Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal
    Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal
    Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal
    Audiobook14 hours

    Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal

    Written by Margaret Visser

    Narrated by Suzanne Toren

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author Margaret Visser holds a doctorate in classics and appears frequently on television and radio shows. Much Depends on Dinner was chosen as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review and Publisher's Weekly. As the subtitle suggests, here she uses the framework of a simple meal to show us how our food has defined who we are and how we live. Dr. Visser begins by showing how corn has shaped the history of man. In further chapters, she considers the economics of salt, the medicinal properties of butter, and offers similarly fascinating information about chicken, lettuce, olive oil and lemon juice. The final chapter ends on a sweet note with ice cream and the nostalgia it creates. As it gathers information from the villages of ancient hunters and the corridors of modern science, Dr. Visser's perceptive book examines food through a wider lens than today's nutritional microscope. It isn't meant to change our eating habits, but it leaves us with a taste for the history and mythology of everyday foods. Narrator Suzanne Toren captures Dr. Visser's enthusiasm for her subject.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 18, 2008
    ISBN9781436145152
    Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal
    Author

    Margaret Visser

    MARGARET VISSER is an award-winning author and essayist. Her previous five books, all bestsellers, have met with international acclaim. Much Depends on Dinner won the Glenfiddich Prize for Food Book of the Year and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly and The New York Times. The Rituals of Dinner won the IACP Literary Food Writing Award and the Jane Grigson Award, and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent book, The Geometry of Love, also the subject of a prize-winning documentary film, was a finalist for the Charles Taylor Prize. A professor of classics at York University for 18 years, she now devotes her time to research and writing. Visser lives in Toronto, Paris and the south of France.

    Related to Much Depends on Dinner

    Related audiobooks

    Cooking, Food & Wine For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Much Depends on Dinner

    4/5

    58 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A book of essays about our relationship to food, in Western culture. Visser was a classical scholar, and thus extrapolated ideas about common behaviours, and what things like the foods assembled for a single meal could tell people about their relationship to the planet and to other people. It is a contact with a very civilized mind, and a marvelous discussion!
    • 5/5
      A brilliant, unusual look at where food REALLY comes from, why we eat what we eat and what we think about it.