The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets - Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History - Kara Newman - Books - Columbia University Press - 9780231156707 - December 4, 2012
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The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets - Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History


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"The Secret Financial Life of Food" reveals the economic pathways that connect food to consumer, unlocking the mysteries behind culinary trends, grocery pricing, and restaurant dining. Kara Newman travels back to the markets of ancient Rome and medieval Europe, where vendors first distinguished between "spot sales" and "sales for delivery." She retraces the storied spice routes of Asia and recounts the spice craze that prompted Christopher Columbus's journey to North America, linking these developments to modern-day India's bustling peppercorn market. Newman centers her history on the transformation of corn into a ubiquitous commodity and uses oats, wheat, and rye to recast America's westward expansion and the Industrial Revolution. She also discusses the effects of such mega-corporations as Starbucks and McDonalds have on futures markets and considers burgeoning markets, particularly "super soybeans," which could scramble the landscape of food finance. The ingredients of American power and culture, and the making of the modern world, can be found in Newman's unconventional history of the how and why of what we eat.


208 pages, ill

Media Books     Hardcover Book   (Book with hard spine and cover)
Released December 4, 2012
ISBN13 9780231156707
Publishers Columbia University Press
Pages 208
Dimensions 140 × 216 × 23 mm   ·   362 g

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