A HISTORY LESSON IN FOOD Available to Purchase

What people eat depends mainly upon two things. First, quite simply, the products their land can yield. Secondly, and more diffused, the measure of civilization they have achieved. This affects not only their practical techniques of cookery and agriculture but also their superstitions, for the more primitive a race is the more superstitious it is likely to be and the more taboos are likely to be imposed on the diet. Primarily, then, man eats to survive. A primitive man's idea of enjoyment is surfeit of food and drink, indulged euphorically until satiation. It is only when a certain measure of civilization has been achieved that pleasure in food becomes of a subtler, more fastidious kind through the refinements of its cooking and variety of dishes.