Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

So close geographically, how could France and England be so enormously far apart gastronomically? Not just in different recipes and ways of cooking, but in their underlying attitudes toward the enjoyment of eating and its place in social life. In a new afterword that draws the United States and other European countries into the food fight, Stephen Mennell also addresses the rise of Asian influence and "multicultural" cuisine.

Debunking myths along the way, All Manners of Food is a sweeping look at how social and political development has helped to shape different culinary cultures. Food and almost everything to do with food, fasting and gluttony, cookbooks, women's magazines, chefs and cooks, types of foods, the influential difference between "court" and "country" food are comprehensively explored and tastefully presented in a dish that will linger in the memory long after the plates have been cleared.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This stimulating book is a welcome addition to the new academic discipline of food history. The author does not merely describe the differences in the tastes in England and France. Instead, he takes on the more difficult task of trying to explain those national differences, and to understand ``how social groups develop standards of taste.'' His topics include ``Fasting, Gluttony, the Church and the State,'' ``Puritanism and Food,'' ``Male Chefs and Women Cooks,'' ``Women's Magazines,'' and a really masterly discussion of early English cookbooks and manuscripts. This book is well written, scholarly, and provocative; no reader interested in food history could ask for more. Joyce S. Toomre, Russian Research Ctr., Harvard Univ. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Mennell's book is a history of changing tastes in food in France and England from the Middle Ages until the present. It examines the sociohistorical contexts of food fads, eating disorders, and changing standards of ``good taste.'' Its approach is developmental, rather than structural, and so it is particularly concerned to show ``how changing structures of social interdependence and changing balances of power within society have been reflected in...food.'' Well written and fun to read. For public and academic libraries, community college level up.-H. Ottenheimer, Kansas State University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Stephen Mennell, professor of sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland, is the author of Norbert Elias: Civilisation and the Human Self-Image and The Sociology of Food and Eating.