Food: A history by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Macmillan, 拢20, ISBN
0333901746
THE Roman Clodius Albinus was known to consume 鈥�500 figs, a basket of
peaches, ten melons, twenty pounds of grapes, 100 golden warblers and 400
oysters at a sitting鈥�. Yet, says Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, 鈥淭he triumph of
heroic eating was not considered selfish鈥�. At many periods of history gluttons
have been seen as patrons of agriculture, just as Charles Saatchi is of modern
painting. At his enthronement feast in 1466 the Archbishop of York offered 鈥�400
swans, 2000 geese鈥�1000 egrets鈥�608 pikes and bream鈥︹�� But in modern Japan,
say, rarity and exquisite preparation matter far more than mere quantity, while
modern Western cooks emphasise the freshness and localness that were once
commonplace.
Here is a fine addition to the literature of food: fact, insight and
brilliantly chosen quotes. The science and politics could be tighter, however.
Modern evolutionary psychologists have more to say than Fernandez-Armesto does
on why people鈥檚 food habits are so bizarre. And although modern science has much
to answer for and the human population may soon level out, it is too glib to
suggest that 鈥渨e can look forward with some optimism to a future in which the
world鈥檚 population can be fed by traditional farming鈥�.
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