The Food of France

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While this might sound like a cookbook, it's actually a travelogue focusing on the foods of various regions in France. Instead of providing information on what visitors should see during their travels, Waverly Root reveals what they should eat. Root, who made his living as a foreign correspondent and has written several volumes on his penchant for food, is an excellent guide whose descriptions will convince globetrotters that there's much more to travel than sightseeing. The book, along with Root's The Food of Italy won the 1990 James Beard Cookbook Award.

Book Description

Embraces not only the marvels of French cooking but French history, language, landscape, and customs as well. Here is France for the traveler, the chef, and the connoisseur of fine prose. Maps and b & w line drawings throughout.

Customer Reviews:

Still Fresh and Informative After All these Years.......2006-05-03

Now finishing my second reading of this tremendous book, all the while suspecting that Waverly Root was really a well-disguised poseur and not really the erudite man-of-the-world he appears to have been, I have to finally admit that, in addition to being one hell of a fine writer, he must also have been one of the most broadly-informed gourmands ever. True, occassional anecdotes and opinions of his betray the fact that the book was originally published 50 years ago, but the scope and intimacy of his knowledge with pretty much every provincial outpost, grand boulevard, and Basque backwater in France is astounding. I suspect he read and took to heart the 1950s edition of the Larousse Gastronomique, since many of the culinary practices he describes hardly deviate from what the Great Book says, but he provides so many examples of eating experiences that could be nothing but first-hand that I have to conclude that he actually DID spend his 30+ years in France doing little but travelling, eating, and drinking. These culinary expeditions are a treasure now: many of the regions he sampled so amply have been globalized to oblivion. His enthusiastic, almost childlike [but, nonetheless, world-wise] forays into the Haut Pyrenees, for example, record a local tradition of farmhouse cooking that is no more. But he was no mere chronicler of foods: his essays are leavened with witty, insightful, broadly-informed and fascinating anecdotes and contextual notes geographical, historical, literary, and agricultural. In this sense, I believe he was one of the pioneers of the broad, anectdotal form of journalism that remains perhaps the most effective means of presenting the world to an armchair audience. I have to forgive his peculiarities. Even his apparent contempt for Champagne seems inconsequential when I read his descriptions of travelling into darkest Corsica, sampling the wild, unrefined local wines, and immediately perceiving their perfect suitability to the food of the region. I am not aware of any other food and wine writer from that era who so heartily insisted on describing food and wine as a marriage. He wrote 20 years before Richard Olney brought his own sophistications to the table, and, understood in this context, his predilections must have been radical at the time.

I urge you to read this book with a willingness to forgive the occassional signs of age. They are few and forgivable. Please savor the writing, with its erudition, lovely sense of timing and flow, gentle humor and enthusiasm. Please also consider it as the eloquent indictment of globalization that it is. To read a book written in the uncritical heyday of postwar American optimism and to find in it laments that the old world was slipping away, a victim of commerce and centralized policymaking, is a poignant experience indeed. This book is an education like few others.

Delicious, Delightful, De-loverly........2000-02-23

Mr Root's overarching theory is that French food can be divided into the three culinary domains of fat, butter and oil. The Food of France reflects this belief and is similarly divided into three main sections, each chapter within a section dealing with the geographical/culinary regions within each domain. Within this structure, each chapter explores the food of a specific culinary region, and highlights the dishes distinct to that region.

Underpinning Mr Root's overarching theory is the premise that food and how it is cooked is intimately related to and is influenced by the geography, history, and culture (agri- and otherwise) of its region. As a result, each region develops a food and cooking style unique to itself. He proceeds to illustrate this with erudition, verve, wit and style. Drawing on his knowledge of French geography, history, and culture, as well as what seems to be his vast gastronomic experiences across France, he makes a fine case for how each have been an ingredient in shaping and influencing the development of the food of each region. The Food of France will not only tell you what goes into an omelette provencale, it will tell you why this is different from an omelette a la nomande or an omelette a la nicoise, as well as consider different theories as to how the omelette got its name.

The book comes with a general index, as well as an index of food and dishes. Dishes are described with sufficient particularity that a good cook could reproduce the dish. I should note that as the book was written in 1958, some of his information is a little outdated (his recommendations for good years of wine) or a little late (his urgings to visit Provence before it becomes too touristed). Notwithstanding this, The Food of France is an excellent resource and wonderful read: perhaps there can be no better recommendation than to admit that I enjoyed it so much that I have gone to buy The Food of Italy, also written by Root.

My Personal Rating Scale:
5 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative, thought provoking, pushes the envelope in one or more ways, a classic.
4 stars: Engaging, well-written, highly entertaining or informative. Book that delivers well in terms of its specific genre or type, but does not do more than that.
3 stars: Competent. Does what it sets out to do competently, either on its own terms on within the genre, but is nothing special. May be clichéd but is still entertaining.

2 stars: Fails to deliver in various respects. Significantly clichéd. Writing is poor or pedestrian. Failed to hold my attention.
1 star: Abysmal. Fails in all respects.

Absolutely delicious!.......2000-02-11

The Food of France, written in 1958, is a wonderfully erudite and relaxed look into French cuisine. Root, who has evidently spent many years in France eating his way through its various provinces, has written a travelogue and a paen to French cuisine.

Root divides France into various gastronomic regions, and looks at the foods typical to each of these regions. His theory, that these gastronomic regions can be collated under three different regions - the domains of fat, butter and olive oil - forms the overarching structure of the book. In each region, he describes both its social and cultural history, as well as its geography and agriculture, in order to better explain why the food of that region developed in the way that it has. His riffs move from the origin of the name "Languedoc" (the language where "yes" was "oc" and not "oui") and "Carcassonne" to the reason for large roofs in the Jura region. While some of this information may undoubtedly be out of date (his urgent plea to visit Provence before it becomes too touristetd is definitely 20 years too late by now as are his recommedations of good years for particular wines), most of the information is still pertinent and interesting.

Among all of this, he manages to describe with luscious wit and warmth the food of the region. He will tell you with authority how snails are cooked, which cities have the best type of pastries, and what goes into the preparation of cote de porc a la vosgienne. If you've ever wondered about the difference between an omelette a la savoyarde (and he tells an amusing and fascinating story of how the omelette came to be so named) and an omelette a la lyonnaise, what a pamplemousse is or what goes into a cassoulet (depends on which region the cassoulet is made in), this is the book for you.

It comes with an excellent general index, as well as an index of food and dishes. Cooks out there might be interested to know that he frequently describes dishes with sufficient particularity that a good cook could reproduce some of the dishes so described, even though details as to proportions and cooking techiques are not provided.

I enjoyed this so much that I went off to buy The Food of Italy also by Root and am anticipating reading that with equal relish. There can really be no better recommendation than that.

Sure to stimulate un crise de foie in the reader.......1999-06-14

"The Food of France" is a delicious, exhausting account of the cuisine of France - definitely not reading for those watching their cholesterol level. Highly recommended.

Waverley: or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford World's Classics)

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WAVERLEY: THE FIRST HISTORICAL NOVEL, THE FIRST POLITICAL NOVEL
Like Reading K2, But Worthwhile
The ultimate coming-of-age novel
A Geste of Waverly
Interesting critique of romantic tendencies

Waverley: or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford World's Classics)
Walter Scott
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192836013

Book Description

Set during the Jacobite rising in Scotland in 1745, this novel springs from Scott's childhood recollections and his desire to preserve in writing the features of life in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. Waverley was first published anonymously in 1814 and was Scott's first
novel.

Customer Reviews:

WAVERLEY: THE FIRST HISTORICAL NOVEL, THE FIRST POLITICAL NOVEL.......2006-11-08

Sir Walter Scott began WAVERLEY, his first novel, in 1805. Years later, after his move to his dream home Abbotsford near the border with England, he found his manuscript while rummaging in a fishing tackle box. He then brought the world's first historical novel to a conclusion in 1814.

Abe Lincoln read Walter Scott. His children entertained their mother re-enacting scenes from the WAVERLEY series of novels. I wonder therefore if Lincoln's "Four score and seven years ago..." does not echo WAVERLEY's frequently repeated sub-title, " 'Tis Sixty Years Since." WAVERLEY is narrated as from 1805, the year it was begun, and for both it and the Gettysburg Address, a reader inevitably starts calculating backwards. What date are we talking about? Ah,1745 for young Edward Waverley. We know (as he does not) what turmoil he is letting himself in for when he rides into the Highlands -- the last hurrah of the legitimate Stuart dynasty. And 1776 for Abe Lincoln meant the Declaration of Independence. In 1745 "auld" Scotland almost disappeared in defeat. In 1776 Hanoverian Britain began its retreat from North America.

Scott tells us in i.1 (p. 5) that in 1745 our ancestors expressed their anger directly, by taking up arms. But in 1805/1814 his generation was more indirect, taking enemies to court.

This very great novel should be read for sheer entertainment, for its characters, for the omnipresent black bears of the Baron of Bradwardine and for its love story. But I suggest that we read it as well as history and geography. Are we up for the sounds of broad Scots language? For a smidgen of Highland Gaelic (which Scott barely knew)? To learn about doch and dorroch and the stirrup-cup? Through hundreds of details of what Scotsmen ate, how they dressed, how beautiful were their mountains and waters near Perth, Walter Scott brought Scotland to life in England and throughout Europe and in the USA.

WAVERLEY makes us take Scotland, the real Scotland of history, seriously. We see its educated Catholic Highlanders sending their children to study in France and Italy. Bonnie Prince Charlie lost only one battle of several, but it was enough to secure Hanoverians their throne. We sense that the transition, however awful, was inevitable from fiercely independent Scotland to an uncomfortable, demoted "North Britain" within a prospering, peaceful United Kingdom of middle-class shopkeepers. Walter Scott makes us ask what if any history has to teach us.

Not only is WAVERLEY the first historical novel. It is also the first political novel. We see dimly how a generally dismal set of rulers, the Stuart dynasty, could continue to win men's loyalty to a lost cause. In a later novel, also about Prince Charlie 20 years later, we read of a Scottish family named REDGAUNTLET whose fate was always to be on the losing side. What makes subjects or citizens alike glory in losing for political principle?

Mark Twain wrote as if all Walter Scott cared about were kings and dynasties, knights, beautiful high-born ladies and lost inheritances. But day after day in court in Edinburgh he heard argued cases of little people with religious and inherited passions and prejudices, not to mention superstitions. He remembered them all, along with the tales he heard as a boy and the ballads he researched for seven consecutive summers as a young adult. These little people live again in WAVERLEY and in Scott's 26 other novels as well.

-OOO-

Like Reading K2, But Worthwhile.......2005-09-21

The first 200 pages of "Waverley" represent an early zenith for novelists testing the patience of their readership.

After a lengthy introduction where author Sir Walter Scott mocks the romantic pretentiousness then abounding among novelists, he proceeds to introduce us to assorted personages we will never meet again before finally focusing on the opaque central character, whose name not only gives us the book's title but a sense of grating irresolution which comes to define him. The reader's feet start tapping.

Scott then throws up a detailed sequence of non-events. Young Waverley joins the British army, marches off to Scotland, and becomes the guest of every Highland warlord with a grudge against His Majesty. I may have left off a couple of incidents, but that's the sum total of the action for the first third or so of the book. "Shall this be a long or short chapter?" he teasingly asks at the beginning of his 24th chapter, nearly 200 pages in.

"Waverley" does eventually kick itself into a higher gear, not that it ever becomes a thrill-ride. But he imbues his mysterious Scottish landscape with an aura that swirls around the reader and, though hard to explain coherently, becomes not only quite charming but compelling, too.

Waverley, like David Copperfield and many other such heroes of 19th century fiction, finds himself torn between two women, and as his attempts at wooing one fell painfully short, I found myself cutting across the chasm of time and really identifying with the guy.

"The sensation of hope with which he had nursed his affection in absence of the beloved object seemed to vanish in her presence..."

Scott's remedy for such pining is also too good not to quote: "I knew a very accomplished and sensible young man cured of a violent passion for a pretty woman, whose talents were not equal to her face and figure, by being permitted to bear her company for a whole afternoon."

I wish I had the stomach to finish this book the first time I tried to read it, when I was a sophomore in high school. It might have saved me much misery.

The noteworthy thing about "Waverley," as others here comment, is that it plays off the romantic ideal of the day in a character whose inconstancy is a deliberate statement about how such all-or-nothing sentiments can be misleading, even injurious. Edward Waverley, introduced to us memorably (if at great length) in terms of the books he starts but doesn't finish, becomes a waterbug skittering across the waves of history, once a loyal supporter of the Hanoveran throne, then a rebel Jacobite, as his loyalties are played by people of varying moral hues.

"Well, after all, every thing has its fair as well as its seamy side," Waverley declares by the second half of the book, beginning to understand.

What makes "Waverley" a great book are the characters around Waverley more than the man himself, especially one rebel named Fergus who takes his measure of Waverley's indecisive character, and his station as the heir to a British title, in order to manipulate him. Scott does this so subtly we may feel ourselves as caught out as young Edward when he learns the score, but it works not only because it carries logical force within the ever-shifting narrative but doesn't turn Fergus into a villain so much as a man who does what he can with what he has.

For all the romantic stuff, well presented indeed, it's the relationship between Waverley and Fergus that carries the strongest resonant strain, since it isn't exactly a friendship or adversarial, but a bit of both with an undercurrent of tragedy that becomes more focused toward the end.

"Waverley" isn't a well-structured novel per se, given the sluggish opening and Waverley's pinball-like relationship to the politics around him. Readers of "Ivanhoe" will miss the firmer storyline of that work, not to mention comic relief in the form of pithy Wamba of that book rather than the windy, Latin-loving Baron, though the latter has his moments.

Everyone in "Waverley" has their moments, and they add up to a great book once the momentum gets going. It's a tough climb, but you'll be glad you made the effort when it's over.

The ultimate coming-of-age novel.......2003-10-24

Scott can be a ragged storyteller, by our contemporary standards (which are unfair to apply, since he showed the way to all future English novelists). Patches of WAVERLEY are ragged and rambling. Such humor as there is is not very funny, and sometimes when the action is meant to be sweeping, it is more nearly absurd.

None of this is without compensations. The English novel was still young and unformed, and Scott is alive to all its possibilities, with a freshness and boldness not available to later writers. He thinks nothing, for instance, of having his hero (here as in IVANHOE) sick or asleep while the action is conducted elsewhere by more vidid, nominally secondary characters.

But WAVERLEY is not just of historical interest. It accomplishes something unique in the Bildungsroman genre. In its time, and even now, it is thought of as a nonpareil romantic adventure, but the reputation is misleading, since it is mostly about the unraveling of Waverley's romantic notions. For a time we share them: how merry and noble the highlanders seem, how manly and swashbuckling their leader, Fergus; how accomplished and womanly his sister, the beautiful Flora. By the the end of the book, however, Waverley's cause has turned to ashes, the man he idolized is revealed as an unfeeling monomaniac, and the woman he thought he loved seems just a sour harpy.

The cold slap of reality is an experience common enough in life, the painful accompaniment of growing up, but you'll have to look far and wide to find it so cannily presented in fiction as here.

A Geste of Waverly.......2003-08-18

Mark Twain stated that Scott's writings had a "debilitating influence;" in fact drove the antebellum South "mad" with medieval notions of chivalry into the War Between the States. It's true, the popularity of Sir Walter at the time was unparalleled. Waverley, published in 1814, has the distinction of being the first historical novel; that is, where a heroic fictional character is set within an actual event in history. Waverley also stands out as a splendid example of the romantic trend in literature, where imagination is considered primary to understanding. Waverley is the first in a series of popular "historical romances" by Scott. The key event to Waverley is the colorful Jacobite rebellion of 1745, where Bonnie Prince Charlie, the last of the Stuarts, landed on Scottish shores to reclaim the English throne from King George II. 75,000 ex-Jacobites later immigrated to South Carolina following Prince Charlie's failure, no doubt giving King George III much to contend with, during the American Revolution. Over a hundred years later, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, by the Scott "crazed" generation. So, Twain's witty observation could have a basis in fact.
Scott published Waverley anonymously, giving the novel a thrilling mystique of historical authenticity; a romantic strategy ? for imaginative distancing or "negative capability" discussed by contemporary poet, John Keats. The hero, Edward Waverley, is born into a house of divided loyalties, between the treasonable Stuart cause and loyal ties to the Hanoverian crown. Although himself a Captain in the King's forces, Edward begins an adventure of self-discovery at the Scottish manor of Bradwardine; learns the ways of the Highlanders from Fergus McIvor and his sister, Flora; joins forces with "the Chief," and fights the battle of Preston. We are treated to riveting characterizations of famous historical persons and events, told in evocative poetic prose, with haunting images, dramatic set pieces, and convincingly real dialogue. I agree with A.N. Wilson, who more recently described Sir Walter Scott as "a genius of extraordinary range, depth and intelligence."
So, in reply to the ever gallant and wry wit of Mr. Twain, it's my belief that the creative genius, as evidenced by Waverley, promotes rather than detracts from cultural growth. The self-defeating principles which destroyed the Old South are endemic to all societies (including our own), as Toynbee could have said, and these causes lay deep within the collective unconscious (Jung).

Interesting critique of romantic tendencies.......2003-02-26

Waverley, Walter Scott's first successful novel, concerns Edward Waverley, the scion of a noble, landed family in England. He's a Romantic young man, in the formal sense of belonging to the Romantic movement and in temperament--the relative ease of his life and his passionate dilettantishness land him, eventually, in the service of the Jacobites during the rebellion of 1745. He discovers the wild landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, the curious manners of the Highland folk, and learns that life and war are not exactly like all those romantic books about adventure and glory he loves to read.

Scott's book can be interpreted as a critique of the Romantic temperament, and I think the book succeeds best when it contrasts reality with the puffed-up imaginings of Edward Waverley's literature-addled perception. He is not quite Don Quixote, according to Scott, but he suffers from a milder version of the same disease; the most amusing parts of the book center around Waverley's naivete toward battle, ceremony, and love. He is feckless, to be sure, and abysmally undisciplined--but he is a decent fellow in the end, and learns from his mistakes. The people that populate Scott's novel are generally civilized, noble, and upright people, even the fierce rebels; while Scott doesn't approve of rebellion, the rebels are portrayed as misguided at worst, and of equal nobility to the English at best. Scott's purpose was to peer into the world "sixty years since" his own time, and helped give birth to the historical novel. It has confusing and near-unreadable parts (especially when the pedantic Baron shows up), but as a historical novel, it certainly sets the template for all other books of its type to come.

Average customer rating:

Educating Waverly - a "must read"

Interesting reading

Best of 2003

Romance-Novel Quality

a gem

Educating Waverley
Laura Kalpakian
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0380977680
Release Date: 2002-04-16

Book Description

In the autumn of 1939 young Waverley Scott arrives on remote Isadora Island in the Puget Sound. She is to be a student at Temple School -- banished, she knows, because her features too closely resemble those of hermother's married employer. Alone, abandoned, and unloved, Waverley stepsoff the rain-washed boat and into the eccentric world of Temple School.

The headmistress of this all-girl school, Sophia Westervelt, has amysterious past and a passion for education. She instills achievement intoher students, confident that one day they will have "dinner with theKing of Sweden," that they will win the Nobel Prize. Sophia is animmortal teacher, and under her direction, Waverley grows as her ownabilities and vision expand. But far away in Europe, nations clash, andeven isolated Isadora Island feels the impact.

Sophia Westervelt struggles to keep Temple School going, though formidableforces combine against her. And in the midst of this turmoil, for thefirst time, Waverley experiences love -- a love so fierce and sensual that,like her education, it will shape the rest of her life.

Customer Reviews:

Educating Waverly - a "must read".......2004-12-28

In Educating Waverly, local author Laura Kalpakian delivers an incredibly well-written, engaging tale of student Waverly Scott, her cohorts and teachers at the Temple School. Banished to the school on the remote island of Isadora in the Puget Sound, Scott comes of age amidst a cast of eclectic but lovable characters. Meanwhile, World War II explodes in Europe, soon to indelibly impact Scott's life as a French refugee is sent to the school for protection.

Kalpakian artfully describes Scott and her fellow teens as they discover their world in an alternative, private school owned and operated by Sophia Westervelt, the heir of a local logging family. With compassion and understanding, Kalpakian brings her characters to life with believable, memory-invoking descriptions of teen angst as the students attempt to embrace Westervelt's unconventional teachings on becoming a "North American Woman of the Future."

In spite of the book's cover, the Temple School is unconventional and the students' dress is anything but short skirts and penny loafers. Instead, the students are clad in comfortable tunics, slacks and Roman sandals to instill in them the freedom they will need to "see the unseen" and to "fear nothing save ignorance, untruth and ugliness."

Throughout the 300+ page read, the author interweaves life on the island with the tragic events of the war, each having an impact on the other. Slowly, she allows the character's pasts to unfold creating a fascinating interconnection that can only be understood as each piece is deliciously revealed.

With unmatched skill, Kalpakian smoothly transitions from one historical time to another, in one breath telling the impacts of World War II and the next describing the bitter disappointment of those who fought in the Great War before it. Without following a logical or chronological pattern, the author manages to paint the complete picture of each of the main characters as they move through life, love and loss.

Perhaps without realizing it, Kalpakian creates a suspenseful novel, holding the reader's attention with poignant descriptions of our nation's history, while sharing long forgotten adolescent pain and triumph. Her story is beautifully written, her words well chosen, and her story magnificently told. This novel is not your everyday romance novel. Rather, it is a rare treat to the discerning reader, one not easily forgotten.

Interesting reading.......2004-02-04

I have enjoyed Kalpakian's books in the past and this one was no exception. I liked the way she presented an unusual situation and locale, and how the characters' lives all became so intertwined. This is a testament of the author's skills at weaving a complex story into a believable whole.

The secrets that have been kept over the years, on Isadora Island and beyond, drive the story and keep the reader intruiged. The few students of the mysterious, free-spirited Sophie Westerveldt at Temple School learn unusual lessons that will stay with them far into their futures.

I am not usually fond of books that move around in time, back and forth, but Kalpakian's skill kept the book from seeming choppy. The story emerged gradually and allowed the reader topeel back the layers and put all the pieces together.

A good read.

Best of 2003.......2003-11-04

This is an excellently written and crafted story. Best along with Human Stain. This would actually make a very good movie as opposed to Human Stain which should not be a movie. The story is perfect in every way. I will read all of this author.

Romance-Novel Quality.......2003-10-21

This book was recommended to me by a friend & I found it disappointing - full of purple prose and flat characters. It made me wince sometimes, it was so corny. There's a moany love-triangle between three of the characters which is annoying and unconvincing. Supposedly, two girls, Waverley Scott and Avril Aron, are so smitten with each other that they refer to each other as "Wavril"- one soul and one person. Both of them are also moony and moany over their grocery-delivery boy, Sandy. All three enjoy a kind of romance-novel menage a trois on moonlit nights on the beach, sexed up with hot, melting marshmallows. The marshmallows are a metaphor for their passion? Ick. That's just too gooey, and the book is filled with bits like that. Most disappointing was the character of the "brilliant" teacher, a supposedly inspirational, free-spirited woman who is now past her prime. She's still supposed to inspire us, but she only reminded me of Robin Williams in The Birdcage, doing those imitations of Martha Graham and Madonna - very goofy, not intelligent. EDUCATING WAVERLEY takes itself way too seriously. I found myself shaking my head often and saying "Give me a break," which isn't a good sign. For much better writing about the adolescence of spoiled school girls, read ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan. And if you want the atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, read SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson. Despite good marketing, EDUCATING WAVERLEY barely makes it out of the romance-novel category. I think Laura Kalpakian can do (and has done) better, and I recommend a skip on this one.

a gem.......2003-08-29

This is a gem of a book. The story line covers three generations and various venues and characters, yet flows beautifully.

Imperfect Histories: The Elusive Past and the Legacy of Romantic Historicism

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Imperfect Histories: The Elusive Past and the Legacy of Romantic Historicism
Ann Rigney
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Cooking Of Italy - Foods Of The World

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Great travel book as well as foodie bible

The Cooking Of Italy - Foods Of The World
Waverley and The Editors Of Time-Life Books Root
Manufacturer: Time-Life Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: B000G1KUBW

Product Description

Excellent condition hardcover Time Life book. Meant to accompany Spiral Cookbook in Time Life Series.

Customer Reviews:

Great travel book as well as foodie bible.......2007-09-18

These Time-Life books are almost more travelogue than foodie books. Lavish color photos, nice recipes, & colorful descriptions of the countries & people as well as the foods. Highly recommend just for the entertainment value if nothing else. Wish they were longer & there were more of them.

The Betrothed / The Talisman (Waverley Novels)

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The Betrothed / The Talisman (Waverley Novels)

Manufacturer: Porter & Coates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000EVIEJE

Product Description

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Castle Dangerous (Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels S.)

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Castle Dangerous (Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels S.)
Sir Walter Scott , and J. H. Alexander
Manufacturer: Edinburgh University Press
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ASIN: 0748605886

Book Description

In Castle Dangerous, Walter Scott retells a story found in Barbour's Brus. Set in the early fourteenth century during the Scottish Wars of Independence, an English knight defends Douglas Castle against Scottish attempts to retake it. The ballad-like story touches on national rivalry and the idealization of love. The Douglas area, seen as an almost surrealist, gloomy landscape of ravines, trenches, and tombs, perfectly reflect Scott's bleak narrative.

Tobacco Control Policy: Strategies, Successes, and Setbacks

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Tobacco Control Policy: Strategies, Successes, and Setbacks

Manufacturer: World Bank Publications
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Book Description

This is inspiring reading for policy makers seeking to implement the provisions of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in their countries.--Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of the World Health Organization

Currently, there are over 1.2 billion tobacco users in the world, most in developing countries. Once a problem primarily in high-income countries, disease and death from tobacco use has increasingly become a burden for developing countries as well. The tobacco epidemic is one of the leading causes of preventable death and disability in the world today. However, mitigating the devastating health damage caused by tobacco use is made especially difficult by nicotine's powerfully addictive properties, low prices of tobacco products, and the constant, often subtle reinforcement of social norms and encouragement to smoke through billions of dollars of advertising each year.

This book contains the stories of six countries - Brazil, Bangladesh, Canada, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand. These countries, selected to provide global geographical representation, are in different stages of the tobacco epidemic and the strength and history of their tobacco control policies vary considerably. Each has achieved notable success in tobacco control policy-making, basing advocacy and policies on sound research and evidence.

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Set at the time of the Third Crusade (1189 - 92), The Betrothed is the first of Scott's Tales of the Crusaders. The betrothed is Eveline, daughter of a Norman noble, who is a victim of the Crusade in that her intended husband is required by the Church to fulfil his vow to join the war and departs for three years. The full horror of an arranged marriage, and of being a possible prize as men seek to gain possession of her is vividly realised -- the heroine is never free; her fate is always determined by the agency of men. And being set on the Marches of Wales, it is not just men but differing cultures that strive for mastery over her. The Betrothed is a problem novel: as Scott was writing he himself was arranging the marriage of his elder son. It is a problem novel too in that it was deeply disliked by Scott's printer and publisher who forced significant changes. What Scott was required to do to meet their objections has been confronted for the first time in this, the first critical edition of the novel.

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With Wilkin Flammock, Henry held much conference, particularly on his subject of manufactures and commerce; on which the sound- headed, though blunt-spoken Fleming, was well qualified to instruct an intelligent monarch. "Thy intentions," he said, "shall not be forgotten, good fellow, though they have been anticipated by the headlong valour of my son Richard, which has cost some poor caitiffs their lives--Richard loves not to sheathe a bloodless weapon. But thou and thy countrymen shall return to thy mills yonder, with a full pardon for past offences, so that you meddle no more with such treasonable matters."

Customer Reviews:

An enjoyable read from the late 12th century.......2001-09-03

In this entertaining volume, Scott characterizes the unrest between England and Wales in the year 1187, during the time of the Crusades. The Western Marches had not yet been subdued by English authority, and clouds of banditti continue to make inroads into English territory. Our characters are besieged in a castle that only at the moment of crisis is it put into a posture of defense to withstand the siege. A phlegmatic Fleming and his daughter form the sensible counters to the hot-blooded English family who owns the castle. Intrigues and sorcery (the product of the times), conflicts between religion, the foreign wars, infighting within the family (when a son would murder his father for his possessions) all have equal place here. A fascinating glimpse of the times, and a highly readable story make this yet another jewel in Scott's wonderful body of historical fiction.

Rob Roy (Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels)

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Rob Roy (Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels)
Sir Walter Scott , and David Hewitt
Manufacturer: Edinburgh University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Rob Roy is set in 1715-16, yet it concerns not the conduct of the Jacobite Rising, but the economic and social conditions which gave rise to it. It celebrates the freebooting capitalism of the hero's father in the City of London, and the actual freebooting of Rob Roy, 'the Robin Hood of Scotland, the dread of the wealthy, but the friend of the poor'. And through Baillie Nicol Jarvie, one of Scott's most lively creations, it explores the delicate balance of generosity and selfish calculation that is required in all successful enterprise. The text is based upon the first edition, corrected with readings from the manuscript, and is supplied for the very first time with comprehensive historical and explanatory annotation.

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I approached my native north, for such I esteemed it, with that enthusiasm which romantic and wild scenery inspires in the lovers of nature. No longer interrupted by the babble of my companion, I could now remark the difference which the country exhibited from that through which I had hitherto travelled. The streams now more properly deserved the name, for, instead of slumbering stagnant among reeds and willows, they brawled along beneath the shade of natural copsewood; were now hurried down declivities, and now purled more leisurely, but still in active motion, through little lonely valleys, which, opening on the road from time to time, seemed to invite the traveller to explore their recesses. The Cheviots rose before me in frowning majesty; not, indeed, with the sublime variety of rock and cliff which characterizes mountains of the primary class but huge, round-headed, and clothed with a dark robe of russet, gaining, by their extent and desolate appearance, an influence upon the imagination, as a desert district possessing a character of its own.

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