and somehow view my current career as food critic and writer as a sweet, domestic sell-out far more Good Housekeeping than globetrotting.

Usually I respond to their blank stares with a hurried, occasionally defensive explanation of the kinds of stories I prefer to write -- feature articles that combine food history, culture, and folklore with recipes. "Sort of like National Geographic, only about food," I've actually been known to explain irritably.

From now on, I'll dismiss these misunderstanding acquaintances with the suggestion that they purchase Reay Tannahill's Food in History, a fact-packed yet exceptionally readable account of just how important food is. Reading it, my acquaintances are certain to come to the conclusion that food is a subject of significance -- a rich, worthy concern that goes far beyond simply deciding what's for dinner.

Readers of Food in History travel from prehistoric times to the late 1980s (the book was first published in 1973 and revised in 1988), learning in chapter after chapter how the search for food -- be it food sought for sustenance or purely in the spirit of adventure -- has fundamentally shaped society. Tannahill's dense work maps in a clear and concise way how food has been the primary engine behind urban expansion, how it has determined economic and political theory, how food has caused wars and led to earth-shattering discoveries, and how it has influenced religion, science, and technology as well.

As a food trivia buff, my favorites of Tannahill's scattered entries describe different ingredients and their importance to the cooking practices of a particular era. In Roman times there were two principal seasonings employed in cooking: liquamen and silphium. Liquamen, Tannahill informs, was much like Asia's nuoc mam, a clear, golden, fermented fish sauce with a distinctively salty flavor. Silphium, it seems, was an herbaceous plant native to north Africa. It disappears from historical food texts in the first century AD, and was replaced by asafoetida, a stinking brown fennel juice from Persia that was so relished that it ended up being taxed. Despite its foul odor, asafoetida apparently did enhance the flavor of foods.

In another entry, Tannahill tackles coffee, explaining that it originated in Ethiopia, and gets its name from the Turkish "kahveh," or "quahwah" in Arabic, which originally meant "wine." Coffee, she continues, "became the wine of the Muslims, to whom real wine was forbidden." She then goes on to trace coffee's spread around the world.

In a chapter on China, Tannahill tells of the development of regional specialties in this land of such rich culinary tradition. She explains that the country now known as China originally had three or more distinct cultures, each with its own cooking practices. In the Northern Yangtze, peasants dined on venus clams, dried "white flower snake" flesh, cherries, and melons, whereas their southern counterparts depended more on rice, dried oysters, elephant's trunk, pickled sliced python, and frog.

Tannahill's tome includes menus from aristocratic Europe, tales of early American cannibalism, details of monastic diets, and mouthwatering descriptions of Marco Polo's bountiful tables. There is a discussion on the importance of food's texture to medieval European diners, and an entire chapter dedicated to food during the Industrial Revolution, when, according to Tannahill, the adulteration of natural foods through the addition of additives (store-room floor sweepings added to pepper, dried ash leaves to tea) became commonplace.

Whether perused in a piecemeal manner or read diligently from beginning to end, Food in History will stick with you like the memory of a good meal. From the looks of it, the book doesn't seem like light summer reading. But once you indulge, you might not be able to put Tannahill's interesting work down. One thing's for sure. Reading it will remind you that food is about much more than just what you stash in your pantry or refrigerator!