Most prefaces are postscripts, and this is no different. On reading what I have written, I need to call attention to the three points which should be made at the beginning rather than the end. First, I have used the terms ‘hierarchic’ and ‘hieratic’ to refer to those states with developed, stratified sub-cultures and those without (the crude difference, I argue, between most Eurasian and African states). Secondly, I have employed the word ‘cuisine’ in three distinct ways: in the general sense of the products of the kitchen, more specifically (as in the title to the book) for a culturally differentiated cuisine – the high and the low – and finally in the specialised sense of those highly elaborated forms of cooking found in only a few societies such as China, the Middle East and post-Renaissance France. The third point is more general and arises out of a visit to Australia and South-East Asia. For the same contrast that I note between the cooking and cookbooks on Africa and Asia is found between those of New Guinea and Indonesia, for example, in Anne Mac Gregor's Papua New Guinea Cookbook (Milton, Queensland, 1972) and Rosemary Brissenden's South East Asian Food (London, 1969). The inhabitants of New Guinea, like the original inhabitants of Australia, are adopting the foods characteristic of the earlier industrial cuisine of Europe – corned beef, tinned pilchards in tomato sauce (or Japanese mackerel), heavily sweetened tea, and bread.