An Empire of Food We are what we eat, so says the adage; so it is too with the insatiable economic organism of empire. In a culinary journey across the centuries, historian and food scholar Lizzie Collingsworth reveals the hidden history of how the British Empire shaped our modern diet, to show how an expanding colonial empire harnessed the world's edible resources and, through trade, transformed what we consume and how we think about food. It is an epic of appetites served by imperial ambition, enlivened for readers by examples of recipes drawn from popular dishes served over the past 450 years. Collingsworth sets the scene for each chapter with a meal comprising diverse characters, foods, and cooking methods, highlighting the transformative social economics of food. She transports the reader from Newfoundland to Ireland, to the West Indies and West Africa, to New Zealand and British Columbia, and onward, from cod fish and salt beef to spices, tea and sugar. The glamorous daughter of an African chief shares a pineapple with a slave trader; rum-drinking Americans raise a toast to liberty in a Boston tavern; diamond prospectors in Guyana prepare an iguana curry; the royal chef makes the King's Christmas pudding with ingredients from a dozen nations. Taken together, her scholarly mosaic of menus guides us through a larger story about global conflict and culture, economics and politics. It's food for thought and nourishing discussions.

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