An Anthropologist Looks at Dinner

Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos, of an Ordinary Meal (Margaret Visser)

Margaret Visser takes the simplest of meals: corn on the cob, rice, roast chicken, salad (with lemon juice and olive oil), and ice cream, and deconstructs it, going into (occasionally agonizing) detail about the history, mythology, and relevance of each ingredient.

Corn, for instance, is big business, and was even before the recent controversy over genetically manipulation. It's used in packaging, sweetens our beverages, and even cleans us when its used in soap. Chicken has an interesting mythological history--sometimes revered, sometimes despised, often longed for. And ice cream, of course, has a happy, if murky, history of its own, one that American's like to claim as their own.

Fun reading for the most part, despite the occasional dry spot. Enough information to make the effort worthwhile, however.

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