Never before has food been so hot. From foodies to dieters to vegans to home chefs, Americans in the year 2006 are fascinated with cooking and eating-and more than ever, reading about it. The last few years have seen an extraordinary upsurge of publishing in culinary studies and food history, with popular and academic works addressing subjects ranging from the history of wine to cookbooks, coffee, and salt. Two new scholarly books add to this body of literature, shedding important light not only on what Americans ate in different eras, but also how and why they ate what they did. In A Revolution in Eating, historian James McWilliams takes us on a sweeping, visceral and intellectually illuminating tour of seventeenthand eighteenth-century American food traditions, from the savory to gut-wrenching. In Putting Meat on the American Table, Roger Horowitz examines in five thematic chapters-on beef, pork, hot dogs, chicken, and modern-day "convenient meats"-the production and consumption of one of our most beloved and controversial staples. Both authors illustrate deftly the intense negotiations-between different ethnic traditions, producers and consumers, nature and culture-behind our national and regional food ways. In so doing, they produce works of value not only to food historians but also to scholars of commerce, the environment, and culture. As Horowitz illustrates, putting meat on the American table has never been easy. In modern times, Americans have come to crave foods that are speedy, accessible, plentiful, and tasty. By nature, meat is bulky, smelly, and slow to process; it comes in irregular sizes and varying tastes and qualities, and it begins deteriorating as soon as the animal is killed. Not surprisingly, producers have faced serious challenges-to package and preserve meat, render