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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... population densities and lands not needed or unsuitable for planting crops. In contrast, the most herbivorous cuisines are associated with dense populations whose habitat and food production technology cannot support the production of ...
... population; all the other castes consume various combinations of dairy products, eggs, poultry, mutton, fish, pork, goat, and even beef. True enough, the total quantity of animal flesh consumed by Hindu Indians amounts to less than a ...
... population voluntarily spurns every type of flesh food, and less than one-tenth of 1 percent are bona fide vegans. Involuntary rather than voluntary abstinence characterizes the animal food patterns of people in less developed countries ...
... population, with chicken and beef ranking tenth and thirteenth. But for the top 25 percent of Jamaicans, beef and chicken rank first and second while wheat flour rank seventh. This relationship holds around the world. The elites in ...
... population of a village gets bigger, its hunters deplete the nearby game. There are more meatless days, complaints about meat hunger increase, and some men find it increasingly difficult to fulfill their obligation to reciprocate the ...
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 |