by Bob Ashley ... [et al (2004)
"Food and Cultural Studies re-examines the interdisciplinary history of food studies, from the semiotics of Barthes and the anthropology of Levi-Strauss to Elias's historical analysis and Bourdieu's work on the relationship between food, consumption and cultural identity. The authors then go on to explore subjects as divserse as food and nation, the gendering of eating in, the phenomenon of TV chefs, food-related moral panics and the ethics of vegetarianism."--Jacket.
Sophie Egan
A look at the deeper meaning behind our food choices: from the prioritization of convenience over health to the ways food at work affects our happiness; from the American obsession with "having it our way" at Starbucks, Chipotle and other chains that individualize the eating experience to the fascinating dynamic between highbrow food culture--artisan this and small-batch that--and the lowbrow, such as Taco Bell's sale of 100 million Doritos Locos Tacos in just ten weeks.
Psyche Williams Forson, Carole Counihan
"The field of food studies has been growing rapidly over the last thirty years and has exploded since the turn of the century. Scholars from an array of disciplines have trained fresh theoretical and methodological approaches onto new dimensions of the human relationship to food. This anthology capitalizes on this particular cultural moment to bring to the fore recent scholarship from some new and established voices and that have been pushing the limits of the field into ever more fascinating and innovative directions. Taking Food Public is organized into five interrelated sections: food production, consumption, performance, diasporas, and activism. The articles in this reader aim to provide new perspectives on the changing meanings and uses of food in the twenty-first century.This book integrates understandings of race, class, gender, region, sexuality and ethnic/national identity into the human experience of food. Taking Food Public also examines how this experience is manifested in extraordinary forms of food production and consumption (in mass media performances of cooking and eating, redefinitions of foodways throughout Diasporas, identities around food, and in food activism).Most important, this bewildering array of new academic insights into food and culture as well as the wealth of new food trends and food issues around the world cries out for original ways to frame, organize, and help teach these new developments. Here are the right Editors to help write original, teachable, foundational essays and otherwise organize this disparate, exciting new material into a coherent whole"--
Sarah Elton
"Strawberries in January, fresh tomatoes year-round and New Zealand lamb at all times - these well-travelled foods have a carbon footprint the size of an SUV. But a burgeoning local food movement is taking place in Canadian cities, farms and shops and is changing both the way we eat and teh way we think about food. Locavore describes how foodies, urbanites, farmers, gardeners adn chefs across Canada are creating a new local food order that is sustainable and can feed us all. Combining front-line reporting, shrewd analysis and passionate writing to delight the gastronome, Locavore shows how the pieces of post-industrial food system are being assembled into something infinately better."
Austin Clarke
"Austin Clarke grew up in Barbados, enveloped in the heavenly smells of women cooking. From them, he learned how to prepare the beloved dishes of the island ... He shares his recipes and reminisces about the 'slave' food that was so much a part of his life. Whether it is a story about the village butcher whose qualifications were somewhat suspect, or finding a sure-fire route to a woman's love through her stomach, or searching the American South for fried chicken with none other than Norman Mailer, Austin Clarke will make you hungry for the 'hot cuisine' and spirit of the island on which he was born"--Publisher's description.