148. Gastronaut by Stefan Gates

BOOK REVIEW: Gastronaut by Stefan Gates

Many books appear in bookstores with food as the main subject. From specialty cuisines to best restaurants around the world, foods based on gastronomy have never let us down. However, how about a book that combines fun and cooking?

Gastronaut is an irreverent journey through the crazy, twisted, mixed-up world of food. Its full of extraordinary, extravagant and bizarre culinary experiences, arcane information and practical recipes for spectacular food. 

Each of us will spend 16% of our waking lives cooking and eating. That time is far too precious to waste on chores, so why not turn cooking into an adventure? This book of strange and wonderful gastronomic quests will help you do just that.

If you've ever wondered how to stage a Bacchanalian orgy in the comfort of your own home, how to make a bum sandwich, how to cook a whole pig underground, smoke salmon in a biscuit tin, cook with gold, woodlice, reindeer, guinea pig, aftershave or breastmilk, or whether its true that you can't teach a grandmother to suck eggs, the answers are here.

This isn't a work of fiction or hyperbole. Gastronaut is thoroughly researched, tested and illustrated throughout. It also includes a survey that lifts the lid Kinsey-style, on the real eating habits of people. This book is perfect for people who are fascinated by food, who love the wilder side of cooking, who yearn for adventure or who, frankly, just like showing off. Bon appetit!

147. Rice and Beans: A Unique Dish in a Hundred Places by Richard Wilk and Livia Barbosa

BOOK REVIEW: Rice and Beans - A Unique Dish in a Hundred Places by Richard Wilk and Livia Barbosa

Rice in an Asian staple, highly regarded as the "filling" food throughout the day. Beans on the other hand has proven as a sustenance for many poor agrarian communities around the world. But just how did these two combine through the ages as a food in Jamaica highly revered as the "coat of arms" or maybe as a New Orleans style food?

This book is about the paradox of local and global. On the one hand, this is a globe-spanning dish, a simple source of complete nutrition for billions of people in hundreds of countries. In every place people insist that rice and beans is a local invention, deeply rooted in a particular history and culture.

The authors of this book explore the specific history of the versions of rice and beans beloved and indigenous in cultures from Brazil to West Africa. But they also plumb the shared African, Native American and European trans-Atlantic encounters and exchanges, and the contemporary forces of globalization and nation-building, which combine to make rice and beans a powerful substance and symbol of the relationship between food and culture.

With contributions from several famous food anthropologists, many of these articles are backed by years of research on food anthropology (the study of food history and foodways throughout the world). 

Highly informative and a refreshing respite from most books which only explain origins of the food, this book piqued my interest on the world's food commodity that feeds the poor and the rich. If you will excuse me my mum has made a porridge with black eyed peas....