Mark Kurlansky

Recommended by Chef José Andrés on The Drew Barrymore Show!
A portrait of American food—before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional—from the lost WPA files
From the New York Times bestselling author who "powerfully demonstrates the defining role food plays in history and culture" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)....

This book by noted author Mark Kurlansky draws on philosophy, religion, literature, politics to ask what may well be the 20 most-important questions in human history.

"By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky's life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway's death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway's and Kurlansky's lives, resulting in vivid accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with both authors in this entertaining and illuminative memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten...

"Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than thirty years. Part cultural history, part travelogue, with recipes, historic engravings, photographs, and Kurlansky's own pen-and-ink drawings throughout, Havana celebrates the city's singular music, literature, baseball, and food; its five centuries of outstanding, neglected architecture; and its extraordinary blend...

According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible,...

As Julia Child once said, "It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions." Historically, she's been right-and not just in the kitchen. Uniquely flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews, and stir fries, but for medicines, metaphors, and folklore. Abundantly commonplace yet extraordinarily indispensable, the onion is Kurlansky's newest global food...

Bees are disappearing--but they aren't the only species at risk. Populations of fireflies, butterflies, and ladybugs have all been declining in recent years, too. This book explains the growth, spread, and recent declines of each of these four types of insects and shows just how much bugs matter to our world.