How people eat reveals to an astonishing degree all of the other qualities of their society. A look at an American fast-food restaurant is as diagnostic of culture as a New Guinea headhunter's shopping list of edible relatives. Beginning with an explanation of what happens to a steak dinner--and to you--when you eat it, Farb constructs a fascinating demonstration of the connections between eating habits and human behavior, explaining, for example, why Bantu society would unravel without beer, why Chinese don't drink milkshakes, and why Moslems and Jews abhor pork.