Featuring the work of some of the most established scholars in the food studies field, Food Nations looks at the connections between food, culture, and commerce. The essays in this collection pick at what we eat for all its ideological and political implications, such as Foodscapes in Los Angeles, the politics of the California avocado, or the cultural subtext of baby food.

Featuring the work of some of the most established scholars in the food studies field, Food Nations looks at the connections between food, culture, and commerce. The essays in this collection pick at what we eat for all its ideological and political implications, such as Foodscapes in Los Angeles, the politics of the California avocado, or the cultural subtext of baby food.

Food: The Key Concepts presents an exciting, coherent and interdisciplinary introduction to food studies for the beginning reader. Food Studies is an increasingly complex field, drawing on disciplines as diverse as Sociology, Anthropology and Cultural Studies at one end and Economics, Politics and Agricultural Science at the other. In order to clarify the issues, Food: The Key Concepts distills food choices down to three competing considerations: consumer identity; matters of convenience and price; and an awareness of the consequences of what is consumed. The book concludes with an examination of two very different future scenarios for feeding the world's population: the technological fix, which looks to science to provide the solution to our future food needs; and the anthropological fix, which hopes to change our expectations and behaviors. Throughout, the analysis is illustrated with lively case studies. Bulleted chapter summaries, questions and guides to further reading are also provided.

In recent years, the integrity of food production and distribution has become an issue of wide social concern. The media frequently report on cases of food contamination as well as on the risks of hormones and cloning. Journalists, documentary filmmakers, and activists have had their say, but until now a survey of the latest research on the history of the modern food-provisioning system--the network that connects farms and fields to supermarkets and the dining table--has been unavailable. In "Food Chains," Warren Belasco and Roger Horowitz present a collection of fascinating case studies that reveal the historical underpinnings and institutional arrangements that compose this system.The dozen essays in "Food Chains" range widely in subject, from the pig, poultry, and seafood industries to the origins of the shopping cart. The book examines what it took to put ice in nineteenth-century refrigerators, why Soviet citizens could buy ice cream whenever they wanted, what made Mexican food popular in France, and why Americans turned to commercial pet food in place of table scraps for their dogs and cats. "Food Chains" goes behind the grocery shelves, explaining why Americans in the early twentieth century preferred to buy bread rather than make it and how Southerners learned to like self-serve shopping. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the value of a historical perspective on the modern food-provisioning system.

Food: The Key Concepts presents an exciting, coherent and interdisciplinary introduction to food studies for the beginning reader. Food Studies is an increasingly complex field, drawing on disciplines as diverse as Sociology, Anthropology and Cultural Studies at one end and Economics, Politics and Agricultural Science at the other. In order to clarify the issues, Food: The Key Concepts distills food choices down to three competing considerations: consumer identity; matters of convenience and price; and an awareness of the consequences of what is consumed. The book concludes with an examination of two very different future scenarios for feeding the world's population: the technological fix, which looks to science to provide the solution to our future food needs; and the anthropological fix, which hopes to change our expectations and behaviors. Throughout, the analysis is illustrated with lively case studies. Bulleted chapter summaries, questions and guides to further reading are also provided.

"Warren Belasco is a witty, wonderfully observant guide to the hopes and fears that every era projects onto its culinary future. This enlightening study reads like time-travel for foodies."--Laura Shapiro, author of "Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America"
"In his insightful look at human imaginings about their food and its future sufficiency, Warren Belasco makes use of everything from academic papers, films, and fiction to journalism, advertising and world's fairs to trace a pattern of public concern over two centuries. His wide-ranging scholarship humbles all would-be futurists by reminding us that ours is not the first generation, nor is it likely to be the last, to argue inconclusively about whether we can best feed the world with more spoons, better manners or a larger pie. Truly painless education; a wonderful read!"--Joan Dye Gussow, author "This Organic Life"
"Warren Belasco serves up an intellectual feast, brilliantly dissecting two centuries of expectations regarding the future of food and hunger. "Meals to Come" provides an essential guide to thinking clearly about the worrisome question as to whether the world can ever be adequately and equitably fed."--Joseph J. Corn, co-author of "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future"
"This astute, sly, warmly human critique of the basic belly issues that have absorbed and defined Americans politically, socially, and economically for the past 200 years is a knockout. Warren Belasco's important book, crammed with knowledge, is absolutely necessary for an understanding of where we are now."--Betty Fussell, author of My "Kitchen Wars"

The last 20 years have seen a burgeoning of social scientific and historical research on food. The field has drawn in experts to investigate topics such as: the way globalisation affects the food supply; what cookery books can (and cannot) tell us; changing understandings of famine; the social meanings of meals - and many more. Now sufficiently extensive to require a critical overview, this is the first handbook of specially commissioned essays to provide a tour d'horizon of this broad range of topics and disciplines. The editors have enlisted eminent researchers across the social sciences to illustrate the debates, concepts and analytic approaches of this widely diverse and dynamic field. This volume will be essential reading, a ready-to-hand reference book surveying the state of the art for anyone involved in, and actively concerned about research on the social, political, economic, psychological, geographic and historical aspects of food. It will cater for all who need to be informed of research that has been done and that is being done.