Description
Book SynopsisIn
Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity, and Symbolism, Michael Owen Jones tackles topics often overlooked in foodways. At the outset he notes it was Victor Frankenstein''s daemon in Mary Shelley''s novel that advocated vegetarianism, not the scientist whose name has long been attributed to his creature. Jones explains how we communicate through what we eat, the connection between food choice and who we are or want to appear to be, the ways that many of us self-medicate moods with foods, and the nature of disgust. He presents fascinating case studies of religious bigotry and political machinations triggered by rumored bans on pork, the last meal requests of prisoners about to be executed, and the Utopian vision of Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of England''s greatest poets, that was based on a vegetable diet like the creature''s meals in
Frankenstein.
Jones also scrutinizes how food is used and abused on the campaign trail, how gender issue
