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Over 2,300 entries

Seasoned generously with literary wit, The Diner’s Dictionary is a veritable feast, tracing the origins and history of over 2,300 gastronomical words and phrases. John Ayto spreads across our table a veritable cornucopia, from common fruits and vegetables (apples, cherries, apricots, and broccoli, to name a few), to exotic foreign dishes such as gado-gado, nasi goreng, satay, and dashi, and even junk foods such as doughnuts, brownies, and candy. Thoroughly revised, the second edition boasts 1,000 new entries, including the word origins of affogato, bento, cava, goji berry, jalfrezi, mocktail, rugelach, vache qui rit, and zigni. In addition, Ayto has expanded the coverage of vocabulary from foreign cuisines, such as Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, and parts of South America.

Throughout, Ayto provides fascinating capsule histories of the various foods. He tells us, for instance, that cantaloupe was introduced into Europe from Armenia and was apparently first cultivated at Cantaluppi, a former summer estate of the popes near Rome. We learn the ingredients of haggis and that the name of the Scandinavian drink "aquavit" ultimately derives from Latin aqua vitae or "water of life." From jambalaya and callaloo to arrowroot and shiitake, The Diner's Dictionary is a food-lover's dream, filled with information and fascinating lore.

Over 2,000 entries

This accessible dictionary is packed full of authoritative information on foods and drinks, types of diet, sports and activities, exercises, physiology, training methods, and calorie requirements. The new edition includes over 200 new entries covering advances in the science of health and diet such as genetic disposition and nutrigenomics, high-profile diets such as the five–two and palaeo, fitness tracking and technologies, and developments in food labelling and the psychology of diet and fitness.

With over seventy diagrams, many providing guidance on how to carry out certain exercises, and tables covering recommended dietary intakes, the composition of selected foods, and average energy expenditure for various activities and sports, this is an ideal quick reference for students of sports and nutrition, and for anyone interested in diet and fitness.

Over 8,000 entries

This dictionary offers jargon-free entries on food, nutrition, diet, and health that clearly explain even the most technical of nutritional terms.

From abalone to zymogens, its coverage spans types of food (including both everyday and little-known foods), nutritional information, vitamins, minerals, and key scientific areas including metabolism and genomics. This new edition includes expanded coverage of food safety and relevant organizations, and of the nutritional information included for many foodstuffs. It also incorporates over 40 new line drawings, including numerous illustrations of the chemical structures of nutrients.

It is an essential resource for students of nutrition, dietetics, food science, and health and human sciences; professionals within the food industry, including nutritionists, cooks, and food manufacturers; and anyone interested in food who wants to discover more about what they eat.

"A handy guide to more than a hundred types of food for which health claims have been made." Catholic Library World

The health food industry is a billion-dollar business in the United States today and is thriving worldwide. However, despite the widespread consumption of these foods, little information is available to validate their actual therapeutic and nutritional value.

The Oxford Book of Health Foods is a comprehensive, up-to-date, and scientifically based guide to a variety of foods associated with good health. From fruits, herbs, and grains to vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements, this resource offers not only the claims associated with each food, but also the scientific truths behind these claims. Written in elegant and accessible prose, the book begins with an account of modern concepts of human nutrition, followed by a series of over one hundred entries on individual health foods and dietary supplements. Each entry provides full information on the food's origins, a thorough description, the claims and myths associated with it, and the scientific evidence to support - or refute - these claims. The text is further supplemented by a glossary explaining the more technical terms. A straightforward and authoritative reference, The Oxford Book of Health Foods is a must-have for all who are interested in general health and nutrition.

Over 1,100 entries

1st Place Winner of the 2012 Gourmand Award for Best in the World in the Beer category.

The first major reference work to investigate the history and vast scope of beer, The Oxford Companion to Beer features more than 1,100 A-Z entries written by 166 of the world's most prominent beer experts. Attractively illustrated with over 140 images, the work covers everything from the agricultural makeup of various beers to the technical elements of the brewing process, local effects of brewing on regions around the world, and the social and political implications of sharing a beer. Entries not only define terms such as "dry hopping" and "cask conditioning" but give fascinating details about how these and other techniques affect a beer's taste, texture, and popularity. Cultural entries shed light on such topics as pub games, food pairings and the development of beer styles. Readers will enjoy vivid accounts of how drinking traditions have changed throughout history, and how these traditions vary in different parts of the world, from Japan to Mexico, New Zealand, and Brazil, among many other countries. The pioneers of beer-making are the subjects of biographical entries, and the legacies these pioneers have left behind, in the form of the world's most popular beers and breweries, are recurrent themes throughout the work.

Packed with information, this comprehensive resource also features a foreword by Chef Tom Colicchio, and includes thorough appendices covering beer festivals, beer publications, and more. Written by an outstanding team of authors that includes leading brewers, academics, master cellarmen, craft brewers, and homebrewers, this book is as broad, deep, and companionable as the world of beer itself, and is the perfect shelf-mate to Oxford's renowned Companion to Wine.

Over 850 entries

The Oxford Companion to Cheese is the first truly comprehensive reference work dedicated to the exploration of how four basic ingredients—milk, microorganisms, salt, and enzymes—are transformed into the more than fourteen hundred named cheese varieties enjoyed throughout the world. From cottage cheese to Camembert, from Gorgonzola to Gruyère, the Companion examines cheese on the farm, under the microscope, in the shop, and on the plate.

More than just a pizza topping or cracker spread, cheese has been the founding capital of a few European banking systems, a religious sacrament, and an inspiration for writers and artists as far back as Homer. The Companion reveals these hidden depths in more than 850 wide-ranging entries. Here you will read about rightly famous cheeses, but also some that are not well known outside of their area of production, such as the traditional Turkish and Iranian cheeses ripened in sheep's or goat's skin. You will learn about animal species whose milk is commonly used (cow, goat, and sheep) and not so commonly used (yak, camel, and reindeer) in cheesemaking, as well as a few highly important breeds within each species (the Nubian goat or Lacaune sheep). You will explore regional cheesemaking traditions that date back millennia, and both ancient and modern cheesemaking technology and equipment. And you will delve into the vibrant interior world of cheese: the blooms, veins, sticky surfaces, gooey interiors, crystals, and yes, for some, the strong olfactory notes, are all due to microbial action and growth.

To discuss cheese in its countless forms and contexts, the Companion enlisted 325 authors, including leading cheesemakers, mongers, dairy scientists, microbiologists, anthropologists, historians, journalists, archaeologists, and more, from backgrounds as diverse as cheese itself. This is the definitive guide to one of humankind's greatest discoveries.

‘the best food reference work ever to appear in the English language … read it and be dazzled’ – Bee Wilson, New Statesman

Over 3,000 entries

First published in 1999, this ground-breaking Companion was an immediate success and won prizes and accolades around the world. Its combination of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, was and remains unique.

Interest in food, cooking, and the culture surrounding food has grown enormously in the intervening period, as has the study of food and food history. University departments, international societies, and academic journals have sprung up dedicated to exploring the meaning of food in the daily lives of people around the world, alongside an ever-increasing number of articles, books, programmes, and websites in the general media devoted to the discussion of food.

The great quality of this Companion is the way it includes both an exhaustive catalogue of foods – whether they be biscuits named for battles, divas or revolutionaries, body parts from nose to tail, toe to cerebellum, or breads from the steppes of Asia or the well-built ovens of the Mediterranean – and a richly allusive commentary on the culture of food, whether expressed in literature and cookery books, or as dishes peculiar to a country or community.

In the third edition the editor has taken the opportunity to update the text and alert readers to new perspectives in food studies. There is new coverage of approaches to food such as those offered by anthropology and sociology as well as the culture surrounding food exemplified by etiquette, gastronomy, and photography, and our shifting concerns surrounding food, including convenience food, obesity, and local food. In its new edition the Companion maintains its place as the foremost food reference resource for study and home use.

Over 1200 entries

Anthropologists and historians have confirmed the central role alcohol has played in nearly every society since the dawn of human civilization, but it is only recently that it has been the subject of serious scholarly inquiry. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails is the first major reference work to cover the subject and explores the historical, technical, and cultural aspects of this branch of the alcohol family. Compiled by world authority David Wondrich, with the assistance of a team of experts from around the globe, it stands beside the hugely successful Oxford Companions to Wine and Beer, providing an authoritative, enlightening and entertaining overview of this third branch of the alcohol family.

With entries ranging from Manhattan and mixology to sloe gin and stills, the Companion combines coverage of the range of spirit-based drinks around the world with clear explanations of production processes, and the history and culture of their consumption.

Over 595 entries

This is the most ambitious and eclectic reference work of its kind, a sweeping collection of nearly 600 entries on all things sweet, written by 265 expert contributors. Its coverage begins with the human proclivity for sweetness, an attribute shared by nearly all mammals. From the simple image of a baby smiling when tasting sweet foods, the Companion continues across many thousands of years and around the globe many times, affording glimpses deep into the brain as well as stratospheric flights into the world of sugar-crafted fantasies. More than just a compendium of pastries, candies, ices, sweet preserves, and all manner of confections, this work explores the notion of the sweet as one that has brought richness to our language, our art, and of course, our gastronomy.

Readers expecting to find entries on the history of candy, the evolution of the dessert course, and the production of chocolate will not be disappointed. But the Companion also includes less-well-known material that may offer a sense of discovery and delight. Readers will learn about “sugar of lead” (lead acetate), prescribed for stomach troubles in the nineteenth century, and about castoreum (beaver extract), beloved by the modern food industry for the sweet taste it imparts. An entry on bird’s milk, an Eastern Europe candy, tells how its name reflects its physical scarcity during Soviet era shortages (obtaining a box of these candies was a coup nearly as unlikely as milking a bird). The Companion celebrates the allure of sweetness, but it also recognizes the darker aspects of our enthrallment with sugar, beginning with the inseparable links between sugar and slavery. The damage continues in the child labor used in harvesting cacao beans; in the sugar-heavy diet that undermines health in many communities; and in the stereotypes still associated with certain forms of sweets.

The Companion features a preface by the legendary anthropologist Sidney Mintz, whose Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History was the first serious study of sugarcane in relation to economics and colonial power. It also has an extensive index and four appendices: on sweets in cinema, museums dedicated to sweets, the world's best pastry shops, and on songs that are in some way constructed around sweetness.

‘If someone is to own just one wine book, Ms. Robinson's mighty effort is the fail-safe proposition.’ Wall Street Journal

‘A masterpiece of vinous scholarship.’ David Williams, The Observer

‘As well as a huge weight of information, this wonderful book also manages to entertain and delight.’ Stephen Brook, Decanter

Over 3,800 entries

A uniquely comprehensive and in-depth A-Z reference book on every aspect of wine, covering topics from history through geography, geology, soil science, viticulture, winemaking, packaging, labelling, academia, technology, and regulations to people and places, tasting, writing, and the language of wine.

This new fifth edition, which benefits from the knowledge and experience of over one hundred new contributors, all experts in their field or geographical region, is expanded by 264 new entries, and every existing entry has been reviewed, updated, and polished. The text is more international than ever, written for wine lovers of every persuasion, including those who love wine but want to know more in order to increase their enjoyment of this endlessly fascinating liquid, and those who are intent on studying wine, professionally or privately. This is a huge treasure trove of knowledge, for the first time breaking the barrier of one million words, and the language, while not shying away from complex science, is intended to open the door to every curious reader looking for answers on every question they have ever wanted to ask about wine.

Over 1,400 entries

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, originally published in September 2004, covers the significant events, inventions, and social movements that have shaped the way Americans view, prepare, and consume food and drink. Entries range across historical periods and the trends that characterize them, from the extravagant feasts of the Gilded Age to the diet fads of the nineties. This thoroughly updated new edition captures the shifting American perspective on food and ensures that this title is both the most authoritative and the most current reference work on American cuisine.

The second edition of the Encyclopedia reflects the many changes in American food consciousness during the twenty-first century. Once a niche market, food television has become ubiquitous, as are websites devoted to all sorts of regional cuisines. New health consciousness has spawned obesity taxes, transfat and calorie-count laws, the slow food movement, and locavorism. Ethnic foods and the fusion of these have led to new crazes for such cuisines as Southwestern sushi and Filipino hamburgers. These timely trends and topics have been incorporated into the new edition of the Encyclopedia, adding one volume and over 300 new entries on these and other subjects such as food science and nutrition, molecular gastronomy, genetically-modified foods, food controversies, regional foods, the volatile nature of food prices, and food traditions of major American cities. Entries from the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, also edited by Andy Smith, have been added, as have a substantial number of biographies of culinary personalities. All bibliographies and non-historical entries have been revisited for updating.

Over 565 entries

Savoring Gotham traces the rise of New York City's global culinary stardom in well-researched, yet accessible A-Z entries. From the Native Americans who arrived in the area 5,000 years before New York was New York, and who planted the maize, squash, and beans that European and other settlers to the New World embraced centuries later, to Greek diners in the city that are arguably not diners at all, this is the first A-Z reference work that takes a broad and historically-informed approach to NYC food and drink. Here readers will find entries on the foods and drinks and businesses that originated in the city, ethnic and regional culinary influences, the unique character of each borough (and several neighborhoods within the boroughs), important educational, cultural, and publishing institutions related to food in the city, biographies of key culinary leaders (both living and deceased), and selections from the city's food manufacturers, food importers, restaurants, and bars.

Savoring Gotham is for anyone interested in learning the history of this food mecca; not only the foodie history of upscale restaurants and celebrity chefs, but the bodegas, chop suey joints, automats, and Italian ice vendors that are a part of New York's culinary heritage. Written by nearly 180 of the most notable food experts – most of them New Yorkers – Savoring Gotham addresses the food, people, places, and institutions that have made New York cuisine so wildly diverse and immensely appealing.