Hey, What’s Cooking?

Hungry? In the mood for a quick bite? Well, bite down hard on THIS!

This can’t be fattening, CAN IT? It’s just a deep fried Pork Belly Po’ Boy! I’m sure it won’t add up to many calories, will it?

“Is That A Calorie Counter In Your Pocket, Or…?”

You know the rest of that line, but it’s never more true than now. Who carries a calorie counter? That said, how many calories DOES a fried pork belly po’ boy have, anyway? You can just ASSUME it’s packed with calories, just like this guy:

WELL, NOW YOU CAN KNOW!

I think we’ve always heard that you should limit your daily intake to about 2,000 calories, but how do I really know?

Sure, a calorie chart is great, but I don’t carry one around – how about you? And charts that show certain foods are great – but they don’t cover everything, do they?

BuzzFeed To The Rescue!

KUDOS to BuzzFeed – http://www.buzzfeed.com!

BuzzFeed has the hottest, most social content on the web. They feature breaking buzz and the kinds of things you’d want to pass along to your friends – and they produced a video that shows you exactly what 2,000 calories looks like – what a great idea!

So many numbers to keep straight these days. Was it always this tough to eat? I mean, I’d like to enjoy my meal, but how can I do it with all these numbers dancing around in my head?

Well, there is a book that celebrates the history of food, so you can see that we’ve always been obsessed with our food!

“Food In History”, by Reay Tannahill

Here is what a reader said about this terrific, comprehensive look at food: “”Food in History’ is an excellent introduction to a piece of human history that is probably so obviously important it’s not widely researched: the crucial part that food played and plays in human society.

Sure, everyone learns about how the spice trade was a leading factor in the Age of Exploration, and the discovery of crop rotation in the early Middle Ages, which “killed more than one child’s interest in history” as the author rightly points out.

This book goes much farther than that, showing the development of eating habits from neolithic man up to the early/mid 20th Century. Along the way, the author points out some truths that will be unpleasant to the food faddists of the early 21st Century:

Humans ARE omnivores by evolution, and salt is also an evolution-induced craving, are just two of the basic points in the story of humans and food.

In a survey like this one, it can’t do justice to EVERY culture’s cuisine, but it does come close. Roman, Arab, Indian, Asian, and the influence of the Americas on European foods are well covered. The prose is lively, much wittier than I thought it would be given the subject, but also scholastic.

Look at just a few of the topics covered:

Food And Cooking Before 10,000 BC

Talk about old food!

And id you know that the cultivation of the olive began 6,000 years ago along the Mediterranean?

As someone who LOVES olives of all shapes and sizes, it was interesting to get a brief look at where it all began..of course, there are also books that only tell the story of olives in our history, and I plan to read that too!

Cannibalism!

Yes, at one time in our worl’ds history, we were ALL on the menu! The book uses all of the world’s history to tell us how and who we ate to get where we are today!

How Drinking Began!

And perhaps the most important chapter of the book:

Yes, the book includes these words of wisdom:

“Drinke is their whole desire, the pot is all their pride, The sobrest head doth once a day stand needfull of a guide.”

See, some thing NEVER change! Grab this book and toast to our longtime fascination with and drink! Cheers!

Categories: BACON, Books / Media, cookbooks, Food, Food Review, Hamburgers, Politics, Recipes, Restaurants, Technology, Travel, Travel Memoir, Uncategorized, wine

Tags: bacon cheeseburger, bacon sandwich, calorie counter, calorie counters, calories, calories in candy, calories in food, Cannibals, cheeseburger, Chefs, Cookbooks, daily calorie guide, food, food in history, food memoir, health, history of alcohol, History of food, olive oil, olives, Pork Belly, pork belly po boy, pork belly recipes, recipes, Restaurants, roast pork, The History of Food, The History Of Food book, the mediterranean diet, unique food, what 2000 calories looks like, what we eat