{"product_id":"eats-the-shocking-secret-history-of-food-and-eating-9798879952681","title":"Eats: The Shocking Secret History of Food and Eating","description":"\u003ci\u003eEats\u003c\/i\u003e is a fun, funny, sometimes scandalous romp through the history of food and eating. It's a witty, irreverent, informative read for anyone with a mouth and an interest in history, food, or just knowing peculiar things. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNearly all the food we eat today has radically transformed from its historic beginnings. Ancient and Medieval food animals were significantly smaller than they are today; carrots weren't orange, apples weren't sweet, raw cukes were thorny and could kill you, eggplants triggered madness, and potatoes could cause ugly babies. Food history and lore is truly, disturbingly, profoundly weird. And that is before we even consider mythical, magical foods, poisonous foods, and fabulous half-vegetable, half-animal hybrids with supernatural powers and ill intentions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEven New World foods like tomatoes and corn would be unrecognizable to a shopper shunting a grocery cart through the local Piggly Wiggly. Ancient foods were so profoundly different that the shape and size of the human jaw and palate changed dramatically to accommodate our new foods and preparation methods. Here is a small taste of juicy facts: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e-A rock and some resolute whacks were needed to crack open each individual rock-hard ancient corn kernel, and it was hardly worth the work. The cob was barely the length of our thumb, with only a dozen kernels, each encased in its own granite-like covering.\u003cbr\u003e-Cannibals don't typically eat people for nutrition and calories, and cannibalism still happens today.\u003cbr\u003e-Security measures for US watermelon caused more deaths in the 1850s than any other farming.\u003cbr\u003e-Spontaneously combusting tempura flakes are responsible for at least seven restaurant fires across the United States.\u003cbr\u003e-Leonardo da Vinci, Rasputin, and Armin Meiwes (the Rotenburg Cannibal now serving a life sentence in prison) are all vegetarians.\u003cbr\u003eEats is lavishly illustrated in color with historic images on nearly every page. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eI guarantee you will learn something new or funny and a tidbit to tickle your dinner guests' synapses. Please join me on this twisty, festive ramble through food history. I saved you the best seat at the feast! \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eWho would love this book: \u003c\/b\u003eFans of history, food history, gastronomic trivia, cooks, people who like cooks, living history fans and history reenactors, adventurous travelers, adventurous eaters. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eSimilar Works: \u003c\/b\u003eIf you enjoy any of these authors you will love Eats: Max Miller \u003ci\u003eTasting History, \u003c\/i\u003eKen Albala's many works on food history, Tom Standage's, \u003ci\u003eAn Edible History of Humanity\u003c\/i\u003e, or Matt Siegel's \u003ci\u003eThe Secret History of Food.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50929250238738,"sku":"9798879952681","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3053e19c-3f8d-4425-b9ab-e7f46f26d03a.jpg?v=1739037026","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/eats-the-shocking-secret-history-of-food-and-eating-9798879952681","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}