"Perhaps the most significant meals in the world have been consumed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by the presumptive leaders of the free world. Thomas Jefferson had an affinity for eggplant and FDR for terrapin stew. Nixon ate a lump of cottage cheese topped with barbecue sauce every day and Obama regularly had arugula. Now, Alex Prud'homme takes us to the dining tables of the White House to look at what the presidents chose to eat, how the food was...

The true adventures of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes -- and thousands more -- to the American plate. "In the nineteenth century American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. Agriculture yielded stable, basic crops like soybeans, corn, and barley, and few growers considered variety or flavor. But as a new century approached,...

"A rollicking exploration of the history and future of our favorite foods When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future. Whether...

"Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? Far from being a classic American dish, is apple pie actually . . . English? "As a species, we're hardwired to obsess over food," Matt Siegel explains as he sets out "to uncover the hidden side of everything we put in our mouths." Siegel also probes subjects ranging from the myths -- and realities...

An enlightening narrative history -- an entertaining fusion of Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan -- that traces the colorful origins of once unconventional foods and the diverse fringe movements, charismatic gurus, and counterculture elements that brought them to the mainstream and created a distinctly American cuisine. Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century -- to the 1960s and 1970s -- to tell the story of how a coterie of...

"This glorious visual celebration of food in all its forms reveals the extraordinary cultural impact of the foods we eat, explores the early efforts of humans in their quest for sustenance, and tells the fascinating stories behind individual foods. With profiles of the most culturally and historically interesting foods of all types, from nuts and grains, fruits and vegetables, and meat and fish, to herbs and spices, this fascinating culinary historical...

"There are few areas of modern life that are burdened by as much information and advice, often contradictory, as our diet and health: eat a lot of meat, eat no meat; whole-grains are healthy, whole-grains are a disaster; eat everything in moderation; eat only certain foods -- and on and on. In One Hundred Million Years of Food biological anthropologist Stephen Le explains how cuisines of different cultures are a result of centuries of evolution, finely...

According to the World Health Organization, the incidence of cancer has doubled over the last thirty years. Over this period, the increase in leukemia and brain tumours in children has been around 2% per year. The WHO has observed a similar trend for neurological diseases (Parkinson's and Alzheimer's) and autoimmune disorders. This documentary launches an in-depth investigation into everyday products and the systems charged with regulating them, examining...

A culinary journey through the flavors of the southwestern borderlands from an agricultural ecologist and "natural storyteller" (Times Literary Supplement). Why does food taste better when you know where it comes from? Because history-ecological, cultural, even personal-flavors every bite we eat. Whether it's the volatile chemical compounds that a plant absorbs from the soil or the stories and memories of places that are evoked by taste, layers...

In this stunningly original book, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham argues that "cooking" created the human race. At the heart of "Catching Fire" lies an explosive new idea: The habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labor.