THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND GASTRONOMY

Throughout the history of human development, food has always had special signifiance. Those societies and people who did not eat well tended not to prosper and disappeared early in their development. Good food is a critical factor in physical well­ being, a major source of pleasure but also worry and stress, a major concern for governments and the single greatest category of expendit ures. Hunger, from time immemorial, has always been the source of man kind’s energies for the doing of good and bad, the reason for its advance, the origin of its conflicts and the fuel of its labours. The practice of hunting and gathering, the discovery of farming cereals, the science of stock breed ing, the consump tion of salt, sugar, spices and pota­toes from far­ off places, have all in turn shaken the known world to its foundations. Civilizations have been built on food, empires have done battle for it, crimes have been commit ted, laws have been made and knowledge has been exchanged. Now, because osevere heat waves, deplenishing water tables, crops such as maize and sugar beet being diver ted from human consumption to produce fuel plus a growing and in places more carnivorous population, food is once again at the top of the political agenda and source of conflict.