The Secret History of FoodAn irreverent, surprising, and entirely entertaining look at the little known history surrounding the foods we know and love. Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? Far from being a classic American dish, is apple pie actually . . . English? As a species, were hardwired to obsess over food, Matt Siegel explains as he sets out to uncover

his sanity

William Faulkner • James Joyce • Alice Munro • Milan Kundera • Grace Paley • Lorrie Moore • Eudora Welty • Denis Johnson • Vladimir Nabokov • Miranda July • Raymond Carver • George Saunders • Annie Proulx • And many

exposing secrets that shock even this free-spirited redhead

second only to war-torn Somalia: the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa

This is the only way the story could be told

And that separation is only an illusion

but with her brothers away fighting

” only to discover that life—and she

and one brother’s unrelenting determination to take justice into his own hands

” solving the more typical tawdry daytime talk show mysteries like “Who is the father

whose secret faith could prove fatal to them both

which saved Western Europe from Soviet domination