Description
Book SynopsisFrom ingredients and recipes to meals and menus across time and space, this highly engaging overview illustrates the important roles that anthropology and anthropologists play in understanding food and its key place in the study of culture.
Trade Review“It is written in a clear and comprehensible manner for those interested in food studies, not only from an anthropological perspective, but also encompassing the stance of social sciences, and is much more than a mere introduction or textbook. The author reveals personal involvement in the way her own research is incorporated into the text, and the theory is creatively interwoven with an ethnographic approach.” *
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
“... A great introductory read for students (or anyone) interested in thinking about how and why we 'do food' in modern societies.” *
Cuizine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Tables, Diagrams and Boxes Acknowledgments Prologue: Setting the Anthropological Table An Anthropological Appetite for Food Social Anthropological Methods and Principles Cuisines Pondering the Imponderabilia: An Autoethnographic Approach 1. Omnivorousness: Classifying Food Introduction Omnivorousness The Omnivore’s Dilemma Food Classifications and Rules Eating for Health: Whose Rules? Whose Authority? Redux Omnivore’s Dilemma: Too Many Rules, Too Much Food? 2. Settled Ingredients: Domestic Food Production Introduction Food-Getting Strategies and Cuisines Hunter-Gathering or Foraging Domestication of Plants and Animals Pastoralism Horticulture Agriculture 3. Mobile Ingredients: Roots, Routes, and Realities of Industrialized Agriculture Introduction Imagining Global Routes Long-Distance Trade Routes: Spices and Exotic Foods Roots of Industrialized Agricultural: Plentiful Food for All? Retailing Food: Markets to Supermarkets Exporting Industrial Agriculture 4. Cooks and Kitchens Introduction The Origins of Fire Use and Cooking Cooking Techniques Cooking and Food-Getting Strategies Beyond Culinary Triangles: Toward Contextual Meanings Cooking and Gender Men’s Conspicuous Cooking: Public Cuisine Chefs, Celebrity, and the Shaping of National Cuisines Domestic Kitchens: Gender and Home Cooking 5. Recipes and Dishes Introduction Recipes: Creating Dishes Experiential Cooking: Performing Domestic Recipes Textual Cooking: Reading Commercial Recipes Cookbooks: Codifying National Cuisines British Cuisine: From Cookbooks to Curry 6. Eating In: Commensality and Gastro-Politics Introduction Meals: Patterns of Eating Gastro-Politics Special Meals: Feasting Types of Feasts 7. Eating Out and Gastronomy Introduction Eating Away from Home: A Risky Business? Street Food: Eating Standing Up Restaurant Food: Eating Sitting Down Characteristics of Restaurants Gastronomy: Cultivating Culinary Taste Types of Restaurants: Gastronomic Foodscapes Ethnic Cuisines: Diaspora Dining Restaurants as “Ethnosites”: Cross-Cultural Encounters 8. Global Indigestion: Resetting the Agenda for Food Security Introduction Indigestion: Malnutrition and Global Gastro-Politics From the Top Down: The Gastro-Politics of Food In/Security Four Pillars of Food Security Food Quantity: The FAO’s Agenda and Challenges Resetting the FAO Agenda: Sustainable Agriculture Food Quality: The WHO’s Agenda and Challenges Resetting the WHO Agenda: Healthy Diet From the Ground Up: Grassroots Activism Resetting the Menu: Food Security and Healthy Food 9. Local Digestion: Making the Global at Home Introduction Foodscapes: Materializing Global Foods Local Shopping: Retailing the Meaning of Food Fast and Tasty: Localizing Global Dishes Locavorism: Eating Locally Farmers’ Markets: Local Foods and Faces Brew and Serve: Localizing a Global Beverage Hybrid Consumption: Local and Global Realities Epilogue: Leftovers to Takeaway Takeaway Cuisine Takeaway Leftovers Glossary Bibliography Index
