Foods and Drugs in History

What we consume connects us to the worlds of both nature and culture. Bodily and socially, “you are what you eat,” but if your well-being suffers, you often seek out other ingestible substances. In many times and places, changing what you eat is thought to be healing, while in other times and places drugs – either remedial or recreational – are thought to be distinct and more immediately restorative. Few human interactions with the larger world are more important or interesting than how comestibles and medicines have been discovered, mixed, transformed, distributed, and how those processes have changed us.