Review: A grand saga of humanity’s food, culture, and history. Through this book, I see humanity’s culture, history, and way of life. It begins around 11,000 BC and reaches the recent pandemic era, telling the story of food and culture, so this book is a grand saga. It was difficult to read, and it left my head full. I read it, organized my notes, and separately recorded the things I needed to memorize. The author’s effort is clear in how many stories are packed into a few hundred pages. Food

The diet changed noticeably toward plant-based foods. An age began in which people hunted less and raised livestock near their homes. In other words, pork, beef, lamb, and goat meat appeared on the table only now and then. Wheat was the most important food. It was truly a reckless undertaking. From this point on, people could store grain, but there was not enough to make up for what spoiled among the harvest, and under those conditions, devastating famines could occur. (p. 21) Eating pork fat

I think one of the necessities of life is food. What else has changed along with humanity and reflected the culture of each era as well as food has? We ate different things in different times, so what was it like in ancient times? This book lets readers experience the culture and history of different countries through their food. Using food as an example to explain each era makes it fun to imagine and wonder what the background of that time was like. The Yuan dynasty in the 1200s, when hot pot

The book felt approachable because it tells the story of fifty foods that marked different eras in human history. Food goes beyond the question of survival and hunger; it takes many forms that reflect its era, and the author tells these food stories from a deep base of knowledge. I felt the book had the power to take me quickly through a long history, from the earliest humans who ate mammoths to food in the pandemic era. Mammoths, one of the earliest foods of humanity, became extinct, but just

Since the book contains stories about fifty familiar foods, it explains the circumstances leading up to each dish being served at the table in detail, like narrating a scene from a movie. As I follow the author’s writing, I sometimes feel as though I have stepped into a moment in history and taken a seat at the table, or am quietly peeking through the window at a neighbor’s table. The accessible explanations make it fun to hear the stories of food woven into history. 🥘 One of the oldest

I enjoyed this book about the humanities of humanity through fifty foods more than I expected. What a feast of foods, from the “mammoth steak” of North America around 11,000 BC to the modern era after COVID! Is that too grand a way to put it? #TheTruthAboutMammothSteak It unfolds with a realism like a movie because it tells so many stories, from familiar foods to foods with special meaning in the histories of different countries. When did people start eating marrow, packed with nutrients that

These days, food shows are all the rage. Perhaps they were even more popular a year or two ago. But since TV still has programs about making, eating, and reviewing food, the trend seems to be continuing. The author writes this about food: “Food is the foundation of society and a force that encourages community, but it also contains power and a ruthless class structure. Food is a national heritage that people have protected with all their heart and effort. (...) Eating is naturally a pleasure,

The subject is so grand. If a title says “humanity,” just how far back does it go? More than 20,000 years BC. It begins with mammoths. When was that? It is estimated that mammoths were eaten by the Clovis people around 20,000 years ago. To hunt such a huge beast, you needed a plan, an understanding of the terrain, and patience. You had to develop hunting tools and know how to butcher the animal. Making a living was no easy thing. Then we skip ahead to central Europe around 5500 BC. Hunting for

Since humanity first existed, one of the things we cannot do without to live is eating. Times have changed, environments have changed, societies have formed, and many changes have come, but one fact has remained constant from before the common era to the present: people have to eat. Some say they eat to live, while others seem to live to eat. Eating and living are inseparable, and perhaps that is why the history of humanity is preserved in the foods people have eaten. Uta Seeburg, the author,