Food and Culture: A Reader - Tapa dura

"I get asked all the time to define Food Studies, and now I have the answer. Read this book. This is a brilliantly selected compilation of the most riveting and entertaining writing on food and culture, ranging from the classic to the post-modern. The range of topics is astounding, and the writing is terrific. Read any of these pieces and you will want to read everything else that author wrote. Anyone reading this book will understand immediately why the study of food teaches us so much about our society, now and in the past." -Marion Nestle, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, New York University

Food touches everything important to people: it marks social difference and strengthens social bonds. Common to all people, it can signify very different things from table to table.

Food and Culture takes a global look at the social, symbolic, and political-economic role of food. The stellar contributors to this reader examine some of the meanings of food and eating across cultures, with particular attention to how men and women define themselves differently through their foodways. Crossing many subjects, this innovative, first-of-its-kind in the field includes the perspectives of anthropology, history, psychology, philosophy, politics, and sociology. This is the classic text in the field, updated for the first time in a decade, and hailed as the "bible" in the field. A must use for any course on the anthropology or sociology of food. This book comes with a companion website, which you can visit at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415977777