How Would You Like Your Mammoth?

“Food is pleasure, of course, but it is also memory, escapism, and nostalgia” “The rule of hospitality establishes community - but it is the food that creates communality”

How Would You Like Your Mammoth? is a collection of short non-fiction snippets about food and its interactions with humans and society.

This book covers a very long time period and so it definitely felt overall like it had a slow pace. The bite-sized pieces however, means that if you’re going to read this, I highly recommend taking your time. Each specific food history is probably 3 or 4 pages and relatively digestible but trying to read any more than two or three food histories became difficult.

Overall, I felt like I learned a decent amount of new information about the history of food. Truthfully, I’m not sure how much will stick with me as a lot of it was older foods that wouldn’t necessarily still be eaten today, but this was a fascinating read nonetheless. A lot of facts and brief origin stories (when able) made this enjoyable.

The author’s personal opinions do seem to make its way into the book near the end, as we get into more modern history. Not that I necessarily disagree with any of their opinions but they do become much more prevalent near the end which may put some readers off. However, as mentioned throughout - food is politicized - and the opinions are ultimately to be expected!

What a fun book! Each few pages is a cool story about some type of food and where it came from. This is easy to pick up when waiting in a line or in the doctor's office. I learned so much!

This is a collection of short, non-fiction vignettes about food and how it has interacted with humans throughout time. I definitely learned a lot from this read!

While history was always my worst subject in school (I just cannot with all the memorizing of names and dates), I actually do enjoy history when it’s presented well, particularly when food is involved! And this book is exactly that. It’s composed of 50 little essays, each about a dish that was prominent at a particular place and time in history.

Were I back in my pre-kids, blogging or streaming or video-making days, I think it would be a really fun project to cook through the book and try to replicate all the dishes it features. Alas, there’s not a chance of me finding the time for that these days, but this book was still a lot of fun to read!

I'm not a foodie at all (for the potluck on slide 3, I brought costco chicken nuggets - not pictured), but I adored How Would You Like Your Mammoth? by @uta.seeburg. it's a culinary history of popular dishes throughout history, from famous meals like Jesus's last supper to new trends like pandemic dinners. Written in a conversational tone, this book has everything I want from a nonfiction read: specific and interesting topic discussed in an informational but engaging way.

Thanks so much to @theexperiment for sending it my way!