Im Just Here for the Food or Salt

I'm Just Here for the Food: The Director's Cut (Version 2.0)

Author: Alton Brown

Eight years ago, Alton Brown set out to create a cooking show for a new generation. The result was Good Eats, one of Food Network's most popular programs. Four years ago, Brown set out to write a cookbook for people who would rather understand their food than follow a recipe. A mix of cutting-edge graphics and a fresh take on preparing food, I'm Just Here For the Food became one of the bestselling cookbooks of the year-and received the James Beard Foundation/KitchenAid Book Award as best reference book.

This year, to commemorate and celebrate this success story (more than 300,000 copies in print), STC is pleased to announce I'm Just Here For the Food: Version 2.0.. This special edition features 15 brand-new recipes, 20 pages of additional material, and 4 removable refrigerator magnets-along with everything that made the original a classic instruction manual for the kitchen. Each of the book's 15 sections is a module on a given cooking method-from pan searing to pressure cooking, stewing to steaming-with a "master" recipe and a varied selection of recipes that epitomize the technique. The text is accented throughout with food facts, history and lore, and science.

Salt: A World History

Author: Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.

Publishers Weekly

Only Mark Kurlansky, winner of the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing for COD: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, could woo readers toward such an off-beat topic of SALT: A World History...Throughout his engaging, well-researched history, Kurlansky sprinkles witty asides and amusing anecdotes. A piquant blend of the historic, political, commercial, scientific and culinary, the book is sure to entertain as well as educate.

Library Journal

In his latest work, Kurlansky is in command of every facet of this topic, and he conveys his knowledge in a readable, easy style. Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foodsЉAn entertaining, informative read, this is highly recommended.

Los Angeles Times - Rubin

In Salt: A World History, Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur.

Publishers Weekly

Only Kurlansky, winner of the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing for Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, could woo readers toward such an off-beat topic. Yet salt, Kurlansky asserts, has "shaped civilization." Although now taken for granted, these square crystals are not only of practical use, but over the ages have symbolized fertility (it is, after all, the root of the word "salacious") and lasting covenants, and have been used in magical charms. Called a "divine substance" by Homer, salt is an essential part of the human body, was one of the first international commodities and was often used as currency throughout the developing world. Kurlansky traces the history of salt's influences from prehistoric China and ancient Africa (in Egypt they made mummies using salt) to Europe (in 12th-century Provence, France, salt merchants built "a system of solar evaporation ponds") and the Americas, through chapters with intriguing titles like "A Discourse on Salt, Cadavers and Pungent Sauces." The book is populated with characters as diverse as frozen-food giant Clarence Birdseye; Gandhi, who broke the British salt law that forbade salt production in India because it outdid the British salt trade; and New York City's sturgeon king, Barney Greengrass. Throughout his engaging, well-researched history, Kurlansky sprinkles witty asides and amusing anecdotes. A piquant blend of the historic, political, commercial, scientific and culinary, the book is sure to entertain as well as educate. Pierre Laszlo's Salt: Grain of Life (Forecasts, Aug. 6) got to the finish line first but doesn't compare to this artful narrative. 15 recipes, 4o illus., 7 maps. (Jan.) Copyright 2001Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In his latest work, Kurlansky (Cod, The Basque History of the World) is in command of every facet of his topic, and he conveys his knowledge in a readable, easy style. Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods. In addition, he provides information on the chemistry, geology, mining, refining, and production of salt, again across cultures, continents, and time periods. The 26 chapters flow in chronological order, and the cast of characters includes fishermen, kings, Native Americans, and even Gandhi. An entertaining, informative read, this is highly recommended for all collections. [For another book on the topic, see Pierre Laszlo's more esoteric Salt: Grain of Life, LJ 7/01; other recent micro-histories include Joseph Amato's Dust, Mort Rosenblum's Olive, and Tom Vanderbilt's The Sneaker Book. Ed.] Michael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A lively social history that does for salt what Kurlansky previously did for Cod (1997). Perhaps the author slightly oversells his subject by claiming it is far more important and interesting than the evolution of language or the harnessing of fire. But maybe he has a point: Without salt, Kurlansky states at the outset, there would be no life, let alone a nifty preservative for everything from herring to mummies. Salt keeps the muscles pumping, the blood flowing, the brain firing. Its importance has trailed endless strife. Salt enters written history (as so many things do) with the Chinese, who had the first known salt works, imposed the first known salt tax, and fought the first known salt war. They also used it to preserve the wondrous 1,000-year-old egg, which "takes about 100 days to make, and will keep for another 100 days"-give or take, evidently, 365,000 days. From there Kurlansky follows salt through its deployment by the Egyptians on to the Basques, who salted the cod that they chased all the way to North America a thousand years ago, and on through essentially all of history. In salt, politics and food mix continually, if uncomfortably. The Incans, Aztecs, and Mayans rose to power partly on the back of salt; control of it made and unmade royal houses in Europe and the Far East. There developed a whole semiotics of salt, and Kurlansky deconstructs it. A couple of curious errors, such as attributing the famous comment "Kill them all. God knows his own" to "an Albigensian leader" rather than to the Albigensian-slaughtering Pope Innocent III, are piddling in relation to the study's encyclopedic brilliance. Numerous old salt-specializing recipes are included. Enlightening anddelighting as he goes, Kurlansky is, like Jane Grigson before him, a peerless food historian. History Book Club/National Science Book Club/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; author tour

What People Are Saying

Anthony Bourdain
SALT is the fascinating, indispensable history of an indispensable ingredient. Like Kurlansky's earlier work, COD, it's a must-have book for any serious cook or foodie.
—author of the best-selling Kitchen Confidential

Anthony Bourdain
A must-have book for any serious cook or foodie.
— Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential

Table of Contents:

	Introduction: The Rock	1
Part 1	A Discourse on Salt, Cadavers, and Pungent Sauces
Chapter 1	A Mandate of Salt	17
Chapter 2	Fish, Fowl, and Pharoahs	36
Chapter 3	Saltmen Hard as Codfish	52
Chapter 4	Salt's Salad Days	61
Chapter 5	Salting It Away in the Adriatic	80
Chapter 6	Two Ports and the Prosciutto in Between	91
Part 2	The Glow of Herring and the Scent of Conquest
Chapter 7	Friday's Salt	109
Chapter 8	A Nordic Dream	129
Chapter 9	A Well-Salted Hexagon	144
Chapter 10	The Hapsburg Pickle	162
Chapter 11	The Leaving of Liverpool	179
Chapter 12	American Salt Wars	200
Chapter 13	Salt and Independence	214
Chapter 14	Liberte, Egalite, Tax Breaks	225
Chapter 15	Preserving Independence	238
Chapter 16	The War Between the Salts	257
Chapter 17	Red Salt	276
Part 3	Sodium's Perfect Marriage
Chapter 18	The Odium of Sodium	291
Chapter 19	The Mythology of Geology	303
Chapter 20	The Soil Never Sets On ...	318
Chapter 21	Salt and the Great Soul	333
Chapter 22	Not Looking Back	355
Chapter 23	The Last Salt Days of Zigong	369
Chapter 24	Ma, La, and Mao	388
Chapter 25	More Salt than Fish	399
Chapter 26	Big Salt, Little Salt	426
	Acknowledgments	451
	Bibliography	453
	Index	467