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How did an animal product that spoils easily, carries disease, and causes digestive trouble for many of its consumers become a near-universal symbol of modern nutrition? In the first cultural history of milk, historian Deborah Valenze traces the rituals and beliefs that have governed milk production and consumption since its use in the earliest societies. Covering the long span of human history,Milkreveals how developments in technology, public health, and nutritional science made this once-rare elixir a modern-day staple. The book looks at the religious meanings of milk, along with its association with pastoral life, which made it an object of mystery and suspicion during medieval times and the Renaissance. As early modern societies refined agricultural techniques, cow's milk became crucial to improving diets and economies, launching milk production and consumption into a more modern phase. Yet as business and science transformed the product in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, commercial milk became not only a common and widely available commodity but also a source of uncertainty when used in place of human breast milk for infant feeding. Valenze also examines the dairy culture of the developing world, looking at the example of India, currently the world's largest milk producer. Ultimately, milk's surprising history teaches us how to think about our relationship to food in the present, as well as in the past. It reveals that although milk is a product of nature, it has always been an artifact of culture.

Seafood Lover's Florida covers the culture of seafood in the Sunshine State and features the history of the cuisine, recipes both original and contributed by restaurants, and where to find, and most importantly consume, the best of the best local offerings.

In a little more than a century, the Japanese diet has undergone a dramatic transformation. In 1900, a plant-based, near-subsistence diet was prevalent, with virtually no consumption of animal protein. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Japan's consumption of meat, fish, and dairy had increased markedly (although it remained below that of high-income Western countries). This dietary transition was a key aspect of the modernization that made Japan the world's second largest economic power by the end of the twentieth century, and it has helped Japan achieve an enviable demographic primacy, with the world's highest life expectancy and a population that is generally healthier (and thinner) than that of other modern affluent countries. In this book, Vaclav Smil and Kazuhiko Kobayashi examine Japan's gradual but profound dietary change and investigate its consequences for health, longevity, and the environment. Smil and Kobayashi point out that the gains in the quality of Japan's diet have exacted a price in terms of land use changes, water requirements, and marine resource depletion; and because Japan imports so much of its food, this price is paid globally as well as domestically. The book's systematic analysis of these diverse consequences offers the most detailed account of Japan's dietary transition available in English.

The humble soybean is the world’s most grown and most traded oilseed. But it is also a poorly understood crop that is often viewed in extreme terms as a superfood or poison. Christine M. Du Bois reveals its hugely significant role in human history, as she traces the story of soy from its domestication in ancient Asia to the promise and perils it offers in the twenty-first century. This illuminating book travels across the globe and includes a vast cast of fascinating figures who applaud, experiment with or despise soy, from Neolithic villagers, Buddhist missionaries, European colonialists, Japanese soldiers and Nazi strategists, to George Washington Carver, Henry Ford, Monsanto, Greenpeace, landless peasants, petroleum refiners and countless others. The story covers the impact of soy on international conflicts, its role in large-scale meat production and disaster relief, its troubling ecological impacts and the nutritional controversies swirling around soy today. It describes its genetic modification, the scandals and pirates involved in the international trade in soybeans and the use of soy as an intriguing renewable fuel. Featuring compelling historical and contemporary photographs, The Story of Soy reveals the importance of soy throughout history, and why it should never be underestimated.

InMeanings of Maple, Michael A. Lange provides a cultural analysis of maple syrup making, known in Vermont as sugaring, to illustrate how maple syrup as both process and product is an aspect of cultural identity.Readers will go deep into a Vermont sugar bush and its web of plastic tubes, mainline valves, and collection tanks. They will visit sugarhouses crammed with gas evaporators and reverse-osmosis machines. And they will witness encounters between sugar makers and the tourists eager to invest Vermont with mythological fantasies of rural simplicity.So much more than a commodity study,Meanings of Mapleframes a new approach for evaluating the broader implications of iconic foodways, and it will animate conversations in food studies for years to come.

\"Takes readers into the forests and sugar shacks of New England . . . Filled with entertaining anecdotes, traditional knowledge and recipes.\" -Waterbury Republican-AmericanThese stories, told by real-life sugarmakers, reveal how this ancient industry has continued into the twenty-first century. Thanks to the newest technology-and the old-fashioned virtue of patience-New England sugarmakers are still keeping it real. A former maple sugarmaker and board member of the Maple Syrup Producers' Association of Connecticut, David Leff takes us on a journey into the very heart of New England's character. Along the way he talks with the sugar gurus, who share their expertise, insights, and anecdotes about their experiences in the business. What makes maple sugaring such a beloved tradition? Is it marketing savvy or something deeper-and harder to tap? This book is for anyone with a sweet tooth who is curious about the science, or simply enjoys a good story full of wisdom, quirky characters, and recipes.