Florida Books

"Tell me what you eat," said that philosopher of the kitchen Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you what you are." What would he make of a nation which has the doughnut as one of the foods the world knows it by? What does it mean that doughnuts are defined as a particularly American food? Perhaps an anthropologist could tell us, and in the surprising and enlightening _Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut_ (University Press of Florida), anthropologist Paul R. Mullins has done so. Indeed, he has found those who say that a Krispy Kreme shop makes them proud to be Americans, and those who regard a shop as a shrine with pilgrims and converts. "It may seem absurd," Mullins writes, "that an apparently innocuous doughnut could be wrapped in the flag and lent an air of religiosity, but few dimensions of our world say as much about us as food." We do, however, have mixed feelings about our doughnuts. We may like them, but even those of us who like them know they are not really good for us, and there are those who hate them because they represent decadence or foolish food choices. Doughnuts, then, have a disputed symbolism, and their marketing and consumption can be mined, surprisingly, for various insights into American life.

The book reproduces a 1627 still life painting by Juan van der Hamen y Leon which shows pastries of the torus shape anyone would now recognize. This particular shape had one of its first mentions in print in 1877. That the toroidal shape certainly pre-dates cookbooks or oil paintings did not prevent an American from claiming invention of the doughnut hole. Captain Hanson Gregory, a cook at sea, found that the soggy and greasy doughnuts he was making resisted becoming more digestible by changing their ingredients, but once he lessened the lumps of dough by cutting a hole out, changing the shape made all the difference. He was nominated to the National Doughnut Hall of Fame for his contribution; the nomination read in part that he "not only discovered the hole in the first place, but invented the proper process for enclosing the hole in the doughnut." The Doughnut Corporation of America thus in the 1940s attempted to certify the appeal of assigning the origin of the hole in the doughnut to a New England seafarer. This is the same company that produced what Mullins says is "an ideologically distorted 1944 account" which claimed that the Pilgrims themselves brought their treasured doughnut recipe with them to the New World on the _Mayflower_.

In 2005, Florida governor Jeb Bush tried to strike a blow for Republicans within blue collar workers, when he wanted to know how many tax cuts Democrats had proposed for "Joe Bag of Donuts." In this, he was able to avoid reference to the drinking habits of Joe Six Pack, but Mullins shows that the consumption of doughnuts transcends economic class. However, the great spokesman for the doughnut is that industrial worker Homer Simpson, who gets four pages of coverage here in acknowledgment of his addiction. Mullins writes, "In _The Simpsons'_ hands, doughnuts are an especially powerful mechanism to examine the limits of desire, since doughnuts seem to have no significant redeeming feature besides the pleasure their ingestion produces." This "bad" characteristic has been the focus of the moralizing about doughnuts as early as 1846, and the importation of American doughnut franchises to other countries has been called "`calorie colonialism' planned by corporate America". The moral connection links cops to doughnuts, too; perhaps doughnut shops encourage being frequented by cops to keep robberies down, and perhaps, as one policeman argued, doughnut shops are easy places for cops to meet to discuss and solve crimes. Perhaps also they get free doughnuts (although any police force has rules against this), but there is no perhaps that doughnut shops remind citizens of the policeman's reputation for sloth and corruption. On a lighter note, wedding cakes are made from Krispy Kremes; one such record-breaker weighed over a ton, but many brides opt for a smaller version. In Portland, Oregon, Voodoo Doughnuts has doughnuts for weddings, and since the proprietors are ordained ministers, they offer weddings in the store. Mullins, as you can tell from this little summary, has pulled many facets of a humble luxury food together in a serious but entertaining study that answers in diverse ways the question, "What does the doughnut mean?"

Introduction by James R. Cope
Lot's Family by GEne Tope
David's Family by Aude McKee
Eli's Family by Cliff Buchanan
Disregard for Marriage by Harold Comer
The Problem of the Aged by Dee Bowman
Husband/Father by Harold Trimble
Dangers to the Wife/Mother Role in the Home as Reflected in the Women's Liberation Movement by Horrace Huggins
Children by Conway Skinner
Worship in the Family by Tom Bunting
Moral Teaching in the Family by Delton Porter
Family Together Activities by David Tant
The Disease: Humanistic Thinking by Dave Bradford
Contagion: Social Pressures on the Family by James Adam
Carriers: Mass Media and Secular Education by James P. Needham
Prevention and Cure: The Great Physician by James R. Cope

Anyone who's ever visited the Gulf side of Florida, away from the sights of Orlando has seen the wonderful "hammocks" or wooded swampy areas that cover the more rural side of the state. The twisted trees, saw palmetto, draped in Spanish moss are evocative of a time when Florida was a wild land populated by farmers, ranchers and fishermen.

Rawlings writes the story of two orphans Luke and Allie, living in the hammock and how they survive the difficulties of scratching out a living on the land. The story then takes a turn to add drama by mixing the country orphans with wealthy landowners and their own difficulties.

This is one of Rawling's more rare novels, and her ability to evoke the natural world is as sharp as it is in "The Yearling." The story is a good novel, but I especially love it because when I drive through the citrus growing areas of Florida, the scenery comes alive through Rawling's description.

When Jacob Neusner compared the achievment of Jose Faur's Golden Doves with Silver Dots to Judah ha-Nasi's Mishnah (compiler of Jewish Formulas) and R. Moshe ben Maimon's Mishneh Torah (codifier of Jewish Law)he was certainly not making a hiperbole.

Though I am not an expert in rabbinics myself, I must say that R. Faur's explanation on 2nd c. rabbinic exegesis is yet the best I have seen anywhere in 20th century Jewish literature, perhaps the only one in existence ever.

It is a brief, yet an immensely dense book, that anyone who applies its features will gain important understanding of Jewish tradition.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand Judaism in its most pristine form. For the students of Jewish Law, it will bring brilliance to the texts they have already studied in ways they never thought before, in the very ways of the Sages who formulated the oral Law. It is a most wonderful sifting net in this world of clouded realities.

Jew or non-Jew, you got to buy it!. DR

I love this series. Good night Florida is as good as all the other ones. It's a great way to teach your children about different places around the world. It also makes fantastic gifts for people with kids.

Es el cuento de una niña hace diez años que halla un perro en la tienda Winn-Dixie. Lo llama a Winn-Dixie. No es un cuento de el perro pero un cuento de ella aunque el perro juega un grande parte.

Pienso que todas niñas se gustaría mucha esta libro. No soy una niña y me gusta mucho este libro. Soy un hombre viejo. Este libro es muy facil a leer. Mi español no es muy bueno pero no tengo una problema. Aun mi esposa lo se gusta. Tuve que leerlola. Es tambien una pelicula en ingles. No sé si hay una versión con subtitulos en esañol.

Si tiene un niña que se gusta a leer, este es el libro por ella.

There wasn't a grasshopper in Florida that I couldn't identify with this field guide in hand! The book includes stunning pictures and detailed information (on preferred habitat, life history, whether the species is common or rare, etc.). I do not have a background in entomology, and I was able to easily follow this guide. I recommend this book to anyone even casually interested in grasshoppers.

I hope all Iranians and anybody interseted in roots of current problems in the middle east,and British's destructive role in the region will have a chance to read this book.

Speaking as a student of R.J. Schork's at the University of Massachusetts (2 decades ago), I can affirm that this writer has a long history of making the dust of antiquity come alive in a fascinating way. What he says tends to stay with you for years and years. Definitely get this book!

As an avid collector of Florida postcards, I was delighted to add this book to my collection. It was a great way to find out about postcards I still needed to locate -- always one of collector's biggest challenges! The ilustrations are good considering that most are of linens. More color would have been nice, but it would probably have increased the price a great deal. I recommend this book to Florida postcard collectors and anyone interested in Florida in earlier times.