In the last five years or so, there has been a huge explosion of scholarly work on the history of food and, likewise, pressing problems such as food scares and genetic modification, as well as anorexia and obesity, have become increasingly present in the public consciousness.
Drawing on a wide variety of disciplines, this fascinating four-volume collection covers anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, cultural history, land economy, and, outside of the arts and social sciences, disciplines such as health sciences and health economics. An engaging and comprehensive reference, it is undoubtedly a highly useful resource for both student and scholar alike.
Volume I: Thinking Food
Editors’ Introduction: ‘Food and Human Existence: Understanding Diverse Modes of Culinary Life’.
Part 1: Theorizing Food and Society
1. Alexis Soyer, ‘Pantropheon’, Food, Cookery and Dining in Ancient Times: Alexis Soyer’s Pantropheon (Mineoloa, New York: Dover, 2004 [1853]), pp. 1–6
2. Carolyn Korsmeyer, ‘Philosophies of Taste: Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic Senses’, Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), pp. 38–67.
3. Stephen Mennell, ‘On the Civilising of Appetite’, Theory, Culture and Society, 4, 3–4, 1987, pp. 373–403.
4. Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, ‘Philosophical History of Cooking’, The Physiology of Taste, trans. Anne Drayton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994), pp. 242–66.
5. Georg Simmel, ‘The Sociology of the Meal’, trans. Mark Ritter and David Frisby, in D. Frisby and M. Featherstone (eds.), Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings (London and New York: Sage, 1998), pp. 130–5. (Originally published as ‘Soziologie der Mahlzeit’, Berliner Tageblatt, 10 October 1910.)
Part 2: Food and Religion
6. Daniel Sack, ‘Liturgical Food: Communion Elements and Conflict’, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 9–59.
7. Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Fast and Feast: The Historical Background’, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Meaning of Food in the Lives of Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 31–69.
8. R. Marie Griffith, ‘Pray the Weight Away: Shaping Devotional Fitness Culture’, Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 160–205.
Part 3: The Anthropology of Food
9. Claude Levi-Strauss, ‘The Culinary Triangle’, Partisan Review, 33, 1965, pp. 586–95.
10. Roland Barthes, ‘Steak and Chips’, Mythologies (London: Vintage, 1993), pp. 62–4.
11. Roland Barthes, ‘The Food System’, Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 27–8.
12. Mary Douglas, ‘The Abominations of Leviticus’, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 41–57.
13. Pasi Falk, ‘Homo Culinarius: Towards An Anthropology of Taste’, Social Science Information, 30, 4, 1991, pp. 757–90.
Volume II: Material Aspects of Food
Part 4: Food Production and Human Evolution
14. Linda Civitello, ‘First Course—From Raw to Cooked: Prehistory, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India’, Cuisine and Culture, A History of Food and People (Hoboken: John Wiley, 2004), pp. 1–24.
15. Jean Bottero, ‘Cooks and Culinary Tradition’, The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 75–86.
16. Paul Rozin, ‘Human Food Selection: The Interaction of Biology, Culture and Individual Experience’, in L. M. Barker (ed.), The Psychobiology of Human Food Selection (Westport: AVI Publishing, 1982), pp. 225–54.
Part 5: The History of Key Foods
17. Patrick E. McGovern, ‘The Noah Hypothesis’, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 16–39.
18. Silvano Serventi and Francoise Sabban, ‘Pasta Without Borders’, Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 169–96.
19. Jack Turner, ‘The Spice Seekers’, Spice: The History of a Temptation (London: HarperPerennial, 2005), pp. 3–58.
Part 6: Famines
20. S. C. Watkins and J. Menken, ‘Famines in Historical Perspective’, Population and Development Review, 11, 4, 1985, pp. 647–75.
21. Amartya Sen, ‘Poverty and Entitlements’, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 1–8.
Part 7: Industrialization of Food Production
22. Stephen Mennell, ‘Diminishing Contrasts, Increasing Varieties’, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages, 2nd edn. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Books, 1996), pp. 317–32.
23. Bernardo Sorj and John Wilkinson, ‘Modern Food Technology: Industrialising Nature’, International Social Science Journal, 37, 3, 1985, pp. 301–14.
24. George Ritzer, ‘An Introduction to McDonaldization’, The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2000), pp. 1–20.
25. Eric Schlosser, ‘The Most Dangerous Job’, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal (New York, Houghton Mifflin, 2001), pp. 169–90.
26. Kim Humphery, ‘Really Modern Retailing’, Shelf Life: Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 39–58.
Part 8: Crises in the Food Chain
27. Claude Fischler, ‘The "Mad-Cow" Crisis: A Global Perspective’, in Raymond Grew (ed.), Food in Global History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 207–31.
28. Harriet Friedmann, ‘The International Relations of Food: The Unfolding Crisis of National Regulation’, in B. Harriss-White and R. Hoffenberg (eds.), Food: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 174–204.
29. Charles Clover, ‘Dining with Nobu ...’, The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat (New York, The New Press, 2006), pp. 157–82.
30. Chaia Heller, ‘Risky Science and Savoir-Faire: Peasant Expertise in the French Debate Over Genetically Modified Crops’, in Marianne Elisabeth Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (eds.), The Politics of Food (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004), pp. 81–99.
31. Marion Nestle, ‘Deregulation and its Consequences’, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 272–93.
32. Daniel Charles, ‘Global Claims’, Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money and the Future of Food (Cambridge, MA: Perseus), pp. 262–82.
Volume III: The Social Relations of Food
Part 9: Food and Social Class
33. Jack Goody, ‘The High and the Low: Culinary Culture in Asia and Europe’, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study of Comparative Sociology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 97–153.
34. Joseph R. Gusfield, ‘Nature’s Body and the Metaphors of Food’, in Michelle Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds.), Cultivating Difference: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 75–103.
Part 10: History of Grand Eating and Gastronomy
35. Andrew Dalby, ‘Sicilian Tables: The Culture of Fourth Century Gastronomy’, Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 113–32.
36. Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, ‘On Gourmandism’, The Physiology of Taste, trans. Anne Drayton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994), pp. 132–40.
37. Pricilla Parkhurst Ferguson, ‘A Cultural Field in the Making: Gastronomy in Nineteenth-Century France’, American Journal of Sociology, 103, 3, 1998, pp. 597–641.
Part 11: Restaurants and Coffee Houses
38. Alan Warde, Lydia Marten, and Wendy Olsen, ‘Consumption and The Problem of Variety: Cultural Omnivorousness, Social Distinction and Dining Out’, Sociology, 33, 1, 1999, pp. 105–27.
39. Markman Ellis, ‘The Philosopher in the Coffee-House’, The Coffee House: A Cultural History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005), pp. 185–206.
40. William Foote Whyte, ‘The Social Structure of the Restaurant’, American Journal of Sociology, 54, 4, pp. 302–10.
41. Gary Alan Fine, ‘The Kitchen as Place and Space’, Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 80–111.
42. Karla Erickson, ‘Bodies at Work: Performing Service in American Restaurants’, Space and Culture, 7, 1, 2004, pp. 76–89.
43. Rebecca Spang, ‘All The World’s a Restaurant: On the Global Gastronomics of Tourism and Travel’, in Raymond Grew (ed.), Food in Global History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 79–91.
Part 12: Food and the Life Course
44. Haim Hazan, ‘Holding Time Still With Cups of Tea’, in Mary Douglas (ed.), Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology, 4th edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 205–19.
45. Allison James, ‘Confections, Concoctions and Conceptions’, in Bernard Waites, Tony Bennett, and Graham Martin (eds.), Popular Culture: Past and Present (London and New York: Routledge, 1981), pp. 294–307.
46. Mildred Blaxter and Elizabeth Paterson, ‘The Goodness is Out of It: The Meaning of Food to Two Generations’, in Anne Murcott (ed.), The Sociology of Food and Eating (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1983), pp. 95–105.
Part 13: Food, Gender, and Family Organization
47. Deb Kemmer, ‘Tradition and Change in Domestic Roles and Food Preparation’, Sociology, 34, 2, 2000, pp. 323–33.
48. Marjorie DeVault, ‘Constructing the Family’, Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 77–94.
49. Joanne Hollows, ‘Oliver’s Twist: Leisure, Labour and Domestic Masculinity in The Naked Chef’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6, 2, 2003, pp. 229–48.
50. Alex McIntosh, ‘The Family Meal and its Significance in Global Times’, in Raymond Grew (ed.), Food in Global History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 217–39.
51. Miriam Meyers, ‘The Presence of Many Women: Food as a Way of Ensuring Continuity Across Generations of Women’, A Bite off Mama’s Plate: Mothers’ and Daughters’ Connections through Food (Westport and London: Bergin & Harvey, 2001), pp. 105–24.
Volume IV: Negotiating Food
Part 14: Food and Personal Identity
52. Claude Fischler, ‘Food, Self and Identity’, Social Science Information, 27, 2, pp. 275–92.
53. Anne Murcott, ‘On the Altered Appetites of Pregnancy: Conceptions of Food, Body and Person’, Sociological Review, 36, 4, 1988, pp. 733–64.
54. Efrat Ben-Ze’ev, ‘The Politics of Taste and Smell: Palestinian Rites of Return’, in Marianne E. Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (eds.), The Politics of Food (Oxford: Berg, 2004), pp. 141–60.
Part 15: Textual and Visual Representations of Food
55. Arjun Appadurai, ‘How To Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India’, Comparative Studies of Society and History, 30, 1, 1988, pp. 3–24.
56. Luigi Ballerini, ‘Maestro Martino: The Carneades of Cooks’, The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book: The Eminent Maestro Martiono of Como (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 1–46.
57. N. Strange, ‘Perform, Educate, Entertain: Ingredients of the Cookery Programme Genre’, in C. Geraghty and D. Lusted (eds.), The Television Studies Book (London: Edward Arnold, 1998), pp. 301–12.
58. Alice McLean, ‘Tasting Language: The Aesthetic Pleasures of Elizabeth David’, Food, Culture and Society, 7, 1, 2004, pp. 37–45.
Part 16: Diets and Dieting
59. Carole Spitzack, ‘Curative Voices: Anti-Diets and Experts’, Confessing Excess: Women and the Politics of Body Reduction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), pp. 9–33.
60. Bryan Turner, ‘The Government of the Body: Medical Regimens and the Rationalisation of Diet’, British Journal of Sociology, 33, 2, 1982, pp. 254–69.
Part 17: Food Pathologies
61. Susan Bordo, ‘Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture’, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 139–64.
62. Carole Counihan, ‘An Anthropological View of Western Women’s Prodigious Fasting: A Review Essay’, The Anthropology of Food and the Body: Gender, Meaning and Power (New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 93–112.
Part 18: Animals, Meat, Vegetarianism, and Veganism
63. Peter Singer, ‘Taking Life: Animals’, Practical Ethics, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 110–25.
64. Alan Beardsworth and Teresa Keil, ‘The Vegetarian Option: Varieties, Conversions, Motives and Careers’, The Sociological Review, 40, 2, 1992, pp. 252–93.
65. Marianne Elisabeth Lien, ‘Dogs, Whales and Kangaroos: Transnational Activism and Food Taboos,’ in Marianne Elisabeth Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (eds.), The Politics of Food (Oxford and New York, Berg), pp. 179–97.
Part 19: Deindustrialization
66. Warren Belasco, ‘Food and the Counterculture: A Story of Bread and Politics’, in Raymond Grew (ed.), Food in Global History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 273–92.
67. Carlo Petrini, ‘Appetite and Thought’, Slow Food: The Case for Taste, trans. William McCuaig (New York, Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 1–36.
68. Julie Guthman, ‘Organic Farming: Ideal Practices and Practical Ideals’, Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 42–60.
Volume V: Food Cultures and the Globalization of Food
Part 20: Food and Nation
69. Alison Leitch, ‘Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European Identity’, Ethnos, 68, 4, 2003, pp. 437–62.
70. Jean-Robert Pitte, ‘France: The Land of Milk and Honey or the Old Country of Gourmands?’, French Gastronomy: The History and Geography of a Passion, trans. Jody Gladding (New York, Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 13–32.
Part 21: Food and Ethnicity
71. Hasia R. Diner, ‘"The Bread Is Soft": Italian Foodways, American Abundance’, Hungering For America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 48–83.
72. Tracey N. Poe, ‘The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity’, in Carole Counihan (ed.), Food in the USA: A Reader (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 91–108.
73. Shun Lu and Gary Alan Fine, ‘The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment’, The Sociological Quarterly, 36, 3, 1995, pp. 535–53.
Part 22: Food Crossings in History
74. Giovanni Rebora, ‘From Europe to America’, Culture of the Fork: A Brief History of Food in Europe (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), pp. 129–40.
75. Benoit Daviron and Stefano Ponte, ‘What’s in a Cup: Coffee from Bean to Brew’, The Coffee Paradox: Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development (London: Zed Books, 2005), pp. 50–80.
76. Krishnendu Ray, ‘Meals, Migration, and Modernity’, The Migrants Table (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), pp. 130–68.
Part 23: Globalization as Food Homogenization?
77. Elin McCoy, ‘Scoring Parker’, The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr. and the Reign of American Taste (New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2005), pp. 279–300.
78. James L. Watson (ed.), ‘Transnationalism, Localization and Fast Foods in East Asia’, Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 1–38.
79. Melissa L. Caldwell, ‘Domesticating the French Fry: McDonald’s and Consumerism in Moscow’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 4, 2004, pp. 5–26.
80. Rick Fantasia, ‘Fast Food in France’, Theory and Society, 24, 2, 1995, pp. 201–43.
81. Rick Fantasia, ‘Restaurants Rapides Pour "Societe Sans Classes"’, Le Monde diplomatique, 554, May, 2000, pp. 6–7.
Part 24: Food Traditions Transformed?
82. Carole Counihan, ‘Conclusion: Molto, Ma Buono’, Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family and Gender in Twentieth Century Florence (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 177–92.
83. Allison James, ‘Cooking the Books: Global or Local Identities in Contemporary British Food Cultures?’, in David Howes (ed.), Cross-Cultural Consumption: Global Markets, Local Realities (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 77–93.
84. Danielle Gallegos, ‘Pastes, Powders, and Potions: the Development of an Eclectic Australian Palate’, Journal for the Study of Food and Society, 8, 1, 2005, pp. 39–45.
85. J. A. G. Roberts, ‘On the Globalization of Chinese Food’, China To Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), pp. 204–28.
Biography
David Inglis is senior lecturer in social theory and sociology of culture at Aberdeen. He has published various books and edited collections on general sociology and the sociology of aesthetics, sport and the body, including several Major Work collections: The Body: Critical Concepts in Sociology (2003), Nature: Critical Concepts in Sociology (published this month), Animals and Society: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences (publishing early 2006) and Stratification: Critical Concepts in Sociology (due 2006).
He is Chair of the BSA Scottish Forum.
