Anthropologists have been writing papers about single substances—food sources,
plants, animals, and foods made from them—for a long time. Probably the first
substantial work in English devoted to a single such theme was R. N. Salaman's
History and Social Influence ofthe Potato (1949). His book dealt with the potato's origins, domestication, worldwide diffusion, and political fate in European life.
Since that time many other such books have appeared—on drugs hard and soft,
sugar, rhubarb, salt, codfish, capsicums, etc. Many are histories, general or botanical,
others economic; it is striking that so few are by anthropologists.