Antipasto/Antojitos/Amuse-Bouches: Food for Thought viii Acknowledgments xii FIRST COURSE: From Raw to Cooked: Prehistory, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India 1 Prehistory 1 The Ancient Agricultural Revolution 5 The Fertile Crescent 9 Egypt: The Nile River 13 China: The Yellow (Huang He) River 18 India: The Indus River 21 SECOND COURSE: Grain, Grape, Olive: The Ancient Mediterranean 25 The Mediterranean Sea 25 Greece 26 Rome 38 THIRD COURSE: Crazy Bread, Coff ee, and Courtly Manners: Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages, 500-1453 58 Christendom: Western Europe, 500-1000 59 Byzantium: The Eastern Roman Empire 65 The Muslim Empire 67 Christendom: The Late Middle Ages in Europe 74 FOURTH COURSE: New World Food: Potato, Corn, Chile, Chocolate 89 The Search for Spices 89 The American Empires 92 South America: The Inca Empire 93 Central America: Vanilla 101 Central America: Maya Mystery 103 Central America: The Aztec Empire 107 North America: Cahokia 116 Columbus Sets Sail for the Americas: 1492 116 FIFTH COURSE: Food Goes Global: The Columbian Exchange 119 The Age of Exploration 119 The Columbian Exchange 120 Old World to New 121 New World to Old 136 SIXTH COURSE: America from Colony to Country: Sacred Cod, Black Rice, Maple Moon, 1588-1850 151 The Mercantile System 151 Colonial America 152 A New People and a New Cuisine 167 SEVENTH COURSE: Hutsepot , Stove Potatoes, and Haute Cuisine : Seventeenthto Eighteenth-Century Dutch, Russian, and French Cuisine 182 The Scientific Revolution 182 The Golden Age of the Netherlands 183 The Russian Bear 189 France: Haute and Nouvelle Cuisine 195 The French Revolution: "Let Them Eat Cake" 203 The Napoleonic Era: 1799-1815 207 Napoleon''s Aftermath 215 EIGHTH COURSE: Cattle, Coca-Cola, Cholera: The United States and Europe, 1850-1900 217 The American South 217 The American Civil War: 1850-1865 220 Reconstruction: 1865-1877 223 The West: Railroad and Indian Wars, 1860s-1886 225 The Gilded Age 231 Nineteenth-Century Health Food Movements 240 Europe: Nutrition, Sanitation, Evolution 244 NINTH COURSE: Africa and Asia: Native vs. Colonial Cuisine 258 Food Patterns 258 Africa: Shea Butter, Kola Nuts, Monkey Bread 258 India: Not Just Curry and Chutney 266 China: Tea and Opium 274 Korea: Kimchee and Pulgogi 282 Vietnam: Spring Rolls and P'té 283 Indonesia: The Spice Islands 283 The Philippines: Chinese-Spanish Fusion 285 Thailand (Siam): Lemongrass and Jasmine Rice 285 Japan: Tempura and Umami 287 TENTH COURSE: The Purity Crusade, Cuisine Classique , and Prohibition: 1900-1929 in Europe and the United States 295 The New Immigrants and the Melting Pot 295 Progressives and the Purity Crusade 300 Escoffi er and Ritz: Cuisine Classique and the Grand Hotels 309 World War I and the Russian Revolution 316 The Roaring Twenties in the United States 323 ELEVENTH COURSE: Soup Kitchens, Spam, and TV Dinners: The Depression, World War II, and the Cold War 334 The Depression and the New Deal 334 World War II 343 The Cold War 352 The Fast-Food Fifties 354 The Sixties: Revolutions in Color 359 TWELFTH COURSE: Agribusiness vs. Organic: The 1970s into the Third Millennium 364 The Seventies: Food Revolutions 364 The Eighties: Political and Restaurant Revolutions 367 The Nineties: The Celebrity Chef 373 The New Millennium and the Future of Food 381 Appendix A: French Pronunciation 404 Appendix B: Italian Pronunciation 405 Appendix C: Major Wars and Battles 406 Appendix D: Selected Cookbook and Food Books Chronology 408 Notes 411 Selected Bibliography 424 Index 431.