Current Affairs for UPSC CSE's video: The best books on The History of Food recommended by Steven Kaplan

The best books on The History of Food, recommended by Steven Kaplan 1. Bread of Dreams by Piero Camporesi https://amzn.to/2q3QIGD 2. America Eats by Nelson Algren and David E. Schoonover https://amzn.to/2q39yhl 3. Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney https://amzn.to/2S9V8c2 4. Holy Feast and Holy Fast by Caroline Walker Bynum https://amzn.to/2ExYjaA 5. Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 by Fernand Braudel https://amzn.to/2S2cojf About the book 1. In this book, Piero Camporesi makes the unexpected and fascinating claim that during these times, people lived in a state of almost permanent hallucination, drugged by their very hunger or by bread adulterated with hallucinogenic herbs. The use of opiate products, administered even to infants and children, was widespread and was linked to a popular mythology in which herbalists and exorcists were important cultural figures. 2. Nelson Algren is one of America’s great writers. During the Great Depression, Algren found work with the Illinois Writer’s Project exploring the food habits of the Midwest with recipes. He starts with Native American food around the Midwest, the food of prairie settlers, lumber jacks, Native American and French influences, influences of various ethnic groups and how various community, social, religious and family traditions were influenced by and helped form Midwest food. It’s a fascinating read by a great writer. 3. This is a fascinating analysis of the meaning of rice as a symbol of personal and particularly of social identity in Japanese culture. 4. This book is a rich, positive and thoughtful description of the way some medieval women managed to control and develop their own subjectivities and social roles. 5. It is full of information about the lives of "ordinary" men and women, who lived in and through the middle ages and into the industrialisation that commenced in the 1800's. As such, it describes daily life, and living and working conditions of whole generations, long since passed.