Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and CultureWhy are human food habits so diverse? Why do Americans recoil at the thought of dog meat? Jews and Moslems, pork? Hindus, beef? Why do Asians abhor milk? In Good to Eat, best-selling author Marvin Harris leads readers on an informative detective adventure to solve the worlds major food puzzles. He explains the diversity of the worlds gastronomic customs, demonstrating that what appear at first glance to be irrational food tastes turn out really to have been shaped by practical, economic, or political necessity. In addition, his smart and spirited treatment sheds wisdom on such topics as why there has been an explosion in fast food, why history indicates that its bad to eat people but good to kill them, and why children universally reject spinach. Good to Eat is more than an intellectual adventure in food for thought. It is a highly readable, scientifically accurate, and fascinating work that demystifies the causes of myriad human cultural differences. |
From inside the book
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... fish sauces. “There's no disputing taste,” they said. As an anthropologist, I also subscribe to the cultural relativism of food tastes: food habits are not to be ridiculed or condemned simply because they are different. But that still ...
... fish, poultry, and dairy products—enough to satisfy the recommended daily allowance without counting on proteins from plant foods at all. As for calories, they were consuming over three thousand per capita per day. By way of comparison ...
... fish, fowl, and other flesh, only a tiny minority of cultists, monks, and mystics has ever professed a bias against all foods of animal origin—a bias against eggs, milk, cheese, or other dairy products as well. True vegetarians are ...
... fish in addition to copious quantities of milk and dairy products. Brahmans, at any rate, constitute a small minority of the Hindu population; all the other castes consume various combinations of dairy products, eggs, poultry, mutton, fish ...
... fish, Thai Buddhists consume significant quantities of pork, buffalo meat, beef, chicken, ducks, silkworms, snails, shrimp, and crab. During the rainy season they may eat as much as a pound of frogs a week. Cambodian Buddhists consume fish ...
Contents
13 | |
19 | |
47 | |
The Abominable Pig
| 67 |
Hippophagy
| 88 |
Holy Beef USA
| 109 |
Lactophiles and Lactophobes Milk Lovers and Milk Haters
| 130 |
Small Things
| 154 |
Dogs Cats Dingoes and Other Pets
| 175 |
People Eating
| 199 |
Better to Eat
| 235 |
References | 249 |
Bibliography | 258 |
Index | 275 |