{"product_id":"jamaican-food-history-biology-culture-9789766409111","title":"Jamaican Food: History, Biology, Culture","description":"The\u003cbr\u003ehistorical study of food and the anthropology of food are recent and growing\u003cbr\u003efields of scholarly inquiry. An understanding of these aspects of life can\u003cbr\u003ereveal much about a culture's crop production, economy, preparation methods, \u003cbr\u003efestivals, foodways, history, and environmental care and degradation. This\u003cbr\u003ebeautifully illustrated book by one of the Caribbean's pre-eminent historians, \u003cbr\u003eB.W. Higman, sheds new light on food and cultural practices in Jamaica from the\u003cbr\u003etime of the earliest Taino inhabitants through the introduction of different\u003cbr\u003efoodways by enslaved peoples, to creole adaptations to the fast-food phenomena\u003cbr\u003eof the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The author examines the shift in\u003cbr\u003eJamaican food practices over time, from the Tainos' use of bitter cassava to the\u003cbr\u003eMaroons' introduction of jerk pork, and the population's love affair with the\u003cbr\u003efruits of the island such as pawpaw, guava, star apple, and avocado pear. In\u003cbr\u003ethis accessible study, Higman traces how endemic animals, delicacies such as\u003cbr\u003ethe turtle, ringtail pigeon, black land crab and mountain mullet, barely\u003cbr\u003eretained their popular status into the early twentieth century and are now\u003cbr\u003ealmost completely forgotten, their populations dramatically depleted, often\u003cbr\u003eendangered.  \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe\u003cbr\u003etwo main sections of the book deal separately with plants and animals. Plants\u003cbr\u003eare grouped together according to the parts of them used as food: roots, stalks\u003cbr\u003eand leaves, fruits and seeds. Generally, all aspects of a particular plant have\u003cbr\u003ebeen discussed together and the plant as a whole has been located in its\u003cbr\u003edominant use. Animals are treated in the same way, putting all of their uses in\u003cbr\u003ea single place but grouped into biological families.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHigman, B. W.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cb\u003eB.W. Higman\u003c\/b\u003e is Emeritus Professor of History, University of the West Indies, and Emeritus Professor of History, Australian National University. He is the author of eleven books on Caribbean history, archaeology and geography, including the award-winning publications \u003ci\u003eSlave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eSlave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834; Jamaica Surveyed: Plantation Maps and Plans of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eMontpelier, Jamaica: A Plantation Community in Slavery and Freedom, 1739-1912\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eWriting West Indian Histories\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003ePlantation Jamaica, 1750-1850: Capital and Control in a Colonial Economy\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eJamaican Food: History, Biology, Culture\u003c\/i\u003e. His most recent books are \u003ci\u003eA Concise History of the Caribbean\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHow Food Made History\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"University of the West Indies Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51384018698514,"sku":"9789766409111","price":49.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_490d83ef-02d5-42d6-af9e-579bbef956c7.jpg?v=1750161908","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/jamaican-food-history-biology-culture-9789766409111","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}