You Eat You What beta
Having written a reference work on food myself, I fully realize how difficult it is to research and write such a book as this, and how easy it is to find fault and criticize. And if I had seen the original edition of this book when it was first published, I probably would have found it valuable and interesting. If it had been heavily revised and brought up to date, it still might be. But it isn’t. I have been reading the chapter on Iceland and I have to say that it is very misleading. What is being described – and not always correctly – is Iceland in the 1950s and 1960s. A few examples – there are many more in the text:
“Some homes have refrigerators with freezers” (yes, about 98% of them) “but most manage with cold closets.” I’m the only person I know who has a cold larder (and a refrigerator and a freezer, too). Refrigerators have been in most homes here since the early 1960s at least. “Fresh fruits are scarce”. They haven’t been scarce for the last 30 years at least. These days you can even get exotic fruits like ramboutan and mangosteen. “Cattle are mainly used for dairy products, rarely for beef.” Beef is now as common as lamb. “Pigs are all but nonexistent; pork is rare and expensive and said to have a fishy taste …” Now common, inexpensive by Icelandic standards and quite good. “Icelanders have a deeply rooted objection to eating birds of any type” – oh, come on, chicken was not much eaten but not because people didn’t like it, rather because it wasn’t economical to raise the birds on imported grain. They are very popular now. And wild birds have always been eaten – in some regions they were a large part of the diet. “… margarine and butter (all unsalted)”. Totally wrong. Both margarine and butter is almost always salted. “Salt is seldom added (to food)” Wrong. Salt is added to most savory food and many people salt their food liberally. “Preferring to talk in separate groups, men and women disperse after the meal, it still being
You Eat What You