198 Days

I can usually read a book in a couple of hours. If the book is on the longer side, at most a couple of days. I started reading History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat on September 18th of last year. I read at least two to four pages every day, and finished it yesterday. Since the book is 800 pages long it's not an easy or light read, and it's so packed with the history of food that I didn't want to read it quickly. Now I feel as if I've completed a master course on the subject over the last six months.

The author takes you on a lengthy journey through the human experience of collecting, preparing and eating food, from the time we were of the tree dwelling variety that picked up anything that looked edible and put it in their mouth. She is not especially enthusiastic (or even kind) about human beings, but she does know and love the foods we have eaten since literally the dawn of our history. The amount of research that went into this magnificent book makes me vow never again to gripe about the couple of research books I have to plow through for a project. This was a massive undertaking that must have required years if not a decade of research on the part of the author.

Two things I have to note about the book: the author is French, and wrote it in her native language, and like most French people shows decided favoritism for all things French in the narrative. She also has the typical French snobbery for food that she can't always restrain. At the same time, she exposes her people here and there as not so savory, and sometimes downright felonious, so you forgive her for her bias. The other issue is the quality of the English translation, which is not the best. There are noticeable linguistic hiccups in the narrative, not a huge amount but enough to toss me out of the text more than once.

Despite those two issues I loved every minute of reading this book, even when it made me grumpy (the author is none too fond of Americans, either.) I understand food as part of our global culture now so much better than before, and I will take from this book so much wisdom that I can apply to my own work. Because of this I recommend History of Food as a fantastic educational and enlightening read for the scholarly minded out there, but beware: it will likely take you a very long time to get through it. No worries, you'll savor every minute. :)