How We Eat Appetite, Culture, and the Psychology of Food

Tracing our culinary customs from the Stone Age to the stovetop range, from the raw and the cooked to the nuked, How We Eat explores the fascinating and often contradictory myths and rituals shaping our eating habits. We may adore watching celebrity chefs perform on TV, but then why do so few people cook at home? The gourmet health food industry is soaring, yet a longtime love affair with fast food still endures. And speaking of love affairs, How We Eat answers another question: why is it that some foods work as aphrodisiacs? Leon Rappoport hosts our journey through a variety of food cultures and shows us how food and eating habits have shaped cultures, accounted for our behavior, and created our sense of individual and cultural identity. Along the way we meet with the hugely popular success of food experts such as Fanny Farmer and Betty Crocker, find out about a sure-to-succeed Jerusalem artichoke venture that failed bitterly, encounter a murder case in which a Twinkie was supposedly the culprit, and learn more than you ever wanted to know about cannibals' table manners. How We Eat: an informative look at the history of eating, a tasty combination of fact and fun. Book jacket.

Leon Rappoport, is a professor specializing in personality and social psychology at Kansas State University. His research studies on food cognition have appeared in numerous journals, including The American Behavioral Scientist and Appetite. He is the author of The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior, Personality Development, and Zen Running. He lives in Manhattan, Kansas.