"Reel Food" is the first book devoted to food as a vibrant and evocative element of film, featuring original essays by major food studies scholars, among them Carole Counihan and Michael Ashkenazi. This collection reads various films through their uses of food-from major "food films" like "Babette's Feast" and "Big Night" to less obvious choices including "The Godfather" trilogy and "The Matrix." The contributors draw attention to the various ways in which food is employed to make meaning in film. In some cases, such as "Soul Food" and "Tortilla Soup," for example, food is used to represent racial and ethnic identities. In other cases, such as "Chocolat" and "Like Water for Chocolate," food plays a role in gender and sexual politics. And, of course, there is also discussion of the centrality of popcorn to the movie-going experience.
This book is a feast for scholars, "foodies," and cinema buffs. It will be of major interest to anyone working in popular culture, film studies, and food studies, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

"Reel Food" is the first book devoted to food as a vibrant and evocative element of film, featuring original essays by major food studies scholars, among them Carole Counihan and Michael Ashkenazi. This collection reads various films through their uses of food-from major "food films" like "Babette's Feast" and "Big Night" to less obvious choices including "The Godfather" trilogy and "The Matrix." The contributors draw attention to the various ways in which food is employed to make meaning in film. In some cases, such as "Soul Food" and "Tortilla Soup," for example, food is used to represent racial and ethnic identities. In other cases, such as "Chocolat" and "Like Water for Chocolate," food plays a role in gender and sexual politics. And, of course, there is also discussion of the centrality of popcorn to the movie-going experience.
This book is a feast for scholars, "foodies," and cinema buffs. It will be of major interest to anyone working in popular culture, film studies, and food studies, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

The community cookbook is a familiar item in many kitchens. Usually compiled by women and sold to raise funds for a charitable cause, these collections of recipes may seem to be utilitarian objects that exhibit little if any narrative interest. But this is hardly the case. In Recipes for Reading, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine community cookbooks as complex texts deserving serious study. The contributors contend that such cookbooks have stories to tell about the lives and values of the women who wrote them, stories that are autobiographical in most cases, historical in some, and fictive in others. The volume is divided into three sections. Part One provides a historical overview of community cookbooks, a discussion of their narrative strategies, and insights into the linguistic peculiarities of recipes. Part Two contains essays about particular cookbooks and their relationship to specific cultural groups. Examined here are Methodist, Mormon, and Canadian recipe collections and a recent cookbook from the National Council of Negro Women. Part Three considers a range of community cookbooks in terms of their culinary, historical, ethnic, and literary contexts. Included is a reading of the novel Like Water for Chocolate, an analysis of an early Jewish cookbook, and a look at how Mexican history and culinary changes are paralleled in cookbooks of the nineteenth century.