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| Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal | 
 enlarge | Author: Margaret Visser
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $9.54
You Save: $6.46 (40%)
New (20) Used (14) from $3.67
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 17696
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0802136516
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780802136510
ASIN: 0802136516
Publication Date: September 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 13 | | NEXT » |
 Interesting, unusual book! November 2, 2008
This book is a very interesting read but definitely hard to explain its style. If you like trivia and history about food you will probably like it. In my opinion the writing style is a bit choppy, but still very readable.
Historical, interesting, slightly dated May 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I enjoyed much of the books unique structure, explaining the history of a single meal by diving back into the history of the nine primary components of that meal. However, some of the dietary information is dated and could use an update.
Specifically, in the chapter on butter, margarine's claims to health are given a little skepticism. A skepticism appropriate to the scientific knowledge of 1986. However, knowing what we do now about the enormous risks that trans fats pose to our health (and about the relative safety of saturated fat, once you separate trans fat and saturated fat datapoints), this would read quite differently. The section regarding the development of margarine, a highly processed food product competing with butter, a slightly processed food product, might instead come across as a cynical attempt by agribusiness to capitalize on the excess of indistinguishable vegetable oils at the expense of your health and mine.
However, since this book was written in 1986, and the dangers of trans fats were still being successfully hidden away by Cargill and ADM, I can't blame Ms. Visser for the omission.
Except for a few other details where the science has advanced over the past 22 years since the book was written, most of the information remains just as interesting and historically accurate as the day it was originally put to paper. A fascinating and well-written work.
 An Original February 6, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's hard to imagine now how revolutionary books like this were back when Much Depends on Dinner was published in 1986. It was barely conceivable then that someone would write a book, an actual book about something so ordinary as a meal of corn on the cob with butter and salt, chicken, lettuce with olive oil and lemon dressing and ice cream. History was supposed to be reserved for the manly pursuits of war and politics with occasional detours to economy and science.
We are much more comfortable now with the notion that real life (and therefore real history) is about the ordinary and that the mysteries worth exploring are the ones wrapped in dailiness. Way before her time, Visser made the point that "...forms of things are a kind of language, speaking the logos of our culture...". In short, that to truly understand ourselves , we need to understand the things that are so common that we scarcely notice them at all.
Her pioneering work helped open up a floodgate. We have excellent books about Cod Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and SaltSalt: A World History, ChocolateThe True History of Chocolate, Second Edition and olive oilOlive Oil: From Tree to Table. There are so many books about the history of wine that there's no place for them in a brief review.
What matters, it seems to me, is that these histories aren't just about the substances being discussed. Can Cod really be said to have a history?
They are instead, about how our interaction with these things has shaped us and our world. For many readers, this represents a great advance over all that stuff about kings and presidents.
Lynn Hoffman, author of New Short Course in Wine,The which owes its existence in part to Visser breaking the trail and to the thoroughly food-filled bang BANG: A Novel.
Good book October 29, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating book, interesting for anyone who is curious about what we eat, and why.
An extraordinary, memorable and highly enjoyable read September 8, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
With this book Margaret Visser single-handedly launched the rash of single-subject books that have proliferated over the past two decades. And this one remains the best of them. She has a light touch, a sharp eye and a brilliant capacity for communicating the minutiae of her extensive research. She devotes a chapter to the history of each ingredient in a simple, everyday meal (sweetcorn, salt, butter, chicken, rice, lettuce, olive oil and icecream) and she takes the reader on a fantastic journey through history, mythology and contemporary culture. Everyone interested in food should have a copy.
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