USA Places - The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America: 2-Volume Set
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List Price: $265.00
USA Places Price: $145.75
Your Save: $ 119.25 ( 45% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.3003
EAN: 9780195154375
ISBN: 0195154371
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1584
Publication Date: 2004-12-09
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Reviews:
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The history of food and drink in America is an exciting tale of unexpected twists and turns that are even more amusing than the oft-repeated myths. It is a story filled with hot-shot inventors, high-flying promoters, risk-taking growers, efficiency-conscious processors, hard-hitting advertisers, and lip-smacking consumers--all of whom have contributed to transforming lowly American food into a worldwide culinary delight. In 800 intriguing articles (from over 200 contributors), the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America covers the significant events, inventions, and social movements in American history that have affected the way Americans view, prepare, and consume food and drink. In an A-Z format, this two-volume set details the regions, people, ingredients, foods, drinks, publications, advertising, companies, historical periods, and political and economic aspects pertinent to American cuisine. With contributions from academia, industry, and the culinary world, the Encyclopedia provides a far-ranging yet cohesive account of American history and culture from a gastronomic perspective. From the extravagant feasts of Diamond Jim Brady in the Gilded Age to the fad diets and the health consciousness of today, the status and cultural significance of American food and rink has transformed throughout the years. With interesting anecdotes, informative sidebars, and generous bibliographies, the Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America will captivate readers--from scholars and food lovers everywhere--in this journey through American culinary history.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Great Value for $50
Comment: If you're interested in food, I highly recommend this set at this price. Open either volume to any page and you'll find something interesting, from articles on Beatrice and Beech-nut foods to the history of popcorn to twinkies. (Note - this is NOT a cookbook. It's truly an encyclopedia.) For the price of going out to dinner, you'll get a wealth of information that will provide lots of conversation for the next time you go out to dinner!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America
Comment: Excellent Reference work, but just as much fun for brows
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Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America: 2-Volume Set by
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Comment: I picked up this set because I immensely enjoy reading the Oxford Companion to Food and refer to it often.
Unfortunately, while the scope of the OEFDA is wide and many of the articles are informative and interesting, the quality of the writing is not as high as in the OCF. Perhaps Oxford University Press thought it needed to make this book "accessible" to Americans by limiting the authors to writing at an 8th grade level.
There also are factual inconsistencies throughout the book. For example, Ruffles potato chips are said to have been launched during either the 1950's or the 1970's, depending on which article about snacks you happen to be reading. This sort of sloppy editing and fact-checking is inexcusable, especially from a university press.
Bottom line: the OEFDA is an admirable attempt at creating a comprehensive survey of American food history, but there are some glaring flaws. I recommend starting with the OCF.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Source on Culinary History,Business, and Lore
Comment: `The Encyclopedia of Food and Wine in America' is a great 1500 page compilation of excellently written articles on virtually every aspect of the history, education, manufacture, marketing, personalities, and writing about food in America. Practically the only thing it does not include is recipes or cooking. Even sidebars whose label suggests a proper place for a recipe such as the sidebar on shoofly pie gives not one hint about how to make this delicious dessert. Given the size of the subject, it is not at all surprising that the editors have left these out, as both recipes and kitchen science can both be considered without nationality, plus the fact that there are thousands of good cookbooks and a score of books on food science available today, so why not focus on things which are not commonly covered in these books. This means that this volume can sit beside the `Larousse Gastronomique' with only a very small amount of overlap in material. These two giant books have two entirely different objectives. While both works will have articles on potatoes, Larousse will tell you how to cook them, but Oxford will tell us were they are grown, their commercial importance, nutritional importance, and their appearance in cartoons.
So, unlike Larousse, you are much more inclined to simply read the articles in these volumes for your own entertainment as much as for your need to know something. The articles are filled to the brim with interesting trivia about American food. One favorite item in the article about Spam is the fact that the word `Spam' became associated with junk e-mail on the strength of a Monty Python skit which did the same kind of number on Spam as the movie `Blazing Saddles' did on western films. Another discovery was the renaming of sauerkraut to `Liberty Cabbage' after World War I. In this way, the book follows the style of the Encyclopedia Britannica that leans heavily toward long, detailed articles rather than shorter articles with a greater chance of redundancy, especially with a hundred or more independent contributors.
It would probably take the average foodie about five minutes of searching through these volumes to find something they miss. My first sense of something being missing was when there were articles about Charlie Trotter, Alice Waters, and Rick Bayless, but no articles on Thomas Keller, Jeremiah Tower, or Richard Olney. I would not feel the absence so acutely if the editors had given us biographies on Julia Child, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, and M.F.K. Fisher and stopped there, as all four of these figures are so obviously at the very top of the heap in their influence on American eating and food writing. On the other hand, Tower and Olney between them are probably as much an influence on culinary professionals in the United States as Alice Waters. While Olney spent much of his life living in France, he was born in Iowa and all of his most influential works, most notably his editorship of the Time-Life culinary series of books in the 1960s was aimed at American audiences. This series is mentioned twice in the long article on cookbooks with no mention of Olney as the editor, a position recommended to the publishers by James Beard. Regarding Keller and Trotter, for example, both have received the James Beard best chef in the country award and of the books attributed to these two chefs, I much prefer the two from Keller than the three from Trotter which I have reviewed. I suspect the difference in the eyes of the editors is Trotter's earlier ascendancy, his substantial charitable activities, and his better than average culinary instruction TV shows.
These quibbles aside, I am genuinely impressed by the overall quality of the writing in the thousands of articles in this work. The biographical articles all begin with a crisp statement of the importance of the subject to American culinary history. In spite of the very large number of writers, all articles seem to share this same matter of factness, with virtually no sentimentality or sensationalism. One joggling act that must have challanged the editors is how to limit the book to `American' subjects. And, they seem to have accomplished this with great good judgment. In place of any mention of French or Italian or Japanese or Korean or East Indian or Chinese subjects, the editors have given us articles on `Italian-American' food and `German-American' food. I know the German-American culinary world better than any other and I give the author of this article high marks for capturing the big picture and not limiting himself to the very easy subject of the `Pennsylvania Dutch' cuisine. Although the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and the Carolinas are at the heart of the German / American food tradition, the greater German influence is much broader, overlapping, for example, the Jewish-American culinary world and even the influences from France and Italy.
By far the best use for this work is as a starting point for serious culinary research or simply noodling around the literature of cookery for fun. In addition to the articles with their excellent bibliographies, there are appendices on general food bibliography, general wine bibliography, list of food periodicals and web sites, major food subject reference libraries, major food museums, food organizations, and food festivals.
Be warned that in spite of the title, wine gets much less than half the volume of ink spilled in these volumes. I also detected a few minor editing mistakes and omissions. The web site for the cable `Food Network' is listed as www.foodtv.com, but this was changed close to two years ago to www.foodnetwork.com. This little mistake is less easy to understand since the article on Julia Child notes her death which occurred about 6 months ago. Still, this book is a great source of entertainment and information for foodies and foodie scholars.
Expensive, but of high quality as a reference and entertainment.
Customer Rating:
Summary: As much fun as a really, great meal!
Comment: What makes this encyclopedia different from most other such comprehensive authoritative sources of information? It's a pure delight to read! Whether it's discussing food mythology or the traditions of ethnic cookery or just any other culinary subject, these volumes are a great entertainment as well as real education. Truly a labor of love on the part of excellent, dedicated scholars and editors, it's a great gift for any American who takes pleasure in reading as well as eating and drinking.
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