PIZZA, PICKLES, AND APPLE PIE

A broader perspective for readers who think no further than cupboards and fridges when asked where their food comes from.

Constructing mini-narratives—some decidedly simplistic—as he goes meal by meal from the “Sad, Boring World Before Breakfast” to the “Sweet History of Dessert,” Rickert explains how, for instance, Central Asian herdsmen discovered yogurt; enslaved Black people made fried chicken at the behest of landowners in America but, after the Civil War, invented “shoebox” lunches on their own; and, before the 17th century (in, presumably, Europe), sweets were served among the courses rather than at meal’s end. (“Please pass the ham and cookies,” a diner requests.) Aside from occasionally spooning in critical comments about “cheap toys” and mountains of sugar in breakfast cereals, the author maintains a generally buoyant tone, reflected in the accompanying large cast of informally drawn, diversely clad and hued cartoon cooks and consumers uttering jokey side remarks. Along with breezy side notes on, say, the training of a sushi chef or the U.S. Navy’s “ice-cream barge” (which dished up, he claims, 800 million gallons to American sailors in World War II), he layers in tributes to “superheroes” associated with various foods or inventions, such as pioneering cookbook maven Eliza Leslie and Charles Cretors (creator of the popcorn wagon), and includes galleries of birthday cakes, pickles, pizzas, and sandwiches throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Too light to be very filling but tasty nonetheless.