Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Far from being a classic American dish, is apple pie actually English? And why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? "As a species, we're hardwired to obsess over food," Matt Siegel explains, and here he considers such topics as the role of food in fairy tales, how the rare spice vanilla became a synonym for boring sex, and how ice cream helped defeat the Nazis.