William Rubel - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by William Rubel

Bread: A Global History

What food is more basic, more essential and more universal than bread? Common to the diets of bot... more What food is more basic, more essential and more universal than bread? Common to the diets of both rich and poor, bread is one of our oldest foods. Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and excavated from ovens in Pompeii that were buried when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. From the sixteenth-century English peasants' bread made with pea flour and rye, to the grain-wasting, pure white bread of the French court, from the crusty sourdough loaf made by artisan bakers to the doughy 'sliced white' found in every supermarket, there is a bread for every time and place in history. William Rubel takes us on a journey to discover breads around the world, from Mexican pan dulce to French baguettes and German pumpernickel, and shows how the kind of bread you eat reveals who you are. He also describes the techniques of bread-making, from ancient recipes leavened with brewers' yeast to the factory-made sandwich loaf. Containing a glossary of over one hundred diff...

Pasture and Pastoralism: the inextricable links between food, culture and landscape in Samburu District, Northern Kenya

Food and Landscape: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery 2018, 2019

Artisan Bread

Food and Architecture, 2016

Dutch Ovens Chronicled: Their Use in the United States: Dutch Ovens Chronicled: Their Use in the United States

Gastronomica, 2006

Economic Botany, 2009

Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as pro... more Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as provide information on the edible or toxic qualities of each species of wild mushroom. As such they function as modern-day village elders for an increasingly urban, nature-ignorant population. This paper identifies underlying cultural bias in the determination of mushroom edibility in English-language field guides, using the iconic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as an example. We explore a selection of ethnographic and medical texts that report the use of A. muscaria as a food, and we accept parboiling as a safe method of detoxifying it for the dinner table. Mushroom field guides, however, almost universally label the mushroom as poisonous. We discuss the cultural underpinnings and literary form of mushroom field guides and demonstrate that they work within a mostly closed intellectual system that ironically shares many of the same limitations of cultural bias found in traditional folk cultures, but with the pretense of being modern and scientific.

Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as pro... more Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as provide information on the edible or toxic qualities of each species of wild mushroom. As such they function as modern-day village elders for an increasingly urban, nature-ignorant population. This paper identifies underlying cultural bias in the determination of mushroom edibility in English-language field guides, using the iconic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as an example. We explore a selection of ethnographic and medical texts that report the use of A. muscaria as a food, and we accept parboiling as a safe method of detoxifying it for the dinner table. Mushroom field guides, however, almost universally label the mushroom as poisonous. We discuss the cultural underpinnings and literary form of mushroom field guides and demonstrate that they work within a mostly closed intellectual system that ironically shares many of the same limitations of cultural bias found in traditional folk cultures, but with the pretense of being modern and scientific.

Bread: A Global History

What food is more basic, more essential and more universal than bread? Common to the diets of bot... more What food is more basic, more essential and more universal than bread? Common to the diets of both rich and poor, bread is one of our oldest foods. Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and excavated from ovens in Pompeii that were buried when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. From the sixteenth-century English peasants' bread made with pea flour and rye, to the grain-wasting, pure white bread of the French court, from the crusty sourdough loaf made by artisan bakers to the doughy 'sliced white' found in every supermarket, there is a bread for every time and place in history. William Rubel takes us on a journey to discover breads around the world, from Mexican pan dulce to French baguettes and German pumpernickel, and shows how the kind of bread you eat reveals who you are. He also describes the techniques of bread-making, from ancient recipes leavened with brewers' yeast to the factory-made sandwich loaf. Containing a glossary of over one hundred diff...

Pasture and Pastoralism: the inextricable links between food, culture and landscape in Samburu District, Northern Kenya

Food and Landscape: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery 2018, 2019

Artisan Bread

Food and Architecture, 2016

Dutch Ovens Chronicled: Their Use in the United States: Dutch Ovens Chronicled: Their Use in the United States

Gastronomica, 2006

Economic Botany, 2009

Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as pro... more Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as provide information on the edible or toxic qualities of each species of wild mushroom. As such they function as modern-day village elders for an increasingly urban, nature-ignorant population. This paper identifies underlying cultural bias in the determination of mushroom edibility in English-language field guides, using the iconic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as an example. We explore a selection of ethnographic and medical texts that report the use of A. muscaria as a food, and we accept parboiling as a safe method of detoxifying it for the dinner table. Mushroom field guides, however, almost universally label the mushroom as poisonous. We discuss the cultural underpinnings and literary form of mushroom field guides and demonstrate that they work within a mostly closed intellectual system that ironically shares many of the same limitations of cultural bias found in traditional folk cultures, but with the pretense of being modern and scientific.

Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as pro... more Amanita muscaria, as an Example. Mushroom field guides teach identification skills as well as provide information on the edible or toxic qualities of each species of wild mushroom. As such they function as modern-day village elders for an increasingly urban, nature-ignorant population. This paper identifies underlying cultural bias in the determination of mushroom edibility in English-language field guides, using the iconic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as an example. We explore a selection of ethnographic and medical texts that report the use of A. muscaria as a food, and we accept parboiling as a safe method of detoxifying it for the dinner table. Mushroom field guides, however, almost universally label the mushroom as poisonous. We discuss the cultural underpinnings and literary form of mushroom field guides and demonstrate that they work within a mostly closed intellectual system that ironically shares many of the same limitations of cultural bias found in traditional folk cultures, but with the pretense of being modern and scientific.