Food Words: Essays in Culinary Culture

Food Words is a series of provocative essays on some of the most important keywords in the emergent field of food studies, focusing on current controversies and on-going debates. Words like 'choice' and 'convenience' are often used as explanatory terms in understanding consumer behavior but are clearly ideological in the way they reflect particular positions and serve specific interests, while words like 'taste' and 'value' are no less complex and contested. Inspired by Raymond Williams, Food Words traces the multiple meanings of each of our keywords, tracking nuances in different (academic, commercial and policy) contexts. Mapping the dynamic meanings of each term, the book moves forward from critical assessment to active intervention -- an attitude that is reflected in the lively, sometimes combative, style of the essays. Each essay is research-based and fully referenced but accessible to the general reader. With a foreword by eminent food scholar Warren Belasco, Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland-Baltmore County, and written by an inter-disciplinary team associated with the CONANX research project (Consumer culture in an 'age of anxiety'), Food Words will be essential reading for food scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences.