History of Plant-Based Food: From Prehistory to the Present Day

This book, published in 1932, remains the reference work on the cultural history of human nutrition from prehistory to the present day. Unrivaled and unobtainable for decades, its reissue is more than relevant at a time when we are rediscovering the need, both for our health and for the environment, to give a larger place to plants in our diet and to rediscover a diversity undermined by the industrialization and globalization of agriculture. Seven hundred cultivated plants, wild (herbaceous plants, cereals, trees and shrubs), plants of scarcity or opulence, in various forms (soups, salads, flours, porridges, pancakes, sourdough bread, fermentations of all kinds, etc.) are presented in detail, supported by processing techniques (gathering, brining, cooking, grinding, etc.). The new edition of this great culinary, botanical, linguistic and historical fresco is put into perspective by Michel Chauvet, ethnobotanist, who shows us all its richness. Claude Aubert, agricultural engineer and editor, wrote the preface.