Notes

When it comers to food, we humans live in a paradox these days. Hunger and starvation pose complications, and always have been there throughout the sweep of human history.Avoiding death requires food.So, in theory, the history of humankind really isn’t just about kings and queens, battles and sieges: it’s about food. Most human activity boils down to this: procuring, storing, and eating enough food.History is replete with famines that interrupted periods of apparent stability and thrust millions into starvation—and most of these disasters had no Stalin-style madman at the helm. And on the flip side lies true hunger and its cousin, starvation, usually in Africa and other places where money, transportation, and just plain decent soil (not to mention rain) persistent in short supply.While the ships stayed, our allowance was somewhat bettered by a daily proportion of biscuits, which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give, or exchange with us for money, sassafras, furs, or love. The history of humanity is a history of hunger. Pretty much every society in recorded time has been wracked by famines, and a few have been destroyed by them.