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Here’s a set of summary bullet quotes from Cuisine & Empire: Cooking in World History by Rachel Laudan—each one capturing a key idea or argument from the book:

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🍽️ Key Summary Bullet Quotes

• "Cuisine is not natural. It is a cultural and political choice."
  – Laudan challenges romantic notions of “authentic” or “traditional” food by showing how all cuisines are constructed and evolve through power structures.

• "Every major cuisine has been shaped by empire."
  – From Roman to Islamic, Chinese to British empires, dominant powers shaped and spread their food philosophies, ingredients, and techniques.

• "What we eat is not just nutrition—it’s ideology on a plate."
  – Cuisines reflect religious, ethical, and political worldviews (e.g., Buddhist vegetarianism, Catholic fasting, Protestant simplicity).

• "Modern industrial food is not a fall from grace—it’s a triumph of nutrition and accessibility."
  – Laudan defends modern food systems for improving public health and feeding large populations, contrasting with nostalgic critiques.

• "Grain cookery is the foundation of civilization."
  – The transformation of grains into bread, porridge, noodles, and beer enabled cities, armies, and bureaucracies.

• "High cuisines were never for everyone—but they set the standard."
  – Elite cooking traditions influenced aspiration and social hierarchy, from Persian courtly dishes to French haute cuisine.

• "Revolutions in cuisine come not from taste, but from power shifts."
  – Changes in governance, religion, and trade routes—not flavor alone—drove food revolutions.

• "The rise of 'middling cuisines' created modern national foods."
  – Middle-class values emphasized digestibility, uniformity, and nutrition—leading to staples like white bread, beef, and tea.

• "Global cuisines are built on global exchanges."
  – Spices, sugar, coffee, and potatoes transformed world cuisines due to imperial conquest and commerce.

• "Cooking is a form of knowledge, like architecture or medicine."
  – It has its own logic, traditions, innovations, and philosophies across time and place.

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. . . in so far as we have only one simple thought about a given object at any one time, there must necessarily be some place where the two images coming through the two eyes, or the two impressions coming from a single object through the double organs of any other sense, can come together in a single image or impression before reaching the soul, so that they do not present to it two objects instead of one. We can easily understand that these images or other impressions are unified in this gland by means of the spirits which fill the cavities of the brain. Rene´ Descartes, The Passions of the Soul

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