book about food that must be produced in certain regions of the world

June 14, 2019 9:50 AM

A recent trip to Italy and Spain sparked an interest in foods that must be produced in specific methods and regions of the world in order to be labelled as the particular item. Examples of such foods would be Champagne, Aceto Balsamico di Modena, Prosciutto di Parma, Iberico Ham and Tequila......Can anyone recommend a book that might encompass all or many of the foods that have very specific production regulations to be what they are?
posted by jennstra to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

The phrasings you might search for in various countries is on this Wikipedia page. It was the French who started it with appellation d'origine contrôlée for certain wines.
posted by zadcat at 9:53 AM on June 14, 2019 [5 favorites]

It's not a book, but this site lists all 1691 official EU ones. The availability of these products differ - in many cases getting an official designation for a product resulted in rise of offbrand products with similar names that don't follow the production process exactly...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:17 AM on June 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

Best answer: American Terroir by Rowan Jacobson

If you do a search for terroir, most of them involve wines but the above talks about other kinds of food too.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 11:17 AM on June 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you for your answers. I've ordered the book recommended by Constance Mirabella.
posted by jennstra at 10:05 PM on June 15, 2019