In his article on the meaning of oysters, Paul Schmidt wrote, ''When we think about food we are often thinking and writing about something else. Food always means something beyond the fact of what we put into our mouths. Food...is a loving and living and dying.'' This unique bibliographic survey, including over 1,500 items (1,110 annotated), opens up avenues for further research on food and drink. International in scope, there are many French, Scandinavian, and German articles and books included. Though the bulk of the entries are of the modern era, there are entries from as far back as the early Romans.