One of the most difficult adaptations the American settlers made was that of changing their eating habits. Used to mutton, beef, few if any vegetables, and the occasional salted or fresh fish, the early settlers of New England almost died of starvation in a land teeming with game, fish, and edible plants. Town bred, some of them did not even know how to bait a hook to catch their dinner. We all know the story of Squanto and the his generous sharing of the life-giving qualities of corn to the early settlers. What Mr. McWilliams adds is that the Puritans’ complete conviction that they were God’s annointed made them more than leery of incorporating anything “savage” into their lives – and that included some of the food they reluctantly ate to keep alive during those first thorny years. The quick importation of black slaves from West Africa also greatly influenced the new American cuisine, and very quickly the foodstuffs of the Americas became the linchpin of the slave trade. Dried cod from New England fed the slaves in the Caribbean, whose back-breaking labor produced sugar cane and its by-product of molasses, which was then shipped back to New England and made into rum for domestic use and international trade, and then rum was shipped in New England “bottoms” to West Africa, where it quickly became the most desirable item for African chiefs who traded war captives to the whites in exchange for this liquid gold. Aside from this nefarious chapter in American and world history, McWilliams traces the influence of many early immigrant groups to American food culture. A fascinating, clearly written, and riveting book. ( )