Ways of Eating: Exploring Food through History and Culture

by Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Merry White

Overview

What we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food.
 
From the origins of agriculture to contemporary debates over culinary authenticity, Ways of Eating introduces readers to world food history and food anthropology. Through engaging stories and historical deep dives, Benjamin A. Wurgaft and Merry I. White offer new ways to understand food in relation to its natural and cultural histories and the social rules that shape our meals.
 
Wurgaft and White use vivid storytelling to bring food practices to life, weaving stories of Panamanian coffee growers, medieval women beer makers, and Japanese knife forgers. From the Venetian spice trade to the Columbian Exchange, from Roman garum to Vietnamese nớc chấm, Ways of Eating provides an absorbing account of world food history and anthropology. Migration, politics, and the dynamics of group identity all shape what we eat, and we can learn to trace these social forces from the plate to the kitchen, the factory, and the field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520392984
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Series:	California Studies in Food and Culture , #81
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	381,340
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Benjamin A. Wurgaft is a writer and historian. His previous books include Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food and Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt.
 
Merry I. White is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. Her previous books include Coffee Life in Japan and Perfectly Japanese: Making Families in an Era of Upheaval. The Japanese government has honored her work in the anthropology of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments 

Introduction 

VIGNETTE 1 Duccio’s Eden 
CHAPTER 1 Nature and Culture in the Origins Of Agriculture 
VIGNETTE 2 Akashiyaki at Nishi-Akashi 
CHAPTER 2 Staple Empires of the Ancient World 
VIGNETTE 3 Coffee and Pepper 
CHAPTER 3 Medieval Tastes 
VIGNETTE 4 Before Kimchi 
CHAPTER 4 The Columbian Exchange, or, the World Remade 
VIGNETTE 5 The Spirit Safe 
CHAPTER 5 Social Beverages and Modernity 
VIGNETTE 6 Authenticity in Panama 
CHAPTER 6 Colony and Curry 
VIGNETTE 7 The Icebox 
CHAPTER 7 Food’s Industrial Revolution 
VIGNETTE 8 Bricolage 
CHAPTER 8 Twentieth-Century Foodways, or, Big Food and Its Discontents 
VIGNETTE 9 Nem on the Menu 
CHAPTER 9 Ways of Eating 

Conclusion 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 

Editorial Reviews

"[A]t its heart, Ways of Eating is a love letter to the anthropology and history of food."

Current

"Food has always provided ways of expressing cultural identity, regional differences, degrees of sophistication and economic status. Wurgaft and White trace these processes over centuries and across the globe. Their conclusions are both celebratory and thought-provoking."

Inside Story

"In a study that arcs gracefully from our changing understanding of the Neolithic Revolution to the era of genetically modified organisms, fast food, Slow Food, and environmental depletion, the focus is forward-facing."

World of Fine Wine