The book “Cuisine and Empire” provides a remarkable story of the rise and fall of great global cuisines. Laudan narrates how the international community has had a periodic seismic shift in their culinary art. In his philosophy, several factors such as health, economics, and politics have promoted the reconstruction of the culinary arts of the past years.1 He argues that politicians, businessmen, and military officers have worked to change the cooking methodologies.
He believes that the approach has resulted in variations in various tastes of delicacies. He further challenges the romantic, agrarian, and nationalistic myths underlining contemporary food. Nevertheless, he calls for treating the idea of cuisine just like language, architecture, or clothing that must follow a systematic format. He believes that by operating in a unilateral direction, people will maintain the genuine taste of various foods across the globe.
The book “Cuisine and Empire,” complements the other reading such as “Food and History,”2 in many ways. The two books explore the subject of food and its value in society. They both regard food as an essential tool for promoting vibrant health and social-cultural ideas.3 These scholarly works aim to remind society of food such as production, preparation, and distribution. They both accept that well-perfected cuisine approaches have the power to promote vibrant health, cohesion, and transmission of positive cultures in society. Further, both writings debunk the idea of prices; the agrarian revolution and different cooking methods were introduced to improve food taste. Thus, they believe that these aspects have destroyed the rich human traditional foods. Therefore, they are regarded as rich source of information regarding role of rood in the society, its development and progress.
The main strength of the source is their ability to employ the subject in detail and provide an in-depth analysis of the issue. Within the chapters of the books, the author describes the possible sequence of disseminating the cuisines across the globe. The renowned scholar provides a good transition of events that have led to changes in food preparation approaches. Finally, the book defines a well-constructed analysis using detailed descriptions of the historical changes that have occurred in the cuisine industry. Therefore, the book reminds society on the need to adopt traditional cuisines.
Despite the above strengths, the authors of these books still need to accept the power of revolution in promoting the value of food in society. They need to recognize how technology, prices of products, and human demands have changed the production and preparation of various cuisines across the globe. This approach means the book needs to recognize the new changes that have resulted in modern culinary in society, particularly the multinational food operations.
My readings from the previous week have provided me with the opportunity to understand the concept of cuisine and food in a better manner. The two sources have given me a diverse view of the subject. In other words, they have allowed me to appreciate the value of food in promoting health and the social-cultural progress of the members of society. Therefore, there is a need to work to fill the gap that the few shortcomings of the works have left to make the subject entirely. The application of the above mechanism will help to explore the subject to better levels.
References
Laudan, Rachel. Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history. Vol. 43. Univ of California Press, 2013. 1-7. Web.
Super, John C. “Food and history.” Journal of Social History 36, no. 1 (2002): 165-178. Web.
Footnotes
- Laudan, Rachel. Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history. Vol. 43. Univ of California Press, 2013. 2
- Super, John C. “Food and history.” Journal of Social History 36, no. 1 (2002): 165-178. Web.
- Ibid 3.