Food Fight! A Mouthwatering History of WHO Ate WHAT and WHY Through the Ages (with 30 Recipes!) by Tanya Steel, 160 pp, RL 4

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Food Fight! A Mouthwatering History of WHO Ate WHAT and WHY Through the Ages 
(with 30 Recipes) by Tanya Steel
Review Copy from National Geographic Kids
Why Read? Why Buy? : Food IS life. We all have to eat, and many of us would do well to be more thoughtful about what we eat. Steel's book is the perfect place to start kids thinking and exploring and NatGeoKids provides the perfect format (chunks of information, lots of graphics, photos and illustrations and the occasional gag) for getting kids reading. Over the course of 15 chapters, Steel moves from the prehistoric era all the way to the future and an imagining of life - and food - on Mars! Each chapter has a page of "Bite-Size History," followed by a"Day in the Life," then "Spicing Things Up!" calling attention to the all-important (taste-wise, historically and financially) ways humans learned to make their food taste better. Where and how people ate during each era as well as foods for special occasions are followed by a recipe from the era and a "popcorny" quiz on the chapter that's actually fun to take. While I love every single chapter, I especially liked the one on WWII and the creative ways around rationing, as well as the recipe for Rosie the Riveter's Chocolate Bread Pudding! But, the most fascinating, if not especially appetizing chapter, for me was the Sixties when we saw the mass arrival of processed foods. Steele ends the book with a food timeline, a recipe index, a bibliography and suggestions for further reading.




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