Cuisine and EmpireRachel Laudan tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the world's great cuisinesfrom the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the presentin this superbly researched book. Probing beneath the apparent confusion of dozens of cuisines to reveal the underlying simplicity of the culinary family tree, she shows how periodic seismic shifts in "culinary philosophy"beliefs about health, the economy, politics, society, and the