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Books
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The online guide to ongoing discovery
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History tells us who we are, why we are, where we've been and perhaps even hints at what we can do. |
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Biography is not just the lives of the kings and tyrants,
but in the lives of everyday people and what they do. |
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History is not only about the great events that become the landscape of generations. It is about the thoughts and deeds of individuals who react to those events. |
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Unearthing the stuff of history in the commonplace and the overlooked is a great adventure. |
"I love to discover information about the obscure, unknown, forgotten and neglected -- and I love to share it. If, in the process, I also disprove some conventional wisdom so much the better. Whether digging for a kernel of truth in the history of popcorn or following the global trail of Leo Cherne (the man who saved the world) I've had a chance to learn about the interplay between culture, events, science and people. And, equally exciting, I get to tell the story of what I've learned."
-Andrew F. Smith
The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Offering a panoramic view of
the history and culture of food and drink in America with fascinating entries on
everything from the smell of asparagus to the history of White Castle, and the
origin of Bloody Marys to jambalaya, the Oxford Companion to American Food and
Drink provides a concise, authoritative, and exuberant look at this modern
American obsession. Ideal for the food scholar and food enthusiast alike, it is
equally appetizing for anyone fascinated by Americana, capturing our culture and
history through what we love most--food!
Purchase
Burt Wolf and
Andrew Smith are the authors of
Real American
Food: Restaurants, Markets, and Shops Plus Favorite Hometown Recipes
recently released by Rizzoli.
Purchase
Andrew F. Smith is the author of The
Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, released by Greenwood
Press in August 2006, and The Turkey: An American Story,
released by the University of Illinois Press in October 2006.
Purchase
Andrew
F. Smith
also served as the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and
Drink in America. For more about
it.
Purchase
The thrill of discovering an interesting person in a
footnote or a dusty article echoes the joy of starting a new friendship.
The more you learn about your find, the more you learn about yourself and
the world in which you move.
More about
biographies
"About
30 years ago," said Andrew Smith, " I was the luncheon speaker at a
conference of history teachers in Connecticut. To make the punishment fit
the crime, I decided to talk about food as a vehicle for understanding
history. I told the attendees how the foods we had just enjoyed affected
history, and conversely, how historical events influenced those foods.
This surprised and delighted the audience. Apparently the were expecting a
20-page treatise on some officially significant but boring topic. Thus was
a culinary historian born. Now 16 books and hundreds of articles later I
still enjoy writing about food almost as much as I enjoy eating."
More about food.
Andrew
Smith is a writer and lecturer on food and culinary history. He
serves as the general editor for the University of Illinois Press’s Food Series,
and teaches Culinary History and Food Writing courses at the New School
University. He is the author of 16 books and numerous articles in both scholarly
and popular journals. Smith
has delivered over 1500 presentations at regional, national and
international conferences and has frequently been interviewed in
publications, radio and television. He is a consultant on culinary
history. For the
detailed background information, please click here.
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