How representations of the preparation, sale, and consumption of leftovers in nineteenth-century urban France link socioeconomic and aesthetic history The concept of the "harlequin" refers to the practice of reassembling dinner scraps cleared from the plates of the wealthy to sell, replated, to the poor in nineteenth-century Paris. In The Harlequin Eaters, Janet Beizer investigates how the alimentary harlequin evolved in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the earlier, similarly patchworked Commedia dell'arte Harlequin character and can be used to rethink the entangled place of class, race, and food in the longer history of modernism. By superimposing figurations of the edible harlequin taken from a broad array of popular and canonical novels, newspaper articles, postcard photographs, and lithographs, Beizer shows that what is at stake in nineteenth-century discourses surrounding this mixed meal are representations not only of food but also of the marginalized people--the "harlequin eaters"--who consume it at this time when a global society is emerging. She reveals the imbrication of kitchen narratives and intellectual-aesthetic practices of thought and art, presenting a way to integrate socioeconomic history with the history of literature and the visual arts. The Harlequin Eaters also offers fascinating background to today's problems of food inequity as it unpacks stories of the for-profit recycling of excess food across class and race divisions.

How representations of the preparation, sale, and consumption of leftovers in nineteenth-century urban France link socioeconomic and aesthetic history The concept of the “harlequin” refers to the practice of reassembling dinner scraps cleared from the plates of the wealthy to sell, replated, to the poor in nineteenth-century Paris. In The Harlequin Eaters, Janet Beizer investigates how the alimentary harlequin evolved in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the earlier, similarly patchworked Commedia dell’arte Harlequin character and can be used to rethink the entangled place of class, race, and food in the longer history of modernism. By superimposing figurations of the edible harlequin taken from a broad array of popular and canonical novels, newspaper articles, postcard photographs, and lithographs, Beizer shows that what is at stake in nineteenth-century discourses surrounding this mixed meal are representations not only of food but also of the marginalized people—the “harlequin eaters”—who consume it at this time when a global society is emerging. She reveals the imbrication of kitchen narratives and intellectual–aesthetic practices of thought and art, presenting a way to integrate socioeconomic history with the history of literature and the visual arts. The Harlequin Eaters also offers fascinating background to today’s problems of food inequity as it unpacks stories of the for-profit recycling of excess food across class and race divisions.

Includes papers presented at the 2014 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery

Author Ray Hunziker, longtime editor of Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine and lifelong fish keeper, is the ideal tutor for aquarists looking to take a dive into the saltwater end of the tank! Marine Aquariums begins with a discussion of seawater and water quality, the most critical part of keeping marine fishes happily swimming (and breathing) in their tank. Hunziker continues with a step-by-step explanation of setting up a marine aquarium, discussing aquarium types, the number of fishes for the size tank selected, siting the tank, stands, substrates, temperature, lighting, filtration and dcor.The chapter on stocking and maintaining the tank discussing purchasing healthy, vibrant fish, acclimatizing them to the tank, feeding them, and monitoring the tank on a regular basis. An elaborate chapter on the various types of saltwater fishes available, "Ideal Fish for Your Marine Aquarium, "details and illustrates nearly 70 fishes divided into the following categories: moray eels, squirrelfish and soldierfish, lion fish, groupers, cardinalfish, butterflyfish, angelfish, damselfish, hawkfish, wrasses, jawfish, gobies, surgeonfish, and triggerfish. The final chapter discusses keeping fish healthy, including the signs of illness, treating various ailments, and setting up a quarantine tank for affected fish. Resources, glossary, index included.

125 million years ago on the floodplains of North America, a burrowing lizard started down the long evolutionary path of shedding its limbs. The 60-plus species of snakes found in Sean P. Graham's American Snakes have this ancestral journey to thank for their ubiquity, diversity, and beauty. Although many people fear them, snakes are as much a part of America's rich natural heritage as redwoods, bald eagles, and grizzly bears. Neither a typical field guide nor an exhaustive reference, American Snakes is instead a fascinating study of the suborder Serpentes. Brimming with intriguing and unusual stories- of hognose snakes that roll over and play dead, blindsnakes with tiny vestigial lungs, rainbow-hued dipsadines, and wave-surfing sea-snakes- the text is interspersed with scores of gorgeous full-color images of snakes, from the scary to the sublime.

By the writer Milan Kundera called Czechoslovakia's greatest contemporary writer comes a novel (now in English for the first time) peopled with eccentric, unforgettable inhabitants of a home for the elderly who reminisce about their lives and their changing country. Written with a keen eye for the absurd and sprinkled with dialogue that captures the poignancy of the everyday, this novel allows us into the mind of an elderly woman coming to terms with the passing of time. Praise for Too Loud a Solitude: "Short, sharp and eccentric. Sophisticated, thought-provoking and pithy." --Spectator "Unmissable, combines extremes of comedy and seriousness, plus pathos, slapstick, sex and violence all stirred into one delicious brew." --The Guardian "In imaginative riches and sheer exhilaration it offers more than most books twice its size. At once tender and scatological, playful and sombre, moving and irresistibly funny." --The Independent on Sunday Praise for I Served the King of England: "A joyful, picaresque story, which begins with Baron Munchausen-like adventures and ends in tears and solitude." -- James Wood, The London Review of Books "A comic novel of great inventiveness ... charming, wise, and sad--and an unexpectedly good laugh." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "An extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel." --The New York Times "Dancing Lessons unfurls as a single, sometimes maddening sentence. The gambit works. Something about that slab of wordage carries the eye forward, promising an intensity simply unattainable by your regularly punctuated novel." --Ed Park, The New York Times Book Review

The ultimate book on every aspect of Italian food—inspiring, comprehensive, colorful, extensive, joyful, and downright encyclopedic.