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SACRED COW, MAD COW

Name: SACRED COW, MAD COW
Author: Madeleine Ferrières
ISBN: 0-231-13192-5

A HISTORY OF FOOD FEARS

by Madeleine Ferrières & translated by Jody Gladding ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2005

A densely written, scholarly work, not especially accessible but filled with choice nuggets of food lore, culinary...

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An impressively researched addition to the Arts and Traditions of the Table series.

French historian Ferrières (Social History/Univ. of Avignon) has dug deep and wide in her exploration of anxieties about food: agricultural statistics, medical and veterinary journals, public health records, royal decrees, city and town ordinances and cookery manuals. Human fears about food, she notes, fall into two categories: concern about quantity and worry over quality. Her focus here is on the latter. Although she discusses Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, she gives the United States relatively short shrift, for Ferrières’s emphasis is on European, especially French, history. Her research turns up some fascinating facts, such as that in 14th-century Europe, horror of leprosy led to the erroneous belief that one could get it by consuming “leprous pork”; later, cabbage, cheese, beer and gamay grapes were also suspect. One bizarre tale involves a lawsuit in 1668 between Paris bakers and innkeepers in which bakery bread was alleged to be unhealthy because it was made with yeast; to settle the question, doctors weighed in, as did public prosecutors, judges, police and even parliament. European reactions—suspicion, aversion, phobia—of unfamiliar foods encountered in the New World are explored, as are some wild food rumors; e.g., English porter is made stronger than European beers by the addition of a skinned dog to the vat. She shows how food fears changed as industrialization distanced the consumer from the producer, examines the gap between scientific knowledge and political power in response to food risks and looks at the role of individual responsibility for food safety.

A densely written, scholarly work, not especially accessible but filled with choice nuggets of food lore, culinary information and social history.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-231-13192-5

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Columbia Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2005

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.