Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-438) and index.

Mastering grain cookery, 2,000-300 B.C.E -- The barley-wheat cuisines of the ancient empires, 500 B.C.E.-400 C.E -- Buddhism transforms the cuisines of eastern Asia, 200 B.C.E.-800 C.E -- Islam transforms the cuisines of central and west Asia, 800-1650 C.E -- Christianity transforms the cuisines of Europe and the Americas, 100-1650 C.E -- Prelude to modern cuisines: Europe, 1650-1840 -- Modern cuisines in the industrializing regions, 1810-1920 -- The globalization of modern cuisines, 1920-2000.

Here the author tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the world's great cuisines from the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the present. Probing beneath the apparent confusion of dozens of cuisines to reveal the underlying simplicity of the culinary family tree, she shows how periodic seismic shifts in 'culinary philosophy', beliefs about health, the economy, politics, society and the gods, prompted the construction of new cuisines, a handful of which, chosen as the cuisines of empires, came to dominate the globe. This book shows how merchants, missionaries, and the military took cuisines over mountains, oceans, deserts, and across political frontiers. The author's innovative narrative treats cuisine, like language, clothing, or architecture, as something constructed by humans. By emphasizing how cooking turns farm products into food and by taking the globe rather than the nation as the stage, she challenges the agrarian, romantic, and nationalistic myths that underlie the contemporary food movement.--Provided by publisher.

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