Bite by Bite: American History through feasts, foods, and side dishes by Marc Aronson and Paul Freedman

 This is a fascinating combination of history and food, not at all what I was expecting when I requested it, but a good surprise when I started reading it!

The introduction gives us the first hint that this isn't your typical "who invented doughnuts and pizza" book. It explains how readers will be learning not just about food, but about our history, going back even before the first colonists arrived.

The first section covers two of the earliest foods in the Americas and their cultural significance - salmon and corn. Interviews with academics, First Nations peoples, and an amazing amount of information about science, traditions and cultures is included. Each chapter ends with a "side dish" note with extra stories, in this case regarding huckleberries and nachos. The next section is the largest covering a long period of enslavement and immigration. The authors explore the foods of New Orleans, the history of fish fries, the changing attitudes towards English food from the early colonists to American independence, and includes sections of fads and fashions in nutrition, the social and cultural significance of Italian food, and more. The last section discusses the origin of franchises and fast food restaurants, a quick look at the history of Chinese American food, and on to more contemporary movements towards vegetarianism, farmer's markets, and equitable access to healthy food.

There is a lengthy afterword, explaining how the authors and their contributors worked together to create the different chapters, encompassing as they do such a wide range of history and culture. There is one typo on page 49 (the last sentence in the first paragraph should have the word "seem" instead of "seems"). There are also black and white illustrations included throughout the book, showing images of food preparation, festivals, and meals. It's an amazing amount of information crammed into just 125 pages, not counting the citations and index, and there are naturally some sections that feel a little hurried. The chapter on Chinese-American foods especially felt somewhat lacking to me, but I also just finished reading Grace Lin's Chinese Menu and Sarah Soonling Blackburn's Exclusion and the Chinese American Story, so I had a lot more contextual information in my head.

Verdict: This book goes far beyond the traditional "how to make hasty pudding" children's history books. It's a great reference for teachers and homeschooling parents in building study units around different periods in history and different types of food, but it's also a quick and engaging read for tweens interested in history and food.

ISBN: 9781665935500; Published May 2024 by Atheneum; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library