Still Life with Ham, by Philippe Rousseau, c. 1870. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1982.

Food

Volume IV, Number 3 | summer 2011

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Still Life, by Carstian Luyckx, c. 1640. Columbus Museum of Art.

Preamble

The Midas Touch

By Lewis H. Lapham

The times change, and with them what, where, and how people eat.

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The Imperial Kitchen

By Jason Goodwin

Ottoman cuisine developed over centuries as the imperial center of an empire of food.

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Map

Food Chains

Tracing the world travels of tomato, pepper, and coffee.

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Miscellany

Kobe beef, black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyère cheese, wild mushrooms, and flakes of gold leaf, are most of the components that comprise the hamburger served at the Wall Street Burger Shoppe. Price: $175.

c. 2200 BC | Sumer

Father Enki’s Amber Waves of Grain

A Sumerian god spreads his seed.More

c. 1965 | Nigeria

Waste Not, Want Not

The cosmic consequences of overeating.More

1609 | Jamestown

Of Such a Dish as Powdered Wife

John Smith remembers the “starving time.”More

Charts & Graphs

Meal Plans

Meal Plans

Daily menus at various institutions.

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Painting of Benjamin Franklin reading a batch of papers next to a classical bust.

Painted portrait of English poet John Milton.

Jonathan Swift

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason.

American professor and journalist Deborah Blum.

English novelist, historian, traveler, and the author Jason Goodwin.

Photograph of American novelist Willa Cather.

Photograph of American writer Ralph Ellison.

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.

—Epicurus, c. 300 BC

Australian poet and essayist Les Murray.

Ovid & Les Murray

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