Repast: The Story of Food

Food writer Jenny Linford, working in collaboration with the British Museum, has created something quite different from the typical food history: a tour through humanity's relationship with food and drink as told through objects spanning from prehistory to the modern day.

Moving from hunting and gathering to the history of eating out, the book examines how cooking vessels, serving pieces, and food-related artifacts reveal the social and cultural dimensions of eating. Examples range from gathering tools used by indigenous cultures of Pacific North America and Australia to a woodcut of a square omelette pan from Edo Period Japan.

Linford draws on the museum's remarkable collection to explore how food has shaped civilization. Relief panels of fishermen from the 7th century BC Assyrian Palace at Ninevah appear alongside a chicken mosaic from 4th century Turkey and a 16th century engraving of an Italian milk seller.

This is not a cookbook, but rather a work of food scholarship that will appeal to readers curious about the deeper history of how humans have grown, prepared, and consumed food across cultures and centuries.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.