 Cover of the first edition | |
| Editor | Alan Davidson |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Food |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | 1999, 2006, 2014 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | 0-19-211579-0 |
The Oxford Companion to Food is anencyclopedia aboutfood. It was edited byAlan Davidson and published byOxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued insoftcover under the nameThe Penguin Companion to Food. The second and third editions were edited by Tom Jaine and published by Oxford in 2006 and 2014.
The book, Davidson'smagnum opus with "more than a million words, mostly his own",[1] covers the nature and history of foodstuffs worldwide, starting fromaardvark and ending withzuppa inglese. It is compiled with especially strong coverage ofEuropean and in particularBritish cookery and contains norecipes. It was an "outgrowth"[2] of the annualOxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.
The entry for this work inWorldCat includes the following abstract:
The 2,650 alphabetical entries in this compendium represent 20 years of Davidson's work. They include information on specific foods, cooking terms, culinary tools, countries, traditions, and biographies of chefs and cookbook authors. The entries for countries cover foods, habits, and holidays with special foods. The entries about traditions cover religious laws that deal with food and/or fasting, such asRamadan andkosher laws. There are 39 longer articles about staple foods such as rice and apples. A comprehensive bibliography provides access to further information. The book does not contain recipes, but it is an excellent companion for sources such as theLarousse Gastronomique.[3]
Major articles are signed and include bibliographic references, and there is a comprehensive overall bibliography. Some of the material in it was previously published in Davidson'sPetits Propos Culinaires.
The New York Times called the book "a masterly work with a variety of voices, from the straightforward, almost dry, to the quirky and the witty" and a work "dense with extremely thorough and well-written entries, enhanced by cross-references and indexes and larded with anecdotes and strong opinions."[2]
TheAmerican Library Association recognizedThe Oxford Companion to Food with an Honorable Mention in theDartmouth Medal competition for 2000, as well as inclusion as one of itsOutstanding reference sources 2000 by the Reference Sources Committee of the Reference and User Services Association (RULA).[3] In May 2000, it received aJames Beard Foundation Award as best reference work.[4]