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Snack
Not yet published
Expected 19 Feb 26In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial-perhaps even juvenile—especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and necessary. The multiple aisles devoted to sweet and savory snack foods in supermarkets reveal the popularity of snacking. The availability of snacks at other non-food-focused stores like home improvement and department stores suggest that, at any point, a person may need a snack.
The ubiquity of snacks in our culture is a relatively new phenomenon, one that is not universal to all countries. Snack traces the story of how snacking culture came to be through investigations of specific snacks, including Flamin' Hot Cheetos, popcorn, and Pocky, and in the context of issues of ethnicity, class, gender, popular culture, and even parenting. Ultimately, Snack provides an idiosyncratic cultural history to offer new ways of looking at the grocery store snack aisles.
The ubiquity of snacks in our culture is a relatively new phenomenon, one that is not universal to all countries. Snack traces the story of how snacking culture came to be through investigations of specific snacks, including Flamin' Hot Cheetos, popcorn, and Pocky, and in the context of issues of ethnicity, class, gender, popular culture, and even parenting. Ultimately, Snack provides an idiosyncratic cultural history to offer new ways of looking at the grocery store snack aisles.
- GenresFoodNonfiction
144 pages, Paperback
Expected publication February 19, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 2, 2025
"Where is the line between hors d'oeuvres and snack?"
1. Origin Stories
Starting off with Flamin' Hot Cheetos is a choice. The right choice.
I thought this was going to be a fun book about snacks. It's actually a very in-depth look at classism, racism, and the judgment that comes with what foods you like to eat. 10/10
2. Infantile Snacks
Goldfish are a mid snack. I said what I said. I will not be taking commentary.
French people should be less snobby about snacking. And basically everything else. And this coming from a former Francophile. Colonization, amirite?
3. Fruits and Vegetables
I hate PEPPA PIG with a fiery passion.
But also, can I say how great it is that this section is one page? Don't get me wrong, I love fruits and veggies. But we're talking snacks.
4. Guilty Pleasures
For a gender that makes significantly less money, why are women always targeted for extreme consumerism? And guilt?
Diet culture ruined my teens. I'm not being dramatic. Disordered eating is a real thing, and more of us experience it than necessary. For more, my review of HUNGRY GHOST.
Thinness does not equal purity. The "slender aesthetic among fashionable white Americans" should not be the global beauty standard. And yet it is.
5. Chocolate and Dried Squid
I'm eternally tired of white people complaining about MSG in Asian cuisine, yet "fine" eating Doritos and the like.
--
book pairings: BITING THE HAND, CRYING IN H MART, EATING MORE ASIAN AMERICA, MINOR FEELINGS
rep: Black, Chinese American, Japanese American, Korean American, Mexican American, Vietnamese American
tw: classism, colonization, diet culture, purity culture, racial slurs, racism, stereotypes
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic
1. Origin Stories
Starting off with Flamin' Hot Cheetos is a choice. The right choice.
I thought this was going to be a fun book about snacks. It's actually a very in-depth look at classism, racism, and the judgment that comes with what foods you like to eat. 10/10
2. Infantile Snacks
Goldfish are a mid snack. I said what I said. I will not be taking commentary.
French people should be less snobby about snacking. And basically everything else. And this coming from a former Francophile. Colonization, amirite?
3. Fruits and Vegetables
I hate PEPPA PIG with a fiery passion.
But also, can I say how great it is that this section is one page? Don't get me wrong, I love fruits and veggies. But we're talking snacks.
4. Guilty Pleasures
For a gender that makes significantly less money, why are women always targeted for extreme consumerism? And guilt?
Diet culture ruined my teens. I'm not being dramatic. Disordered eating is a real thing, and more of us experience it than necessary. For more, my review of HUNGRY GHOST.
Thinness does not equal purity. The "slender aesthetic among fashionable white Americans" should not be the global beauty standard. And yet it is.
5. Chocolate and Dried Squid
I'm eternally tired of white people complaining about MSG in Asian cuisine, yet "fine" eating Doritos and the like.
--
book pairings: BITING THE HAND, CRYING IN H MART, EATING MORE ASIAN AMERICA, MINOR FEELINGS
rep: Black, Chinese American, Japanese American, Korean American, Mexican American, Vietnamese American
tw: classism, colonization, diet culture, purity culture, racial slurs, racism, stereotypes
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I love a book about something specific that I see and use everyday! This one is a mix of fun facts, personal anecdotes and history, and I enjoyed her comparison of snacks philosophy in various countries, having myself grown up with le goûter and being forbidden as a child to snack on anything between meals. It's a quick read at 160 pages but very entertaining.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
Free ARC sent by Netgalley.
November 29, 2025
Snack is another instalment in the Object Lessons series, looking at the world of snacks and snacking culture. Dahn explores the history of snacks and of areas like diet culture, race, and parenting in relation to snacks, combining personal memoir with historical accounts and apparent origins of snacks.
As usual for the Object Lessons series, the book is a blend of personal essay and a more academic pop history of the topic, offering space to reflect yourself on your relationship to snacks. In the short format, there's not space to go deep into every kind of snack or different snacking cultures around the world, but Dahn uses her own experiences as a Korean American to share what snacks have meant to her. It's a fun read, though it will make you hungry!
As usual for the Object Lessons series, the book is a blend of personal essay and a more academic pop history of the topic, offering space to reflect yourself on your relationship to snacks. In the short format, there's not space to go deep into every kind of snack or different snacking cultures around the world, but Dahn uses her own experiences as a Korean American to share what snacks have meant to her. It's a fun read, though it will make you hungry!
October 30, 2025
Like the series it is part of, Snack is light and easy to read, but leaves you left wanting more. As with other entries of Object Lessons, its central theme is framed from the title, but it is a jumping off point for exploration, tangents and in this volume the blending of taste, memory and connections. Snacks are defined early in this book through a multiple point definition that marks them as food eaten not as part of a meal, needing minimal preparation or cooking, portable, "fun," small or possible to consume rapidly and primarily eaten with only fingers.
Eurie Dahn is an Associate Professor of English specializing in African American literature and periodicals of the Jim Crow era, and this background supplements examples of the way our hometown and region has shaped our tastes and approaches to foods. Snack is divided in to five sections, each centered on a specific type, category or organizational principle of different snacks. Dahn begins with her own life, snacks of her youth and the way her family eats. Section two focuses on the snack industries specific targeting of children, or by proxy, the aspirational ideals of their parents. The third section flits by as who actual gravitates to fruits and vegetables as snacks? The last two chapters consider the psychology, as well as how it has been represented in popular books and media. The last chapter uses two specific snacks to talk about the changes in American snacks and how the continual growth of the industry has led to the ethnicization (or cultural commodification) of foods in the quest to offer ever more flavors.
Dahn's tone is wonderful, being highly readable, almost like having a conversation with a friend about why people might eat a certain kind of snack. But it is more nuanced, with supporting evidence. Were Flamin' Hot Cheetos created by Richard Montanez? Or is that just a convincing narrative? Dahn doesn't definitively say either way, but does detail Montanez's version and results of a yearlong investigation published in the Los Angeles Times. A key point is that snacking is cultural, where one lived when young is key to the development of both tastes for foods and the likelihood of snacking. During the guilty pleasures section Dahn looks at how even Seinfeld had something to say about eating of snacks, that wasn't about what to do or not do about chips, as well as the failed 90s fat substitute Olestra. Dahn discusses the eating cultures of Americans, comparing or contrasting them to Korean and French.
Recommended to readers of American Foods, eating cultures, or those trying to recapture the tastes of youth.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
Eurie Dahn is an Associate Professor of English specializing in African American literature and periodicals of the Jim Crow era, and this background supplements examples of the way our hometown and region has shaped our tastes and approaches to foods. Snack is divided in to five sections, each centered on a specific type, category or organizational principle of different snacks. Dahn begins with her own life, snacks of her youth and the way her family eats. Section two focuses on the snack industries specific targeting of children, or by proxy, the aspirational ideals of their parents. The third section flits by as who actual gravitates to fruits and vegetables as snacks? The last two chapters consider the psychology, as well as how it has been represented in popular books and media. The last chapter uses two specific snacks to talk about the changes in American snacks and how the continual growth of the industry has led to the ethnicization (or cultural commodification) of foods in the quest to offer ever more flavors.
Dahn's tone is wonderful, being highly readable, almost like having a conversation with a friend about why people might eat a certain kind of snack. But it is more nuanced, with supporting evidence. Were Flamin' Hot Cheetos created by Richard Montanez? Or is that just a convincing narrative? Dahn doesn't definitively say either way, but does detail Montanez's version and results of a yearlong investigation published in the Los Angeles Times. A key point is that snacking is cultural, where one lived when young is key to the development of both tastes for foods and the likelihood of snacking. During the guilty pleasures section Dahn looks at how even Seinfeld had something to say about eating of snacks, that wasn't about what to do or not do about chips, as well as the failed 90s fat substitute Olestra. Dahn discusses the eating cultures of Americans, comparing or contrasting them to Korean and French.
Recommended to readers of American Foods, eating cultures, or those trying to recapture the tastes of youth.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A Delightful Morsel
A review of the NetGalley eBook ARC released in advance of the Bloomsbury Academic paperback / eBook (to be published February 9, 2026).
Despite reading a considerable number of Bloomsbury Academic's 33 and 1/3 series about various music albums I had never run across their Object Lessons series prior to this. Snack is more than just an itemized sampling of various snack foods across cultures. It discusses issues around why, when and where we snack and how our cultural background influences our choices.
Not all the snacks here were previously known to me, but I found the histories throughout to be entertaining and informative. Along the way you'll learn about the contradictory origin stories of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and the invention of the potato chip among other treats. Warning: Reading this book may provoke snack cravings. 😋
My thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance ARC copy for which I provide this honest review.
Trivia and Links
Author Eurie Dahn is a professor in the English department at The College of Saint Rose. She is also the author of Jim Crow Networks: African American Periodical Cultures (2021) and the co-editor of a recent 2022 edition of the early Afro-Futurist novel Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self (1902) by Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins.
Object Lessons is a wide-ranging non-fiction series published by Bloomsbury Academic. It is described as:
Explore the Object Lessons series at Bloomsbury here.
A review of the NetGalley eBook ARC released in advance of the Bloomsbury Academic paperback / eBook (to be published February 9, 2026).
What is a snack? First, the noun "snack" comes from Middle English, the English of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. ... the meaning that we commonly associate with "snack": "[a] mere bite or morsel of food, as contrasted with a regular meal or repast."
Despite reading a considerable number of Bloomsbury Academic's 33 and 1/3 series about various music albums I had never run across their Object Lessons series prior to this. Snack is more than just an itemized sampling of various snack foods across cultures. It discusses issues around why, when and where we snack and how our cultural background influences our choices.
Not all the snacks here were previously known to me, but I found the histories throughout to be entertaining and informative. Along the way you'll learn about the contradictory origin stories of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and the invention of the potato chip among other treats. Warning: Reading this book may provoke snack cravings. 😋
My thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance ARC copy for which I provide this honest review.
Trivia and Links
Author Eurie Dahn is a professor in the English department at The College of Saint Rose. She is also the author of Jim Crow Networks: African American Periodical Cultures (2021) and the co-editor of a recent 2022 edition of the early Afro-Futurist novel Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self (1902) by Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins.
Object Lessons is a wide-ranging non-fiction series published by Bloomsbury Academic. It is described as:
Object Lessons is a series of concise, collectable, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Each book starts from a specific inspiration: an historical event, a literary passage, a personal narrative, a technological innovation—and from that starting point explores the object of the title, gleaning a singular lesson or multiple lessons along the way.
Explore the Object Lessons series at Bloomsbury here.
October 29, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advanced Review Copy (ARC).
Snack by Eurie Dahn review — a bite-sized cultural study that’s surprisingly filling
Snack time: we’ve all been there. But what exactly is a snack? Breakfast, lunch and dinner come with rules, rituals and their own PR teams — but snack? Snack is an untamed, ambiguous little thing. It has no fixed time, no clear definition, and no one really knows when a nibble becomes a meal. Eurie Dahn’s Snack takes this everyday act and turns it into a sociological study, one that’s as crunchy and quick as its subject.
Dahn approaches snacking through an American lens, where the act is often private, almost guilty — furtive handfuls of chips in front of a glowing screen. Reading it, though, I couldn’t help but think how different that is from the Indian idea of snacking, which is almost always communal: stepping out for chai and pakoras, sharing street food outside college gates, the ritual of a mid-afternoon samosa break at work. Snack, here, is social glue; snack, there, is confession.
Across a handful of short, witty essays, Dahn traces the cultural, moral, and emotional life of snacks. She looks at origin stories of snacks, the politics of parenting and feeding (her essay “Infantile Snacks” is particularly delightful), and the way certain foods become “guilty pleasures.” She’s curious about everything: how snacks map onto class, how they’re policed by health culture, and how something as simple as a Cheeto can become a moral dilemma.
There’s plenty of humour here, and just enough nostalgia. Dahn doesn’t lecture — she observes, pokes fun, and lets you find your own meaning. A recurring thread is class: the quiet snobbery that divides those who reach for fresh fruit from those who reach for deep-fried comfort. She even jokes that fruits and vegetables, are not snacks for the purpose of this book — a stance that feels both cheeky and correct.
Snack is, fittingly, a snack of a book: slim, satisfying, and likely to spark conversation. It doesn’t offer a deep-dive into nutrition or food science; instead, it invites you to think about what, how, and why you eat between meals. You might finish it craving a packet of Flaming Hot Cheetos — or maybe a chocolate pie, or even kimchi — but you’ll also come away thinking about guilt, class, and culture with every bite.
Snack by Eurie Dahn review — a bite-sized cultural study that’s surprisingly filling
Snack time: we’ve all been there. But what exactly is a snack? Breakfast, lunch and dinner come with rules, rituals and their own PR teams — but snack? Snack is an untamed, ambiguous little thing. It has no fixed time, no clear definition, and no one really knows when a nibble becomes a meal. Eurie Dahn’s Snack takes this everyday act and turns it into a sociological study, one that’s as crunchy and quick as its subject.
Dahn approaches snacking through an American lens, where the act is often private, almost guilty — furtive handfuls of chips in front of a glowing screen. Reading it, though, I couldn’t help but think how different that is from the Indian idea of snacking, which is almost always communal: stepping out for chai and pakoras, sharing street food outside college gates, the ritual of a mid-afternoon samosa break at work. Snack, here, is social glue; snack, there, is confession.
Across a handful of short, witty essays, Dahn traces the cultural, moral, and emotional life of snacks. She looks at origin stories of snacks, the politics of parenting and feeding (her essay “Infantile Snacks” is particularly delightful), and the way certain foods become “guilty pleasures.” She’s curious about everything: how snacks map onto class, how they’re policed by health culture, and how something as simple as a Cheeto can become a moral dilemma.
There’s plenty of humour here, and just enough nostalgia. Dahn doesn’t lecture — she observes, pokes fun, and lets you find your own meaning. A recurring thread is class: the quiet snobbery that divides those who reach for fresh fruit from those who reach for deep-fried comfort. She even jokes that fruits and vegetables, are not snacks for the purpose of this book — a stance that feels both cheeky and correct.
Snack is, fittingly, a snack of a book: slim, satisfying, and likely to spark conversation. It doesn’t offer a deep-dive into nutrition or food science; instead, it invites you to think about what, how, and why you eat between meals. You might finish it craving a packet of Flaming Hot Cheetos — or maybe a chocolate pie, or even kimchi — but you’ll also come away thinking about guilt, class, and culture with every bite.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Eurie Dahn, Snack, Bloomsbury Academic, February 2026.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Snack is another title in the Object Lessons publications that can be so much fun, as well as making a serious contribution to information about the wide range of topics they address. Snack is less entertaining than I expected, and although it is arguable that the somewhat serious approach is valuable it also presents challenges. Snacks have always suggested fun, something different from the three-course meal, or even fewer courses, but nevertheless a solid meal eaten at a table with the accoutrements associated with social environment, culture, and purpose. Eurie Dahn focusses on particular American and Korean snacks, embracing debates about the health aspects of snacks, their cultural importance, parental care and children’s responses to snacking, snacks and popular culture and types of snack.
The topic of school snacks sparks discussion about discrimination faced by children with unfamiliar snacks. The text covers various popular snacks, blending humour with serious commentary, and addresses concerns about dieting and the hidden health risks of eating small, tempting snacks in substantial amounts.
Snack provides detailed information about the topics it covers. However, the snack is so universal, it would have been useful to consider more examples from a wider range of countries. Childcare snacks, as well as the role of parents in providing snacks, would have been an interesting additional topic. Similarly, what snacks are provided in other public venues such as the school canteen or hospitals? Are they different from snacks available to a private citizen?
The material covered in Snack was detailed and informative, and the analysis thoughtful. However, I felt that a broader ranging narrative and adoption of a more entertaining approach providing a contrast with serious discussion would have produced a more engaging text.
Thank you, NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic, for this uncorrected proof for review.
Snack is another title in the Object Lessons publications that can be so much fun, as well as making a serious contribution to information about the wide range of topics they address. Snack is less entertaining than I expected, and although it is arguable that the somewhat serious approach is valuable it also presents challenges. Snacks have always suggested fun, something different from the three-course meal, or even fewer courses, but nevertheless a solid meal eaten at a table with the accoutrements associated with social environment, culture, and purpose. Eurie Dahn focusses on particular American and Korean snacks, embracing debates about the health aspects of snacks, their cultural importance, parental care and children’s responses to snacking, snacks and popular culture and types of snack.
The topic of school snacks sparks discussion about discrimination faced by children with unfamiliar snacks. The text covers various popular snacks, blending humour with serious commentary, and addresses concerns about dieting and the hidden health risks of eating small, tempting snacks in substantial amounts.
Snack provides detailed information about the topics it covers. However, the snack is so universal, it would have been useful to consider more examples from a wider range of countries. Childcare snacks, as well as the role of parents in providing snacks, would have been an interesting additional topic. Similarly, what snacks are provided in other public venues such as the school canteen or hospitals? Are they different from snacks available to a private citizen?
The material covered in Snack was detailed and informative, and the analysis thoughtful. However, I felt that a broader ranging narrative and adoption of a more entertaining approach providing a contrast with serious discussion would have produced a more engaging text.
December 8, 2025
What do you think of Flamin' Hot Cheetos? For the author of this fun and informative book, they bring happy memories to mind and she opens the book with a discussion of their origin story, what role they played in her own life, and how this product illustrates larger cultural issues. But she doesn't stop there. She explores snacks from many different angles, including personal, economic, cultural, and in terms of gender. There is so much packed into this small, readable, thought-provoking, informative book. It's not meant to be a definitive history of snack foods, but rather "an idiosyncratic take on snacks and snacking" (p. 11) She points out that the book is primarily focused on the US, but through the lens of the author, "a middle-class Asian-American woman, a child of immigrants, who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s." (p 12) She does a fine job of starting with her own experiences and expanding out to look at the larger cultural issues they illustrate, while reminding readers that, "the category of snacks is capacious, changeable, and culturally, historically, and individually dependent." (p 12)
This book is part of the Object Lessons series, which aims to describe the hidden lives of everyday objects. I'll be seeking out more books in this series because I found this book to be fascinating and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.
This book is part of the Object Lessons series, which aims to describe the hidden lives of everyday objects. I'll be seeking out more books in this series because I found this book to be fascinating and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and Netgalley for the advance review copy! As always all opinions shared in this review are 100% my own.
Snack by Eurie Dahn is an essay collection that is part-memoir and part-history where the author takes us on a journey through the snacks that shaped their life and explore them from a societal and cultural perspective. From childhood snacks to 'guilt-free' bites, the history of each snack (or group of snacks) to better explain how they came to back the status symbols they are today. And it isn't always pretty. In fact, the more I read through the essays, the more I realized once again just how corrupted the fast/ready food industry can be.
And, yet, we must admit that there are favourites that I don't think anyone can live without.
Overall, I found this a short, albeit fun, read. As an immigrant myself, I could relate to the author's experiences and attachments to certain foods. I admit that when I picked up the book, I thought it would be digging a bit deeper when it comes to the history of snacking, but I enjoyed the author's voice and the pacing so much that, had it been more history-focused, we would have lost out on.
And now I am excited to read the rest of the series!
You can also find me on: Instagram (MoonlightCocoa) and Instagram (MoonlightCupOfStories)
Snack by Eurie Dahn is an essay collection that is part-memoir and part-history where the author takes us on a journey through the snacks that shaped their life and explore them from a societal and cultural perspective. From childhood snacks to 'guilt-free' bites, the history of each snack (or group of snacks) to better explain how they came to back the status symbols they are today. And it isn't always pretty. In fact, the more I read through the essays, the more I realized once again just how corrupted the fast/ready food industry can be.
And, yet, we must admit that there are favourites that I don't think anyone can live without.
Overall, I found this a short, albeit fun, read. As an immigrant myself, I could relate to the author's experiences and attachments to certain foods. I admit that when I picked up the book, I thought it would be digging a bit deeper when it comes to the history of snacking, but I enjoyed the author's voice and the pacing so much that, had it been more history-focused, we would have lost out on.
And now I am excited to read the rest of the series!
You can also find me on: Instagram (MoonlightCocoa) and Instagram (MoonlightCupOfStories)
February 5, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the advance copy of Snack by Eurie Dahn.
This was my first introduction to Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, though we have a number in the library already, and I really loved how personal and thoughtful Dahn’s exploration felt. Snack blends cultural history, memoir, and critical reflection in a way that makes something seemingly small feel surprisingly rich and complex. I especially enjoyed the discussions of snacks within popular culture, as well as the thoughtful looks at diet culture, class, and identity, which added depth without ever feeling heavy-handed.
There are some really interesting narrative threads woven throughout, and the chapter on fruits and vegetables made me genuinely laugh out loud. It’s a smart, engaging read that feels perfectly sized for its subject, and I would absolutely recommend picking up this snack-sized text.
This was my first introduction to Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, though we have a number in the library already, and I really loved how personal and thoughtful Dahn’s exploration felt. Snack blends cultural history, memoir, and critical reflection in a way that makes something seemingly small feel surprisingly rich and complex. I especially enjoyed the discussions of snacks within popular culture, as well as the thoughtful looks at diet culture, class, and identity, which added depth without ever feeling heavy-handed.
There are some really interesting narrative threads woven throughout, and the chapter on fruits and vegetables made me genuinely laugh out loud. It’s a smart, engaging read that feels perfectly sized for its subject, and I would absolutely recommend picking up this snack-sized text.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I love this series, and this addition did not disappoint. It's the perfect mix of history and facts, set solidly in the context of the author's experience. Some of it is a bit (literally) foreign, since she is American and snacks are quite a regional thing. She also grounds the history in the context of herself as a Korean American. Eurie Dahn is not trying to cover the whole history of snacks and snacking, but to provide some insights into the influences and effects that this phenomena has. It's interesting, informative and covers a lot of ground, putting snacks and snacking in social, historical, gendered and other contexts. On top of the facts, this was enjoyable, interesting and entertaining.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic Publishers for the free eArc in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic Publishers for the free eArc in exchange for an honest review.
November 2, 2025
This was my second time reading a work in the Object Lessons book/essay series. Dahn explores the culture and history of the snack through an accessible, and often personal, lens. I enjoyed the essays, which meandered from Flamin' Hot Cheetos to cheese crackers to deeper topics like race, class, ethnicity, etc. This was a quick, and often unexpected, read - perfect for curious minds.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the advance reader's digital copy. #Snack #NetGalley
Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the advance reader's digital copy. #Snack #NetGalley
November 6, 2025
This is my first time reading the Object Lesson series and Snack is a very fascinating read. As a fan of food science books, this reads more like a snack/junk food dissertation in the best way possible. Very informative with variable sources and examples, I quite enjoyed reading this and would definitely read it again!
I received this ARC book complimentary from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I received this ARC book complimentary from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you Netgalley and Eurie Dahn for sending me this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This was a really interesting read. I loved learning the history of different types of snacks! There was also a lot about how snacking is influenced by diet culture and also where you grew up in the world, and your family history too. It was educational, and very entertaining at the same time. Eurie has a great sense of humor, and it comes through well in their writing.
This was a really interesting read. I loved learning the history of different types of snacks! There was also a lot about how snacking is influenced by diet culture and also where you grew up in the world, and your family history too. It was educational, and very entertaining at the same time. Eurie has a great sense of humor, and it comes through well in their writing.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I quite enjoyed this one. It's a short book that has a few essays on what snacks are and their place in our culture. She also brings in some of her own viewpoint as an Asian American women which I found quite interesting. It's not a detailed history, but it gave me quite a bit to chew on about class, race, marketing, and more.
The writing is easy and readable with a bit of charming humor. She's also able to convey her thoughts well.
ARC provided by Netgalley & Bloomsbury Academic
The writing is easy and readable with a bit of charming humor. She's also able to convey her thoughts well.
ARC provided by Netgalley & Bloomsbury Academic
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