The Cambridge World History of Food (review)

This well-written, fully documented, closely printed, solidly bound boxed set will be an almost canonical text to the increasing number of scholars, researchers, and students who have to engage with food history. It results from the Cambridge History and Culture of Food and Nutrition Project, not localized in Cambridge but headed by Kenneth Kiple of Bowling Green University, editor of the successful and indispensable Cambridge World History of Human Disease (1993).

The contents, paginated straight through the two volumes, are Part I, "Determining What Our Ancestors Ate" (pp. 9-71); Part II, "Staple Foods: Domesticated Plants and Animals" (pp.73-615); Part III: "Dietary Liquids" (pp. 619-737); Part IV: "The Nutrients-Deficiencies, Surfeits, and Food-Related Disorders" (pp. 739-1120); Part V: "Food and Drink around the World" (pp. 1121-1378); Part VI: "History, Nutrition and Health" (pp. 1379-1573); Part VI: "Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues" (pp. 1575-1709); and Part VIII: "A Dictionary of the World's Plant Foods" (pp. 1711-1900). Each chapter has its own bibliography.

First the good news. The reader is offered a definitive survey of most of the major foods in our diet, notably cereals, cultivated vegetables, animal foods, and drinks (among which water is not forgotten). One learns where these foods came from, where and when they became part of the diet, the route from there to the modern United States, and their nutritional qualities. This survey is preceded by a short section (Part I) on the archaeological sources of information; these six chapters of very high quality should be read alongside Part V.F: "Culinary History," a survey of the written sources of information.

As expected from Kiple's previous work, the sections dealing with the relationship between foods, health, and disease are well executed. Part IV deals with specific nutrients (such as vitamins) and specific diseases; Part VI treats general issues from famine (1411-27) to prejudices and taboos (1495-1513). An important feature is that on each of two contentious issues, "nutrition and the decline of mortality" and vegetarianism, two scholars have contributed separately. All four of these chapters deserve their place.

Part V covers every continent. The first and last chapters are among the best: "The Beginnings of Agriculture," by Naomi F. Miller and Wilma Wetterstrom, and "The Pacific Islands," by Nancy Davis Lewis. A couple of omissions are signaled below, but most other regions are well covered. The sketchiest chapter is that on the Middle East and South Asia; unfortunately it lacks an adequate bibliography.

Part VII deals with current policy issues. The coverage of genetically modified foods (pp. 1666-67) is brief and anodyne; note the important recent articles on this issue in the new journal Gastronomica. By contrast, food labeling and dietary guidance are thoroughly discussed: Marion Nestle, author of the recent Food Politics (2002), contributes two chapters.

Following are some questions, doubts, and criticisms.

CWHF shows two statistical features unexpected in a "world history." Three-fourths of the 160 authors are from one country (the United States). Fewer than one-fifth of them are historians.

The first of these two features faithfully reflects this book's editorial history and potential market. The point of view is North American. There is no doubt that the largest market will be the universities and colleges of the United States. These facts have influenced the allocation of space to foodstuffs (an emphasis on meat, a lack of emphasis on fish) but their principal result has been the provision in many chapters of a world historical survey that develops toward and culminates in the modem U.S. situation: the natural and the most useful approach for U.S. student readers.

Four-fifths of the authors are not historians (this is a personal estimate: about one-tenth have pursued doctoral research in history, and about another tenth have previously demonstrated skill...