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Cover of America's First Cuisines

How long does it take to read America's First Cuisines?

Sophie D. Coe

America's First Cuisines by Sophie D. Coe takes about 5 hours 4 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 5 hours 4 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1994. 276 pages, about 75,900 words.

11 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 8 hours 26 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 5 hours 4 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 10 minutes

The page count is the median across 1 edition, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Drawing on original accounts by Europeans and native Americans, this pioneering work offers the first detailed description of the cuisines of the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Inca. Sophie Coe begins with the basic foodstuffs, including maize, potatoes, beans, peanuts, squash, avocados, tomatoes, chocolate, and chiles, and explores their early history and domestication. She then describes how these foods were prepared, served, and preserved, giving many insights into the cultural and ritual practices that surrounded eating in these cultures. Coe also points out the similarities and differences among the three cuisines and compares them to Spanish cooking of the period, which, as she usefully reminds us, would seem as foreign to our tastes as the American foods seemed to theirs. Written in easily digested prose, America's First Cuisines will appeal to food enthusiasts as well as scholars.

Subjects: Precolumbian, Mesoamerica, Indians of Mexico, Indians of Central America, Indians of South America, Food

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