Food is a basic requirement of daily life, more essential and (some would say) more comforting than religion, love, or sex. The emotional and social resonances connected with food have long been explored by writers in novels and poetry, drama and biography, diaries and letters, and this anthology brings together a splendid cornucopia of comment and opinion. Attitudes to food are as various as food itself: Montaigne adored fish but disliked fruit and salad, while the German philosopher Kant loved pulses and pork fat. The discovery of new foods occasions much interest, and the pineapple excites a succulent description by a visitor to Barbados in the seventeenth century. Through the use of printed and unpublished manuscript sources Brigid Allen provides a fascinating history of the eating habits of families and individuals - how and where they shopped, methods of cooking and cooking utensils, what time they ate and even what name they gave their meals. Dining in and dining out are both addressed, and the experience of travellers abroad entertainingly chronicled.Enforced or voluntary food deprivation is also examined, in a section that considers the effects of war, famine and poverty, as well as the regimes of prisons and schools, and the dubious attractions of dieting. From royal banquets to household accounts, from the Bible to Thomas Wolfe, from the diary of a castaway to instructions for dairy maids, this appetizing collection will appeal to anyone with an interest in food. Whatever your taste, Food will provide lasting nourishment.