A Short History Of The American Stomach

Frederick Kaufman offers a piquant sampling of American history by way of the stomach.Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies; discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces diet gurus of the nineteenth century such asWilliam Alcott, who believed that “nothing ought to be mashed before it is eaten”; traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champ Dale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates our blithe efforts to re-create the plants and animals that we’ve eaten to the point of extinction.With outraged wit and an incredible range of sources that includes everything from Cotton Mather’s diary to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, Kaufman takes readers on a Bourdainmeets- Pollan tour of the American gut.

PRAISE FOR A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN STOMACH“This rollicking survey of our national food manias from Cotton Mather (‘Look after thy stomach’) to Rachael Ray is amiably peripatetic.”—New York Observer “Witty and polemical . . . [Kaufman] makes some valuablepoints about how the stomach influences the waysAmericans view themselves.”—Los Angeles Times