Much Depends on Dinner

'Since Eve ate apples, ' wrote Byron, 'much depends on dinner, ' and in this delightful and intelligent book, Margaret Visser proves how right he was. Built around the menu of a simple meal--corn on the cob with salt and butter, roast chicken with rice, salad dressed in lemon juice and olive oil, and ice cream--Much Depends on Dinner corrects our lack of knowledge of these most ubiquitous of foods and lays before us a captivating register of facts, myths, fetishes, and rituals that stretches back into our early history.