Hunger and Abundance. A History of Food in Europe

Massimo Montanari - a historian specializing in medieval studies, an expert in the history of food, a lecturer at the University of Bologna and the only one of its kind University of Gastronomic Sciences, traces the evolution of food traditions... in Europe from the 3rd to the 20th century in his book. From the bread and olive oil of the ancient Romans and Greeks, the piece of meat on the barbarian's fire to modern canned goods and fast food; from the cult of food in myths and epics, from a millennium-long fear of hunger to the modern fear of overeating... The history of food, insists M. Montanari, is as much a part of the history of civilization as political or cultural history. By learning what and how the ancestors of modern Europeans ate, the reader will see how the evolution of gastronomy reflects the path taken by European society over seventeen centuries, and will also gain a new perspective on their own gastronomic habits.