PART I: FIRE
The literature on American barbecue is vast. The Web site of the Southern Foodways Alliance (http://southernfoodways.org/) offers a wealth of excellent material, including short films of pit masters at work and oral histories of North Carolina pit masters, such as Ed Mitchell and the Joneses. (http://www.southernbbqtrail.com/north-carolina/index.shtml)
I found these books and journals on Southern barbecue particularly illuminating:
Egerton, John. Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History. New York: Knopf, 1987.
Elie, Lolis Eric. Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1996.
———, ed. Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Engelhardt, Elizabeth Sanders Delwiche. Republic of Barbecue: Stories Beyond the Brisket. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2009.
Kaminsky, Peter. Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them. New York: Hyperion, 2005.
McSpadden, Wyatt. Texas Barbecue. A book of photographs, with a foreword by Jim Harrison and an essay by John Morthland. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2009.
Reed, John Shelton, and Dale Volberg Reed with William McKinney. Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2008.
Southern Cultures, The Edible South, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 2009. Special issue on Southern food.
On the Early History and Evolutionary Implications of Cooking
Carmody, Rachel N., et al. “Energetic Consequences of Thermal and Nonthermal Food Processing.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, 48 (2011): 19199–203.
Carmody, Rachel N., and Richard W. Wrangham. “Cooking and the Human Commitment to a High-Quality Diet.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 74 (2009): 427–34. Epub October 20, 2009.
———. “The Energetic Significance of Cooking.” Journal of Human Evolution 57 (2009): 379–91.
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food. New York: Free Press, 2002.
Berna, Francesco, et al. “Microstratigraphic Evidence of in Situ Fire in the Acheulean Strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Nothern Cape Province, South Africa.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, 20 (2012): E1215–20.
Jones, Martin. Feast: Why Humans Share Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Symons, Michael. A History of Cooks and Cooking. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2000.
Wrangham, Richard, et al. “The Raw and the Stolen: Cooking and the Ecology of Human Origins.” Current Anthropology 40 (2009): 567–94.
Wrangham, Richard W. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
A Few More Practical Books on Cooking with Fire
Mallmann, Francis, and Peter Kaminsky. Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way. New York: Artisan, 2009.
Raichlen, Steven. The Barbecue! Bible. New York: Workman, 1998.
———. Planet Barbecue! New York: Workman, 2010.
Rubel, William. The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking—One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace or Campfire. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2002.
Harold McGee’s books are indispensable to anyone interested in the science of cooking:
McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004.
———. The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. See especially chapter 17: “From Raw to Cooked: The Transformation of Flavor,” a brilliant speculation on why humans like the taste of cooked food.
———. Keys to Good Cooking. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
On Fire, Fire Cookery, and Sacrifice in History and Mythology
Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. See Alter’s notes to Leviticus for discussion of sacrifice in the Old Testament and the kosher laws.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Psychoanalysis of Fire. Boston: Beacon, 1964.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Annette Lavers, tr. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972. See the essay “Steak and Chips.”
Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2009.
Detienne, Marcel, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989.
Douglas, Mary. “Deciphering a Meal,” accessed online: http://etnologija.etnoinfolab.org/dokumenti/82/2/2009/douglas_1520.pdf.
Freedman, Paul, ed. Food: The History of Taste. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. See especially the chapter on ancient Greece and Rome by Veronika Grimm.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton, 1962. See his “conjecture” on the control of fire in the note on pp. 42–43.
Goudsblom, Johan. Fire and Civilization. London: Allen Lane, 1992.
Harris, Marvin. The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture. New York: Touchstone, 1985.
Kass, Leon. The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature. New York: Free Press, 1994. See especially his accounts of sacrifice, cannibalism, and the kosher laws.
Lamb, Charles. A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig & Other Essays. London: Penguin Books, 2011. Also available on-line at: http://www.angelfire.com/nv/mf/elia1/pig.htm.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Origins of Table Manners. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. See especially the chapter “A Short Treatise on Culinary Anthropology.”
Lieber, David L. Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. New York: The Rabbinical Assembly/United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 2001. See the essay on sacrifice in the Old Testament, by Gordon Tucker.
Montanari, Massimo. Food Is Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Plato. The Phaedrus, Lysis and Protagoras of Plato: A New and Literal Translation by J. Wright. London: Macmillan, 1900.
Pyne, Stephen J. Fire: A Brief History. Seattle: University of Washington, 2001.
Raggio, Olga. “The Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 21, No. 1/2 (January–June, 1958).
Segal, Charles. “The Raw and the Cooked in Greek Literature: Structure, Values, Metaphor.” Classical Journal (April–May, 1974): 289–308.
PART II: WATER
On the History and Significance of Cooking with Pots
Allport, Susan. The Primal Feast: Food, Sex, Foraging, and Love. New York: Harmony, 2000.
Atalay, Sonya. “Domesticating Clay: The Role of Clay Balls, Mini Balls and Geometric Objects in Daily Life at Çatalhöyük” in Ian Holder, ed., Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2005.
———, and Christine A. Hastorf. “Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Neolithic Çatalhöyük.” American Antiquity, Vol. 71, No. 2 (April 2006): 283–319. Published by the Society for American Archaeology.
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food. New York: Free Press, 2002.
Haaland, Randi. “Porridge and Pot, Bread and Oven: Food Ways and Symbolism in Africa and the Near East from the Neolithic to the Present.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17, 2: 165–82.
Jones, Martin. Feast: Why Humans Share Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Kaufmann, Jean-Claude. The Meaning of Cooking. Cambridge: Polity, 2010.
Lévi-Strau
ss, Claude. The Origin of Table Manners. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. The discussion of boiling versus roasting is in the chapter “A Short Treatise on Culinary Anthropology.”
Rumohr, C. Fr. v., and Barbara Yeomans. The Essence of Cookery (Geist Der Kochkunst). London: Prospect, 1993.
Sutton, David, and Michael Hernandez. “Voices in the Kitchen: Cooking Tools as Inalienable Possessions.” Oral History, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Autumn 207): 67–76.
Symons, Michael. A History of Cooks and Cooking. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2000.
Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. New York: Stein and Day, 1973.
Welfeld, Irving. “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk: Beyond Exodus 23:19.” Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2004.
On Cooking, Gender, and the Time Crunch
Clark, Anna. “The Foodie Indictment of Feminism” on Salon, May 26, 2010. http://www.salon.com/2010/05/26/foodies_and_feminism/.
Cognard-Black, Jennifer. “The Feminist Food Revolution.” Ms. Magazine, Summer 2010, Vol. xx, No. 3.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 2011.
Flammang, Janet A. The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2009.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963.
Gussow, Joan Dye. “Why Cook?” Journal of Gastronomy 7 (1), Winter/Spring, 1993, 79–88.
———. “Women, Food and Power Revisited.” A speech to the South Carolina Nutrition Council, February, 26, 1993.
Hayes, Shannon. Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture. Richmondville, NY: Left to Write Press, 2010.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home & Home Becomes Work. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997.
———, and Anne Machung. The Second Shift. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
Java, Jennifer, and Carol M. Devine. “Time Scarcity and Food Choices: An Overview.” Appetite 47 (2006): 196–204.
Larson, Nicole I., et al. “Food Preparation by Young Adults Is Associated with Better Diet Quality.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Vol. 106, No. 12, December 2006.
Neuhaus, Jessamyn. “The Way to a Man’s Heart: Gender Roles, Domestic Ideology, and Cookbooks in the 1950s.” Journal of Social History, Spring 1999.
Pollan, Michael. “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.” New York Times Magazine, August 2, 2009.
Shapiro, Laura. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century. New York: Modern Library, 2001.
———. Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950’s America. New York: Viking, 2004.
On Trends in American Eating and Cooking Habits
See the Web site of NPD, Harry Balzer’s market research firm: https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/industryexpertise/food. See also the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “American Time Use Survey”: http://www.bls.gov/tus/.
Cutler, David, et al. “Why Have Americans Become More Obese?” Journal of Economic Perspectives. Vol. 17, No. 3 Summer (2003): 93–118. Cutler attributes part of the increase in obesity to a decrease in the time spent preparing food.
Gussow, Joan Dye. “Does Cooking Pay?” Journal of Nutrition Education 20,5 (1988): 221–26.
Haines, P. S., et al. “Eating Patterns and Energy and Nutrient Intakes of US Woman.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 92, 6 (1992): 698–704, 707.
On the Chemistry of Flavor, Including Umami and Phytochemicals
Beauchamp, Gary K. “Sensory and Receptor Responses to Umami: An Overview of Pioneering Work.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 90 (suppl) (2009): 723S–27S.
Block, E. “The Chemistry of Garlic and Onions.” Scientific American 252 (1985): 114–19.
Blumenthal, Heston, et al. Dashi and Umami: The Heart of Japanese Cuisine. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2009.
Chaudhari, Nirupa, et al. “Taste Receptors for Umami: The Case for Multiple Receptors.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 90, 3 (2009): 738S–42S.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Ketchup Conundrum.” New Yorker, September 6, 2004.
Griffiths, Gareth. “Onions—a Global Benefit to Health.” Phytotherapy Research 16 (2002): 603–15.
Kurlansky, Mark. Salt: A World History. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
Kurobayashi, Yoshiko, et al. “Flavor Enhancement of Chicken Broth from Boiled Celery Constituents.” Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, 56 (2008): 512–16.
McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004.
Rivlin, Richard S. “Historical Perspective on the Use of Garlic” in Recent Advances in the Nutritional Effects Associated with the Use of Garlic as a Supplement, proceedings of a conference published as a supplement to The Journal of Nutrition, 2009.
Rogers, Judy. The Zuni Café Cookbook. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Be sure to read her brilliant short essay on “salting early,” pp. 35–38.
Rozin, Elisabeth. Ethnic Cuisine: How to Create the Authentic Flavors of 30 International Cuisines. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
———. The Universal Kitchen. New York: Viking, 1996.
Sherman, Paul W., and Jennifer Billing. “Darwinian Gastronomy: Why We Use Spices.” BioScience, Vol. 49, No. 6 (June 1999): 453–63.
Vitali, Benedetta. Soffritto: Tradition and Innovation in Tuscan Cooking. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2004. Benedetta was one of Samin’s teachers in Italy.
On the Element of Water
Bachelard, Gaston. Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter. Dallas: Pegasus Foundation, 1983.
PART III: AIR
On the History of Wheat, Milling, and Bread
Belasco, Warren J. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2006. Good on the symbolism of white and brown bread in the 1960s.
Braudel, Fernand. The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row. 1981. See part 2, “Daily Bread.”
David, Elizabeth. English Bread and Yeasty Cookery. Newtown, MA: Biscuit Books, 1994. Very good on the history of milling in England.
Drummond, J.G., and Anne Wilbraham. The Englishman’s Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet. London: Jonathan Cape, 1939.
Eisenberg, Evan. The Ecology of Eden: An Inquiry into the Dream of Paradise and a New Vision of Our Role in Nature. New York: Vintage, 1999. The first few chapters offer a wonderful account of the coevolution of grasses and humankind.
Graham, Sylvester. Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making. Boston: Light & Stearns, 1837. In case you thought nutritional fads were something new in America.
Jacob, H.E., and Peter Reinhart. Six Thousand Years of Bread. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2007.
Kahn, E.J. “The Staffs of Life: Part III, Fiat Panis,” New Yorker, December 17, 1984. This notorious series on grains is often mocked as a symbol of the “old” New Yorker at its most irrelevant—but I found it fascinating.
Kaplan, Steven Laurence. Good Bread Is Back: A Contemporary History of French Bread, the Way It Is Made, and the People Who Make It. Durham, NC: Duke University, 2006. Valuable for his account of the rise of white bread and the revival of sourdoughs.
Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Knopf, 2011. In chapter 8, “Crazy Soup,? Mann tells the story of how the conquistadors brought wheat to the New World, p. 281.
Manning, Richard. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization. New York: North Point Pres
s, 2004.
———. Grassland: The History, Biology, and Promise of the American Prairie. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. Manning recounts how the American prairie was transformed from grasslands to wheat fields.
Marchant, John, et al. Bread: A Slice of History. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2009.
McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004. See his chapter on bread history and technique.
Rubel, William. Bread: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2011.
Standage, Tom. An Edible History of Humanity. New York: Walker & Co., 2009.
Storck, John, and Walter Dorwin Teague. Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of Milling. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1952.
Tudge, Colin. So Shall We Reap: What’s Gone Wrong with the World’s Food—and How to Fix It. London: Penguin Books, 2003. A good account of wheat’s evolution.
On Baking Technique
Beard, James. Beard on Bread. New York: Knopf. 1974.
Clayton, Bernard. The Breads of France. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2004.
Lahey, Jim. My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009.
Leader, Daniel, and Judith Blahnik. Bread Alone: Bold Fresh Loaves from Your Own Hand. New York: Morrow, 1993.
Oppenheimer, Todd. “Breaking Bread.” A profile of Chad Robertson. San Francisco Magazine, November 2010.
Orton, Mildred Ellen. Cooking with Whole Grains. Foreword by Deborah Madison. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
Reinhart, Peter. The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2001.
———. Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavors. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2007. Reinhart pioneered (or revived) the soaking of whole grains before fermenting them.
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