Latino cuisine has always been a part of American foodways, but the recent growth of a diverse Latino population in the form of documented and undocumented immigrants, refugees, and exiles has given rise to a pan-Latino food phenomenon. These various food cultures in the United States are expertly overviewed here together in depth for the first time. Many Mexican American, Cuban American, Puerto Ricans, Dominican American, and Central and South American communities in the United States are considered transnational because they actively participate in the economy, politics, and culture of both the United States and their countries of origin. The pan-Latino food culture that is emerging in the United States is also a transnational phenomenon that constantly nurtures and is nurtured by national and regional cuisines. They all combine in kaleidoscopic ways their shared gastronomic wealth of Spanish and Amerindian cuisines with different African, European and Asian culinary traditions. This book discusses the ongoing development of Latino food culture, giving special attention to how Latinos are adapting and transforming Latin American and international elements to create one of the most vibrant cuisines today. This is essential reading for crucial cultural insight into Latinos from all backgrounds. Readers will learn about the diverse elements of an evolving pan-Latino food culture-the history of the various groups and their foodstuffs, cooking, meals and eating habits, special occasions, and diet and health. Representative recipes and photos are interspersed in the essays. A chronology, glossary, resource guide, and bibliography make this a one-stop resource for every library.

This book analyzes the coloniality of the concept of taste that gastronomy constructed and normalized as modern. It shows how gastronomy's engagement with rationalist and aesthetic thought, and with colonial and capitalist structures, led to the desensualization, bureaucratization and racialization of its conceptualization of taste. The Coloniality of Modern Taste provides an understanding of gastronomy that moves away from the usual celebratory approach. Through a discussion of nineteenth-century gastronomic publications, this book illustrates how the gastronomic notion of taste was shaped by a number of specifically modern constraints. It compares the gastronomic approach to taste to conceptualizations of taste that emerged in other geographical and philosophical contexts to illustrate that the gastronomic approach stands out as particularly bereft of affect. The book argues that the understanding of taste constructed by gastronomic texts continues to burden the affective experience of taste, while encouraging patterns of food consumption that rely on an exploitative and unsustainable global food system. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in cultural studies, decoloniality, affect theory, sensory studies, gastronomy and food studies.

This book analyzes the coloniality of the concept of taste that gastronomy constructed and normalized as modern. It shows how gastronomy's engagement with rationalist and aesthetic thought, and with colonial and capitalist structures, led to the desensualization, bureaucratization and racialization of its conceptualization of taste. The Coloniality of Modern Taste provides an understanding of gastronomy that moves away from the usual celebratory approach. Through a discussion of nineteenth-century gastronomic publications, this book illustrates how the gastronomic notion of taste was shaped by a number of specifically modern constraints. It compares the gastronomic approach to taste to conceptualizations of taste that emerged in other geographical and philosophical contexts to illustrate that the gastronomic approach stands out as particularly bereft of affect. The book argues that the understanding of taste constructed by gastronomic texts continues to burden the affective experience of taste, while encouraging patterns of food consumption that rely on an exploitative and unsustainable global food system. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in cultural studies, decoloniality, affect theory, sensory studies, gastronomy and food studies.