Reading Food

Auteur

Wendy Wall is Professor of English at Northwestern, where she has taught since 1995. She earned her PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania. She has written two books and edited a third.

Texte du rabat

Looks at a dozen or so foods, implements, and practices to assemble a picture of how food and dining have come to mean what they mean. Part literary history, part anthropology, part popular culture study, this is an addition to the literature on what we eat.

Résumé

Tony Soprano's fear of meat has a long history. The simple act of tasting chocolate in the eighteenth century has class and racial overtones. Wall's book will look at a dozen or so foods, implements, and practices to assemble a broad picture of how food and dining have come to mean what they mean today.

Part literary history, part anthropology, part popular culture study, Reading Food is an informative and readable addition to the literature on what we eat.

Contenu
Introduction: Reading Food Chapter One: Jell-O: Mortality and Malleability in the Kitchen Chapter Two: The Spice of Life: Colonizing Globe and Body Chapter Three: Who's Got Milk?: Breastfeeding and the Dairy Chapter Four: The Fork: Emily Post Comes to Dinner Chapter Five: The Pig: Dirt and Religion in the Household Chapter Six: Carving: Blood in the Kitchen Chapter Seven: Showing Off: Feasting and Hospitality Chapter Eight: Just a Spoonful of Sugar Chapter Nine: Syrup: The Bliss of Keeping and Forgetting Chapter Ten: Coffee Breaks Chapter Eleven: Is Meat What's for Dinner? Chapter Twelve: 'You say Tomato': Ethnicity, Class and Food Afterward: Celebrity Recipes, the Gourmet, and Appetite