First Published in 2002

Foodways can reveal the strongest and deepest traces of human history and culture, and this pioneering volume is a detailed study of the development of the traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia from Laos and Vietnam to the Philippines and New Guinea from earliest times to the present.

Being blessed with abundant natural resources, dietary culture in Southeast Asia flourished during the pre-European period on the basis of close relationships between the cultural spheres of India and China, only to undergo significant change during the rise of Islam and the age of European colonialism.

What we think of as the Southeast Asian cuisine today is the result of the complex interplay of many factors over centuries.

The work is supported by full geological, archaeological, biological and chemical data, and is based largely upon Southeast Asian sources which have not been available up until now. This is essential reading for anyone interested in culinary history, the anthropology of food, and in the complex history of Southeast Asia.