Chinese Justice, the Fiction Law and Literature in Modern China Book

I really wanted to like this book because I have enjoyed other histories of the cultural development of food, but this book was very disappointing. The author was very inconsistent in his approach. Some chapters were full of specific details while in other passages he presented broad generalizations with no evidence. He also included a few misconceptions about immigration in the nineteenth century.

On the positive side, the book includes many historic recipes, from the colonial period through the mid-twentieth century, and he cites a broad range of cookbooks and pamphlets. This book could be helpful if you are interested in cooking but most of these recipes can be found in better collections (or even online). Overall, I would not recommend it.