A Short History of the American Stomach |
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A Short History of the American Stomach
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by Frederick Kaufman
Sales Rank: 115463
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List Price: $23.00
$12.98
At Amazon
on 6-2-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 224 pages
Published by: Harcourt February 4, 2008
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 015101194X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0151011940
Book Dimensions:
8.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
Weighs: 10.4 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Kaufman, an English professor at New York's City University, pursues a hip, journalistic approach to America's all-consuming relationship to the gut, from Puritan rituals of fasting to the creation of the Food Network. Kaufman maintains that the feast-fast syndrome that torments America—obesity, anorexia, overeating, dieting, fads and cures, gastroporn, pollution and purity of food, and self-sufficiency—all originate from our understanding of virtue and vice, first established by the Puritans. Indeed, these first settlers held that the stomach's equilibrium reflected one's spiritual state, and the process of digestion maintained the body's intimate fine-tuning between good and evil. Days of fasting were declared as ways of seeking spiritual guidance, and purges and emetics used to expunge evil and corruption from the system, much as today's advocates of raw foods and unpasteurized milk press their enzyme cures. To demonstrate examples of the ethics of eating, Kaufman discusses dietary restrictions such as kosher foods and, conversely, the lifting of all restrictions by the primal culinary tastes nurtured in the Wild West. Kaufman traces dieting to Ben Franklin's obsession with the virtue of temperance and offers myriad examples of how certain diets (e.g., vegetarianism, single-substance eating) were intended to effect one's transformation from within. With a final paean to endangered favorites such as bananas and oysters, Kaufman digresses forgivingly in this occasionally incongruous though entertaining study. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
The extremes of American eating—our separate-but-equal urges to stuff and to starve ourselves—are easy to blame on the excesses of modern living. But Frederick Kaufman followed the winding road of the American intestine back to that cold morning when the first famished Pilgrim clambered off the Mayflower, and he discovered the alarming truth: We’ve been this way all along. With outraged wit and an incredible range of sources that includes everything from Cotton Mather’s diary to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, Kaufman offers a highly selective, take-no-prisoners tour of American history by way of the American stomach. Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies; discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces diet gurus of the nineteenth century, such as William Alcott, who believed that Ònothing ought to be mashed before it is eatenÓ; traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champ Dale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates our blithe efforts to re-create plants and animals that we’ve eaten to the point of extinction.
Reader Reviews
- and what a relief! This is one of those books you never knew you wanted until you had it in your hands. Kaufman's sense of history is direct, keen, and alive, informed by a sly, philosophical wit, and presented with a true sensualist's love of his subject. The result is snappy, readable, and laced with a profound, yet hilarious, understanding of Brillat-Savarin's often-misquoted, "Dites-moi ce que vous mangez et je vous dirai qui vous êtes" -- accurately translated by the immortal M.F.K. Fisher (who would have held this volume close to her heart) as, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." Kaufman shows us, with clarity and charm, how that aphorism works in both directions, always has, and always will.
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A Short History of the American Stomach
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Price: $12.98
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