An excelent book on "culinary anthroplogy" is Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture by Marvin Harris. I got my B.A. in anthropology and loved this book. Harris explains how human behavior (i.e. eating habbits) can be explained in materialistic terms. For example, most people do not eat inscets. This is because the energy expended to collect them is not worth the pay off in calories consumed. It is much more effecient, and more rewarding to eat larger animals. But, in cultures where there is little available meat or a protein shortage, the consumption of insects may be common.
