I’m looking for books on food. Not recipe books, which is all I get offered when I search the web, but books written passionately, books which describe tastes, experiences, discoveries. I think a travel book that combines the foods along the way would be perfect. Any recommendations very welcome.
I could send you a bunch of my mom's old cookbooks with food stains on the recipes she made the most. Sort of a scratch-n-sniff experience, or even lick-n-taste I suppose.
May not be exactly what you're looking for, but check out The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. He also wrote several other food-related books, including Cooked Food Rules, but I haven't read most of them.
I enjoyed this: https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals-ebook/dp/B000SEIDR0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=FZYXRQII61TC&keywords=omnivore%27s+dilemma&qid=1651239945&sprefix=omnivore%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-1
Thanks, members. I’ll go take a look see. ETA: @Earp - funnily enough I’d already added this one to possibles list.
Okay, here are some broad-spectrum ones I very much enjoyed: The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World — Sandor Ellix Katz The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet — Nina Teicholz Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us — Michael Moss Salt: A World History — Mark Kurlansky The Art of Fermentation is probably the closest to what you're describing. Katz—bit of a hippie—is hardcore passionate about fermentation, and covers wide range of different cultures' foods (not just what they're eating, but at what time of the year, what ceremonial memes are followed, and what it means to them). There are recipes, but they can be skipped if boring. I found the recent history contained in The Big Fat Surprise and Salt Sugar Fat very compelling. A tobacco company briefly owned Kraft? A highly regarded scientist got paid to feed red meat to rabbits? He charted the poor outcome as supporting evidence that saturated fats are bad for people? Neat stuff! Salt: A World History is something that everyone should read. It mushes together preservation and a bit of world history. Extremely interesting, but maybe not exactly what you're looking for. I don't know.
Well I’d not really thought about old as that would be drifting into history... which isn’t a bad thing, I suppose. Thanks to all the new suggestions. I’ll look into them.
If you do ever want historical recipes here are two YouTube channels that I have found immensely helpful: https://www.youtube.com/c/TastingHistory Max Miller goes through the history of the dish of the week and covers pretty much anything from ancient Babylonia to the American Great Depression. He does a lot of research and is a pretty entertaining guy. https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson Townsends cover early Ameican colonial/revolutionary era food complete with cooking techniques. For rustic settings, I have leaned heavily on his channel in several of my WIPs.
