Food and Culture: A Reader

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

(The numerical rating above is an ineradicable feature of this page. This reviewer does nor employ numerical ratings.)


Very solid contribution!   October 30, 2002
Quickhappy (Big city, big country)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful

Rarely does one edited volume do such a good job of covering the essential essays about a topic. Counihan and Van Esterik do just that in their well-wrought _Food and Culture_. They skillfully offer food in an anthropological and historical perspective, giving attention to feminist, structuralist, semiotic, and other approaches. The essays themselves are effectively trimmed down by the editors, and the resulting book is consistently rewarding.

The book is weak on vegetarianism, meat as meaning, post-structuralism, and fast food, and could use a bit of help on "ethnic" uses of food. The addition of Doris Witt, Eric Schlosser, and Judith Farquhar would be helpful. It also lacks Peter Singer's new classic, "The Singer Solution to World Poverty." A second edition with these modifications would be welcome!

This book can rival, supplant, or supplement most any professor's undergraduate reading packet on the anthropology of food. Truly well-done. Probably a staple meal on campuses for years to come.


Great book, quick delivery   February 19, 2010
E. Corcao (Birmingham, AL)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

The book got here in great condition and as quick as promised. Just as announced.


A useful text   March 13, 2000
Peter G. Buckley (Brooklyn, NY United States)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful

I assigned this text almost unseen as a course book because it included so many of the classic essays which one might have ended up xeroxing. The students found the book very useful. I would have liked a more historical focus but that's because of my own training. I will assign the book again.