Fascinating writing and over 1,000 illustrations offer useful information on subjects from airline food to barbecue tips and maple syrup to table manners. Includes interesting lists of trivia and facts, consumer groups, information sources, mail order sources, and book recommendations. The author of many cookbooks, Irena Chalmers offers more than 260 entries in The Great Food Almanac on such far-ranging topics as airline food, cheeses, farm subsidies, minerals, Queen Victoria's wedding cake, restaurants and tofu. She accents them with recipes and quotes, and rounds the whole presentation out with mail-order sources, lists of associations and bibliographies. Food concerns are met head on, including the use of hormones in cattle ranching, as well as the use of "synthetic pigment" supplements to color the white flesh of pen-raised salmon. An entertaining and informative book for lovers of both trivia and food. The book won the 1995 Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Food Reference Category. . . .offers a banquet of delights just right for a reader's grazing. . . -- Publishers Weekly From A to Z, this inspired giftbook and browser's paradise provides fascinating articles, essays, facts, and tips with over 1,000 illustrations on everything from food additives to barbecues to nutrition.