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Object Lessons
Burger
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
The burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to the efforts, by investors like Bill Gates, to seek to find the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burger's identity has become as malleable as that patty of protein, itself, before it is thrown on a grill. Carol Adams's Burger is a fast-paced and eclectic exploration of the history, business, cultural dynamics and gender politics of the ordinary hamburger.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
The burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to the efforts, by investors like Bill Gates, to seek to find the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burger's identity has become as malleable as that patty of protein, itself, before it is thrown on a grill. Carol Adams's Burger is a fast-paced and eclectic exploration of the history, business, cultural dynamics and gender politics of the ordinary hamburger.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
160 pages, Paperback
Published March 8, 2018
4 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
About the author
Carol J. Adams
80 books344 followersCarol J. Adams is a feminist-vegetarian theorist and author of books on eco-feminism and the links between species oppression and gender oppression.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 28, 2018
OBJECT LESSONS is a book series that looks at an everyday idea or product, and explores it more in-depth. And there is a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to the ordinary hamburger, posits author Carol J. Adams.
I appreciated the lens through which burger culture, advertising, history and future was appraised. Adams is both a feminist and a vegan, and I think that she could take a more clear-eyed, critical look at the burger than could an author who does not identify in these ways. In short, I think she was just the right person to write this book.
What is a hamburger? The ubiquitous fast-food burger owes its existence to the mechanization of meat and factory farming. The highly subsidized industry makes burgers cheap and the industrial-style approach to agriculture makes them identical and predictable. Adams notes that the largest portion of fast-food beef is made from “retired” dairy cows. She quotes a dairy farmer: “I like the way cows finish. They go right from productivity to death. One day they’re productive animals and the next day they’re hamburger.” (So if you’re wondering why a person might go from vegetarian to vegan…)
But the meat industry isn’t just an unpleasant place for animals. Slaughterhouses have a workforce turnover rate of nearly 100% per year. Writer Eric Schlosser identified meatpacking as the most dangerous job in the US, with injury rates three times higher than those in a typical American factory.
Adams draws from her credentials as a feminist author in particular looking at how hamburgers are marketed. From Burger King’s “manly men” roaring that they won’t eat “chick food” to the blatant sexual imagery of Carl’s Jr. ads, there’s a lot to draw from on this topic. One of “Hustler”’s most infamous covers showed a woman’s leg going into a hamburger grinder, and Adams spends some time talking about the cultural imagery of the meat grinder. (Not long ago, I saw a patron in my library wearing a t-shirt from a regional burger chain. It pictured a meat grinder with the word “MOOOO” going in one end and “MMMMM” coming out the other. I mused on this—is this what average America likes? Is the idea of an animal going into a grinder—alive, no less—funny, appetizing, appealing? I don’t know.)
From mad cow disease to e.coli to global warming, the hamburger has had a lot of criticism thrown at it over the years, a lot to atone for. Yet the machine still keeps grinding away, and people keep on buying the product. Adams says that the hamburger, and I would argue meat in general, is a “Teflon” product. It rebounds from crisis after crisis; all criticisms just slide off it.
But this is a book not just about hamburgers, but all burgers. Those who assume the veggieburger is a product of the 60s, 70s, 80s or even later are way off. The first sighting of a veggieburger-type product is from the late 19th century! Meat rations during wartime also accelerated the growth of meat-free meats. Adams reproduces an ad from 1941 for a variety of plant-based meats for the Lenten season. (Ironically, I live in a part of the country with a lot of Lent observers, and restaurants and grocery stores all go berserk with fish—even though I can say with confidence that veggie meats are a hell of a lot better than they were in 1941. The only places that heavily push actual vegetarian items are the pizza shops—if only because most Americans won’t accept fish on pizza.)
Yet, the communities developing vegetarian burgers and other meats in America soldiered on, before finally becoming (somewhat) visible in the 1980s and 90s. Adams called it a “largely invisible community with a largely invisible economy.” I would argue that it is still this way, to a degree. There are some incredible vegan products out there—yes, even in the grocery and big-box stores and restaurants folks patronize daily—yet most people remain completely unaware of them.
Indeed, the meat industry seems to thrive on the human tendency toward inertia and force of habit. BURGER reproduces a few ads from the 80s and 90s for various veggieburgers—I enjoyed the nostalgia, and I also realized that this is where most omnivores’ conception of these products seem to be stuck. (I’ve had people tell me that they tried a veggieburger 15 or 20 years ago and didn’t like it—this is as maddening as someone saying they tried using the Internet 15 or 20 years ago and didn’t like it—so they never used a computer again.)
While many omnis have an outdated view of bland, grainy sandwiches, the vegan meat industry continues to grow and innovate by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile we have vegan burgers that sizzle, bleed….before you know it, they’ll be crying real tears and saying “ma-ma.”
How will the future burger be produced? Will it be made of plants? Or will it be made in the laboratory, “growing” animal muscle sans the animal herself? The founder of Beyond Meat compares the growth in plant-based and “clean meat” tech to the cellphone displacing the landline telephone. “I was struck by the idea that we’ve innovated and removed bottlenecks in every part of industry but not in agriculture.”
While opponents of plant-based and clean meats draw upon fears of technology and change, the beef hamburger exists now because of technology. There’s nothing more “natural” about it than a non-meat burger. From the feedlot to the rapid line of the slaughterhouse to the process of grinding the flesh and fat and forming it into patties itself, it’s all mechanization and technology. The antibiotics and hormones injected into nearly every cow to promote growth and hold off disease, technology once again.
Whether the reader is omnivore or vegan, there’s a lot of food for thought in BURGER.
I appreciated the lens through which burger culture, advertising, history and future was appraised. Adams is both a feminist and a vegan, and I think that she could take a more clear-eyed, critical look at the burger than could an author who does not identify in these ways. In short, I think she was just the right person to write this book.
What is a hamburger? The ubiquitous fast-food burger owes its existence to the mechanization of meat and factory farming. The highly subsidized industry makes burgers cheap and the industrial-style approach to agriculture makes them identical and predictable. Adams notes that the largest portion of fast-food beef is made from “retired” dairy cows. She quotes a dairy farmer: “I like the way cows finish. They go right from productivity to death. One day they’re productive animals and the next day they’re hamburger.” (So if you’re wondering why a person might go from vegetarian to vegan…)
But the meat industry isn’t just an unpleasant place for animals. Slaughterhouses have a workforce turnover rate of nearly 100% per year. Writer Eric Schlosser identified meatpacking as the most dangerous job in the US, with injury rates three times higher than those in a typical American factory.
Adams draws from her credentials as a feminist author in particular looking at how hamburgers are marketed. From Burger King’s “manly men” roaring that they won’t eat “chick food” to the blatant sexual imagery of Carl’s Jr. ads, there’s a lot to draw from on this topic. One of “Hustler”’s most infamous covers showed a woman’s leg going into a hamburger grinder, and Adams spends some time talking about the cultural imagery of the meat grinder. (Not long ago, I saw a patron in my library wearing a t-shirt from a regional burger chain. It pictured a meat grinder with the word “MOOOO” going in one end and “MMMMM” coming out the other. I mused on this—is this what average America likes? Is the idea of an animal going into a grinder—alive, no less—funny, appetizing, appealing? I don’t know.)
From mad cow disease to e.coli to global warming, the hamburger has had a lot of criticism thrown at it over the years, a lot to atone for. Yet the machine still keeps grinding away, and people keep on buying the product. Adams says that the hamburger, and I would argue meat in general, is a “Teflon” product. It rebounds from crisis after crisis; all criticisms just slide off it.
But this is a book not just about hamburgers, but all burgers. Those who assume the veggieburger is a product of the 60s, 70s, 80s or even later are way off. The first sighting of a veggieburger-type product is from the late 19th century! Meat rations during wartime also accelerated the growth of meat-free meats. Adams reproduces an ad from 1941 for a variety of plant-based meats for the Lenten season. (Ironically, I live in a part of the country with a lot of Lent observers, and restaurants and grocery stores all go berserk with fish—even though I can say with confidence that veggie meats are a hell of a lot better than they were in 1941. The only places that heavily push actual vegetarian items are the pizza shops—if only because most Americans won’t accept fish on pizza.)
Yet, the communities developing vegetarian burgers and other meats in America soldiered on, before finally becoming (somewhat) visible in the 1980s and 90s. Adams called it a “largely invisible community with a largely invisible economy.” I would argue that it is still this way, to a degree. There are some incredible vegan products out there—yes, even in the grocery and big-box stores and restaurants folks patronize daily—yet most people remain completely unaware of them.
Indeed, the meat industry seems to thrive on the human tendency toward inertia and force of habit. BURGER reproduces a few ads from the 80s and 90s for various veggieburgers—I enjoyed the nostalgia, and I also realized that this is where most omnivores’ conception of these products seem to be stuck. (I’ve had people tell me that they tried a veggieburger 15 or 20 years ago and didn’t like it—this is as maddening as someone saying they tried using the Internet 15 or 20 years ago and didn’t like it—so they never used a computer again.)
While many omnis have an outdated view of bland, grainy sandwiches, the vegan meat industry continues to grow and innovate by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile we have vegan burgers that sizzle, bleed….before you know it, they’ll be crying real tears and saying “ma-ma.”
How will the future burger be produced? Will it be made of plants? Or will it be made in the laboratory, “growing” animal muscle sans the animal herself? The founder of Beyond Meat compares the growth in plant-based and “clean meat” tech to the cellphone displacing the landline telephone. “I was struck by the idea that we’ve innovated and removed bottlenecks in every part of industry but not in agriculture.”
While opponents of plant-based and clean meats draw upon fears of technology and change, the beef hamburger exists now because of technology. There’s nothing more “natural” about it than a non-meat burger. From the feedlot to the rapid line of the slaughterhouse to the process of grinding the flesh and fat and forming it into patties itself, it’s all mechanization and technology. The antibiotics and hormones injected into nearly every cow to promote growth and hold off disease, technology once again.
Whether the reader is omnivore or vegan, there’s a lot of food for thought in BURGER.
April 2, 2018
Burger by Carol J. Adams is a short book which tells the history of the burger, from it's origins and definitions, to the huge rise in consumerism with companies such as McDonalds. It also looked at what the future will hold for this food and the rise in plant-based diets and what this means for a food that is such a staple for many diets across the world.
It was interesting to read about the culture and consumerism which surrounds the burger and it's clear that this book was very well researched and gave a great insight. This book is fairly short, which makes it a great read to learn something new about a very niche item.
It was interesting to read about the culture and consumerism which surrounds the burger and it's clear that this book was very well researched and gave a great insight. This book is fairly short, which makes it a great read to learn something new about a very niche item.
December 30, 2017
(Note: I received an advanced electronic copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)
I admittedly opened up “Burger” expecting a work that was going to be first and foremost a history, with very quick snippets about various cultural aspects sprinkled throughout. Suffice to say, my assumptions did not match up to reality. The history is only one part of a very in-depth overview, which covered everything from the environmental effects of burger consumption, to the themes of sexual objectification that are still so shockingly prevalent in its marketing nearly all across the board, and all the way to the fascinatingly rich history of vegetarian burger substitutes.
As I read, I found that the burger speedily transformed from something that I still occasionally enjoy into a symbol of unsustainable production systems, environmental degradation, toxically outdated ideas of masculinity, and overall something that I personally feel more inclined to avoid. However, this isn’t a result of heavy-handed sermonizing from the author. Rather, if anything it feels more like the natural progression of Adams’ succinct but still fairly detailed overviews of the burger’s past, its present impact here in the modern day, and it’s potentially brighter, plant-based future (a future that frankly now feels like it can’t come soon enough for this reader).
For anyone who enjoys a good micro-history, or would simply like to know all the ins and outs of this all-American food, this is a very informative and enjoyable work that can be easily knocked out in the course of a day.
I admittedly opened up “Burger” expecting a work that was going to be first and foremost a history, with very quick snippets about various cultural aspects sprinkled throughout. Suffice to say, my assumptions did not match up to reality. The history is only one part of a very in-depth overview, which covered everything from the environmental effects of burger consumption, to the themes of sexual objectification that are still so shockingly prevalent in its marketing nearly all across the board, and all the way to the fascinatingly rich history of vegetarian burger substitutes.
As I read, I found that the burger speedily transformed from something that I still occasionally enjoy into a symbol of unsustainable production systems, environmental degradation, toxically outdated ideas of masculinity, and overall something that I personally feel more inclined to avoid. However, this isn’t a result of heavy-handed sermonizing from the author. Rather, if anything it feels more like the natural progression of Adams’ succinct but still fairly detailed overviews of the burger’s past, its present impact here in the modern day, and it’s potentially brighter, plant-based future (a future that frankly now feels like it can’t come soon enough for this reader).
For anyone who enjoys a good micro-history, or would simply like to know all the ins and outs of this all-American food, this is a very informative and enjoyable work that can be easily knocked out in the course of a day.
November 17, 2017
I've defined this series on multiple occasions in the past as discursive, academic, autobiographical tomes that look at things you'd never consider being worthy of a book to themselves, the bookshelf being one such instance (and one instance of the series being completely successful and enjoyable). There have been countless volumes about the burger, however - yet this one is a prime cut among the reconstituted pink shit. You need cattle ferried to the US by the Spanish invaders, and land stolen from the Natives, and the typical American immigrant to invent a typical American hamburger. And nowadays you have to account for all the ecological waste it takes in producing it - the land for the cattle, the water and other resources it wastes, and the methane it farts out. And you have to weigh up that you're eating a lump of gunk whose meat content could fit in a matchbox, and that can still contain the DNA of up to a 1000 animals. Any page of this book will testify as to why such a thing is worth such erudite discussion, any page will prove this is accessible to almost all readers, and any page with its lack of the personal pronoun will show this series the way to go. Very good indeed, if never exactly something to be read solely for pleasure.
December 15, 2021
Premier essai que je lis de Carol J. Adams (bien que je connaisse bien les thèses de The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory et que j'en ai sûrement lu des extraits), j'avoue ne pas avoir été déçu de la critique féministe (et un peu décolonial) dans la déconstruction du "burger" américain.
Après un aperçu un peu plus historique qui n'hésite pas à confronter frontalement les questions de colonisation et de destruction des terres et animaux (dont la quasi-extinction des bisons) pour faire place à un élevage bovin et de l'agriculture pour les nourrir, on a le droit à une critique du capitalisme derrière l'établissement du burger dans la société américaine (à travers McDonald, White Castle et Burger King) et une critique féministe de la vente du burger (qui rejoint très probablement des thèses de The Pornography of Meat).
La grande surprise pour moi sont les nombreux chapitre consacré au burger végétarien et/ou végétalien, autant de la description de cette histoire, que des technologies développées pour ces créations, que de leur lien avec les Adventists, et de l'industrie qui se développe pour répondre au besoin écologique/du consommateur. J'ai trouvé l'autrice un peu décevante par moment concernant les Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat et autres entreprises qui développaient ces produits, on la voyait en admiration devant les tours d'entreprise alors qu'une critique anti-capitaliste aurait quand même dû pondre (ou alors, je ne l'ai pas vu) et nuancer un peu cette utopie du végéburger.
Un ouvrage toutefois très intéressant, pertinent, et vraiment vraiment idéal comme "propagande féministe et végan déguisée" qu'on peut offrir à un peu tout le monde.
Après un aperçu un peu plus historique qui n'hésite pas à confronter frontalement les questions de colonisation et de destruction des terres et animaux (dont la quasi-extinction des bisons) pour faire place à un élevage bovin et de l'agriculture pour les nourrir, on a le droit à une critique du capitalisme derrière l'établissement du burger dans la société américaine (à travers McDonald, White Castle et Burger King) et une critique féministe de la vente du burger (qui rejoint très probablement des thèses de The Pornography of Meat).
La grande surprise pour moi sont les nombreux chapitre consacré au burger végétarien et/ou végétalien, autant de la description de cette histoire, que des technologies développées pour ces créations, que de leur lien avec les Adventists, et de l'industrie qui se développe pour répondre au besoin écologique/du consommateur. J'ai trouvé l'autrice un peu décevante par moment concernant les Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat et autres entreprises qui développaient ces produits, on la voyait en admiration devant les tours d'entreprise alors qu'une critique anti-capitaliste aurait quand même dû pondre (ou alors, je ne l'ai pas vu) et nuancer un peu cette utopie du végéburger.
Un ouvrage toutefois très intéressant, pertinent, et vraiment vraiment idéal comme "propagande féministe et végan déguisée" qu'on peut offrir à un peu tout le monde.
June 26, 2020
This is one of those nonfiction books that is All About One Thing. In this case, the burger. Which if you're interested, there's really a lot to say about. It's the quintessential American "cuisine" that everyone likes to mock. But its various origin stories (there are many) from across the land provide an interesting historical study.
Other cultures like to linger over a several-hours-long meal, with lots of courses, time spent, and conversation. Americans need a meal you can eat while walking, because we are always on-the-go (so the stereotype goes). Hence the burger.
You'd never guess for the first part of this book (the historical part) that this book was written by a vegan. The later part of the book goes into the most recent trend of plant-based burgers, and how this isn't just about hippie animal rights, it's about the catastrophic effect on climate change that animal production costs the planet (worse than transportation). As the world's population balloons, this will become unsustainable, and it's just just the hippies saying it.
Other cultures like to linger over a several-hours-long meal, with lots of courses, time spent, and conversation. Americans need a meal you can eat while walking, because we are always on-the-go (so the stereotype goes). Hence the burger.
You'd never guess for the first part of this book (the historical part) that this book was written by a vegan. The later part of the book goes into the most recent trend of plant-based burgers, and how this isn't just about hippie animal rights, it's about the catastrophic effect on climate change that animal production costs the planet (worse than transportation). As the world's population balloons, this will become unsustainable, and it's just just the hippies saying it.
July 28, 2024
A very interesting and thought-provoking read! Adams covers everything from animal rights to environmental issues to gender/sexuality to class. A great intro point to this series of books.
March 7, 2018
Everything (plus more) that anyone wants or needs to know about burgers.
Burger is part of a Bloomsbury Academic series of object lessons. Each brief book takes a noun and writes an interesting essay about it. Each is written by a different author. I really enjoyed Souvenir (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which I gave 4 stars. It was chock full of relevant and not-well-known information about the history and reason for souvenirs.
Burger fails, at least to me, to meet the interesting requirement of this series. It starts well with the history of cattle beginning as aurochs. Those are the same animals depicted in famous French cave art circa 17000 BC. It explains how the overhunting of the Buffalo after the Civil War allowed for free cattle grazing on government land and cattle drives to centralized Chicago slaughterhouses. There was also a chapter explaining how dairy cows are slaughtered in detail. It included a brief discussion of the first burger chain, White Castle, and burger drive-thru, Jack in the Box.
However, subsequent chapters were not to my taste and seemed off subject. How the names of burgers like the Thickburger and the Whopper were covertly referring to men’s erections. How commercials showing woman eating large burgers were implying they were experienced eating large meat (wink, wink). Some of the topics seemed to have been found by a random Google search. For example, how Vietnam and World War I had “burger terms”, Hamburger Hill and the Meat Grinder respectively, for battlefields where soldiers’ odds were not good. The Mad Cow disease scare, anti-animal rights acts, greenhouse gases caused by cows and several chapters on veggie and laboratory burgers’ history and future seemed added just to reach a certain word count or perhaps to further a meatless agenda. Overall, I can’t recommend this book. 1 star.
Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Burger is part of a Bloomsbury Academic series of object lessons. Each brief book takes a noun and writes an interesting essay about it. Each is written by a different author. I really enjoyed Souvenir (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which I gave 4 stars. It was chock full of relevant and not-well-known information about the history and reason for souvenirs.
Burger fails, at least to me, to meet the interesting requirement of this series. It starts well with the history of cattle beginning as aurochs. Those are the same animals depicted in famous French cave art circa 17000 BC. It explains how the overhunting of the Buffalo after the Civil War allowed for free cattle grazing on government land and cattle drives to centralized Chicago slaughterhouses. There was also a chapter explaining how dairy cows are slaughtered in detail. It included a brief discussion of the first burger chain, White Castle, and burger drive-thru, Jack in the Box.
However, subsequent chapters were not to my taste and seemed off subject. How the names of burgers like the Thickburger and the Whopper were covertly referring to men’s erections. How commercials showing woman eating large burgers were implying they were experienced eating large meat (wink, wink). Some of the topics seemed to have been found by a random Google search. For example, how Vietnam and World War I had “burger terms”, Hamburger Hill and the Meat Grinder respectively, for battlefields where soldiers’ odds were not good. The Mad Cow disease scare, anti-animal rights acts, greenhouse gases caused by cows and several chapters on veggie and laboratory burgers’ history and future seemed added just to reach a certain word count or perhaps to further a meatless agenda. Overall, I can’t recommend this book. 1 star.
Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
March 16, 2018
Full disclosure: I've published many of Carol Adams' books at Lantern Books (lanternbooks.com), and I'm a vegan—so I'm predisposed to like this author and her perspectives. Adams' supple, syncretic, and always interesting thought processes are on full display here. What may surprise readers of her other books is the relaxed, amused, and often playful tone in which she has written this monograph. BURGER notes that this quintessential American food product is quintessentially American in that its cultural identity and history are claimed by many regions and owned by none, and that flimflam and salesmanship are fundamental to its market dominance. Bloomsbury's series encourages polemics and quick-wittedness, and Adams has plenty of both in BURGER, which nonetheless encourages us to think much more broadly about our relationship to food and identity than the comestible's make up. Consider this book the appetizer before the main meal, which (if you haven't read it) is Adams' THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MEAT, also from Bloomsbury. If you have, then you might like NEITHER MAN NOR BEAST, which is also newly available from Bloomsbury.
November 3, 2017
A Burger is in the Eye of the Beholder
(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for allusions to violence against women, and actual violence against nonhuman animals.)
Published by Bloomsbury, Object Lessons "is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things." I was both surprised and a little exhilarated to see that the author of Burger, the latest addition to the series, is none other than ecofeminist Carol J. Adams, she of The Sexual Politics of Meat fame. If anyone could restore the absent referent - the 32.5 million+ cows slaughtered annually in the U.S. alone - to a conversation about hamburgers, it would be her.
Since this is my first experience with Object Lessons, I wasn't sure what to expect. The book is both wider ranging and perhaps more scattershot than I anticipated. Particularly in the early chapters, Adams adopts a writing style that feels almost stream of consciousness, which often left me a feeling a little discombobulated. (To be fair, I read an early copy six months ahead of the release date; the finished copy will likely be a little more polished. This goes double for the weird and obviously incomplete formatting, which made the narrative even harder to follow.)
Adams brings a vegan-feminist perspective to the, ahem, table; your thoughts on this will likely vary according to your own dietary and ethical preferences. Personally, I loved it; I think Adams shines brightest when addressing the intersection of animal exploitation and misogyny, such as in chapter four, "Woman Burger". (Pro tip: if you enjoyed this, definitely pick up The Pornography of Meat - which, imho, is much more accessible than The Sexual Politics of Meat, and thus perfect for newcomers to the topic.)
Even though I've read quite a lot of her previous work, it's clear that there's still so much to learn; her discussion of Seventh-day Adventists' (led by women members) influence on early veggie burgers, as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's demand for day care and cooked-food services, proved fascinating. There are so many random little factoids (see e.g. barbed wire's contribution to animal agriculture) sprinkled like tasty little morsels throughout Burger. Perhaps it requires a second reading to truly savor it all?
Yet what makes this book stand out is also what works against it: any book about the cultural significance of the hamburger that weighs in at a mere 160 pages (less if you exclude the references, which are many) is bound to feel incomplete. Still, it's a compelling read, and just might encourage casual readers to explore some of Adams's other work. (We can only hope!)
3.5 stars.
Table of contents
1. Citizen Burger
2. Hamburger
3. Cow Burger
4. Woman Burger
5. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Burger and Other Modernist Hamburger Identity Crises
6. Veggie Burger
7. Moon Shot Burger
Afterword: Slippage
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Notes
Index
http://www.easyvegan.info/2018/03/08/...
(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for allusions to violence against women, and actual violence against nonhuman animals.)
Toward the end of a very long evening in which Harold and Kumar overcome a variety of obstacles in their pursuit of a White Castle hamburger, Kumar makes a speech about the meaning of immigration to the United States. In his telling, hamburgers form the heart of being a citizen of the United States.
"So you think this is just about the burgers, huh? Let me tell you, it’s about far more than that. Our parents came to this country, escaping persecution, poverty, and hunger. Hunger, Harold. They were very, very hungry. They wanted to live in a land that treated them as equals, a land filled with hamburger stands. And not just one type of hamburger, okay? Hundreds of types with different sizes, toppings, and condiments. That land was America. America, Harold! America! Now, this is about achieving what our parents set out for. This is about the pursuit of happiness. This night . . . is about the American dream."
The symbolism of the hamburger may seem fixed (equal to the entire United States), yet Kumar did not consume White Castle hamburgers in the movie scenes. The actor who plays Kumar, Kal Penn (Kalpen Suresh Modi) is a vegetarian and ate veggie burgers. Ten years before White Castle introduced a vegetarian slider to its customers, they custom-made veggie sliders for Penn to consume as Kumar.
Why do the history and technologies of violence central to the hamburger remain unacknowledged? The violence could be invoked as a reminder of masculine identity and conservatism, something [Michael] Pollan himself celebrates when he goes boar hunting. It could also have been claimed as part of the human identity.
True, the bovine is more pacific and in general less dangerous than a carnivore; killing a bovine might be seen as a less virile activity than killing carnivores. Still, a narrative of violence might have been developed to celebrate hamburger eating. The question becomes not how do we understand the violence at the heart of the hamburger, but why isn’t the hamburger celebrated for the violence at its heart?
Published by Bloomsbury, Object Lessons "is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things." I was both surprised and a little exhilarated to see that the author of Burger, the latest addition to the series, is none other than ecofeminist Carol J. Adams, she of The Sexual Politics of Meat fame. If anyone could restore the absent referent - the 32.5 million+ cows slaughtered annually in the U.S. alone - to a conversation about hamburgers, it would be her.
Since this is my first experience with Object Lessons, I wasn't sure what to expect. The book is both wider ranging and perhaps more scattershot than I anticipated. Particularly in the early chapters, Adams adopts a writing style that feels almost stream of consciousness, which often left me a feeling a little discombobulated. (To be fair, I read an early copy six months ahead of the release date; the finished copy will likely be a little more polished. This goes double for the weird and obviously incomplete formatting, which made the narrative even harder to follow.)
Adams brings a vegan-feminist perspective to the, ahem, table; your thoughts on this will likely vary according to your own dietary and ethical preferences. Personally, I loved it; I think Adams shines brightest when addressing the intersection of animal exploitation and misogyny, such as in chapter four, "Woman Burger". (Pro tip: if you enjoyed this, definitely pick up The Pornography of Meat - which, imho, is much more accessible than The Sexual Politics of Meat, and thus perfect for newcomers to the topic.)
Even though I've read quite a lot of her previous work, it's clear that there's still so much to learn; her discussion of Seventh-day Adventists' (led by women members) influence on early veggie burgers, as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's demand for day care and cooked-food services, proved fascinating. There are so many random little factoids (see e.g. barbed wire's contribution to animal agriculture) sprinkled like tasty little morsels throughout Burger. Perhaps it requires a second reading to truly savor it all?
Yet what makes this book stand out is also what works against it: any book about the cultural significance of the hamburger that weighs in at a mere 160 pages (less if you exclude the references, which are many) is bound to feel incomplete. Still, it's a compelling read, and just might encourage casual readers to explore some of Adams's other work. (We can only hope!)
3.5 stars.
Table of contents
1. Citizen Burger
2. Hamburger
3. Cow Burger
4. Woman Burger
5. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Burger and Other Modernist Hamburger Identity Crises
6. Veggie Burger
7. Moon Shot Burger
Afterword: Slippage
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Notes
Index
http://www.easyvegan.info/2018/03/08/...
November 4, 2017
An interesting exposé of burgers and all the things related to this deliciousness. The book was very well researched.
October 8, 2020
Burger by Carol J. Adams is a look at perhaps the most American sandwich. Adams is a feminist-vegan advocate, activist, and independent scholar and the author of numerous books including her pathbreaking The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, now in a Bloomsbury Revelations edition celebrating its 25th anniversary. She is the co-editor of several important anthologies, including most recently Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (with Lori Gruen). The Carol J. Adams Reader: Writings and Conversations 1995-2015 appeared in the fall of 2016.
I didn’t know anything about the author when I picked up this book and myself, a vegetarian, questioned why I picked it up. Hamburgers are ground beef and something that I no longer eat, but there is something about a burger that goes back to childhood cookouts, Fourth of July barbeques, and that feeling of, for lack of a better word, America. I have tried the many veggie burgers out there and they have gotten much better over the years, but there is something about the ideal of burger that is missing. It’s much like when a meat eater grabs a turkey burger bites in and something just isn’t quite the same.
I am old enough to remember the days of a neighborhood butcher shop with a side of beef in the back and the butchers cutting meat for customers. Adams also mentions that older people never cared for prepackaged ground beef. One was expected to pick a piece chuck or sirloin and asked to have it ground. I recall the same experience in the 1980s in Western Europe. There may not have been a real reason for that back then, but today in the age of pink slime and industrial scale slaughterhouses your beef burger can have the DNA of 1,000 different cows. That piece of beef that used to make your burger now comes from countless pieces.
Adams covers the history of the burger as well as paying tribute to its place in America from the hamburger stand to McDonald's to LBJ’s special burger. Of course, there are the aspects of industrial-scale slaughter, waste holding ponds, and methane production. Alternatives are also covered as well as a history of veggie burgers and now companies involved in animal product sales are interested in them. Tyson now owns 5% of Beyond Meat, a pea protein-based vegan meat substitute.
Bloomsbury Academic releases this series “Object Lessons” on common items and their secret lives and histories. Common items have more of a story to them one usually expects. Burger is an excellent addition to a well-written series.
I didn’t know anything about the author when I picked up this book and myself, a vegetarian, questioned why I picked it up. Hamburgers are ground beef and something that I no longer eat, but there is something about a burger that goes back to childhood cookouts, Fourth of July barbeques, and that feeling of, for lack of a better word, America. I have tried the many veggie burgers out there and they have gotten much better over the years, but there is something about the ideal of burger that is missing. It’s much like when a meat eater grabs a turkey burger bites in and something just isn’t quite the same.
I am old enough to remember the days of a neighborhood butcher shop with a side of beef in the back and the butchers cutting meat for customers. Adams also mentions that older people never cared for prepackaged ground beef. One was expected to pick a piece chuck or sirloin and asked to have it ground. I recall the same experience in the 1980s in Western Europe. There may not have been a real reason for that back then, but today in the age of pink slime and industrial scale slaughterhouses your beef burger can have the DNA of 1,000 different cows. That piece of beef that used to make your burger now comes from countless pieces.
Adams covers the history of the burger as well as paying tribute to its place in America from the hamburger stand to McDonald's to LBJ’s special burger. Of course, there are the aspects of industrial-scale slaughter, waste holding ponds, and methane production. Alternatives are also covered as well as a history of veggie burgers and now companies involved in animal product sales are interested in them. Tyson now owns 5% of Beyond Meat, a pea protein-based vegan meat substitute.
Bloomsbury Academic releases this series “Object Lessons” on common items and their secret lives and histories. Common items have more of a story to them one usually expects. Burger is an excellent addition to a well-written series.
March 8, 2018
As the author of ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat’ and ‘The Pornography of Meat’, Carol J. Adams is very well placed to write a book on the cultural history of the burger for Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series. In her slim volume this cheap single-portion edible protein source is carefully considered from multiple perspectives, including interspecies history, environmental history, national history and gender politics.
The elements you’d expect to see – the McDonald Brothers and Ray Kroc, Burger King, Wendy’s and other hamburger-centred franchises; veggie burgers; plant-based burgers; and clean meat burgers (using meat grown through cellular agriculture) – are all covered, and in addition there are interesting sidelights on topics such as the popular association in the United States between democratic rights and animal flesh eating; or the way in which the production line disassembly of carcasses at meatpacking plants inspired Ford’s assembly line production of cars, which in turn inspired the McDonald brothers’ hamburger assembly line.
Adams is a self-proclaimed vegan-feminist and traditional ground beef hamburgers, or, more precisely, those who produce and sell that product, are clearly the villains of her text.
She certainly makes out a persuasive case for the ecological damage attendant upon the beef industry, in terms of fossil fuel use, ground-water depletion, agricultural chemical pollution and methane and ammonia emissions, as well as making out a strong case for alternative forms of burgers being just as, or even more, tasty and considerably more environmentally friendly.
It is a pity, though, that the author’s passion for her cause sometimes tempts her into making problematic statements. For example, isn’t it something of a leap to claim that the fact that a Korean War conflict was named Pork Chop Hill, whilst a battle in the Vietnam War was named Hamburger Hill reflects the fact that cow flesh consumption outpaced pig flesh consumption from 1960, especially given that in the former instance the relevant topography vaguely resembled a pork chop? And whilst it may be true that “The fast-food hamburger industry floods popular culture with depictions of the sexual objectification of women” it is sadly hardly unique in that. In fact the real challenge would be in finding a product which has not, at some time in its history, been marketed by means of the sexual objectification of women.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting book, literally full of much food for thought, and a worthy addition to an impressive series.
The elements you’d expect to see – the McDonald Brothers and Ray Kroc, Burger King, Wendy’s and other hamburger-centred franchises; veggie burgers; plant-based burgers; and clean meat burgers (using meat grown through cellular agriculture) – are all covered, and in addition there are interesting sidelights on topics such as the popular association in the United States between democratic rights and animal flesh eating; or the way in which the production line disassembly of carcasses at meatpacking plants inspired Ford’s assembly line production of cars, which in turn inspired the McDonald brothers’ hamburger assembly line.
Adams is a self-proclaimed vegan-feminist and traditional ground beef hamburgers, or, more precisely, those who produce and sell that product, are clearly the villains of her text.
She certainly makes out a persuasive case for the ecological damage attendant upon the beef industry, in terms of fossil fuel use, ground-water depletion, agricultural chemical pollution and methane and ammonia emissions, as well as making out a strong case for alternative forms of burgers being just as, or even more, tasty and considerably more environmentally friendly.
It is a pity, though, that the author’s passion for her cause sometimes tempts her into making problematic statements. For example, isn’t it something of a leap to claim that the fact that a Korean War conflict was named Pork Chop Hill, whilst a battle in the Vietnam War was named Hamburger Hill reflects the fact that cow flesh consumption outpaced pig flesh consumption from 1960, especially given that in the former instance the relevant topography vaguely resembled a pork chop? And whilst it may be true that “The fast-food hamburger industry floods popular culture with depictions of the sexual objectification of women” it is sadly hardly unique in that. In fact the real challenge would be in finding a product which has not, at some time in its history, been marketed by means of the sexual objectification of women.
Nevertheless, this is an interesting book, literally full of much food for thought, and a worthy addition to an impressive series.
Read
April 15, 2020I can't give this book a star rating because I have only myself to blame for not liking it. This is the first Object Lesson book I've read and I imagine they vary greatly depending on the subject and the author's take on it.
Burger reads like a series of essays. Some are more intriguing than others. There's nothing wrong per se with the book but it is super liberal. It's almost as if the author is trying to find reasons to disparage conservative figures. For example, the author begins her chapter on the veggie burger like so: "Like the hamburger, the veggie burger has conflicting origin stories. A 2014 Smithsonian article traced the meatless burger only as far as 1982, crediting a British inventor of a boxed veggie burger. Conservative US talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (who knew he was even interested?) credits the multinational food corporation Archer Daniels Midland in that same decade for creation of the veggie burger." (p 87). Why take a dig at Rush Limbaugh? A strange choice.
In this book you can expect to find almost all fast food chains disparaged as well as eating cow in general. The author finds a way to highlight the poor decision making of several conservative figures.
I don't actually have a problem with most of the critiques raised. Fast food businesses have done some shady things, they've contributed to rape culture in the way they advertise their food, the U.S. has a lot to answer for for destroying the buffalo, etc etc. But it seemed like everything raised about the burger and the West was just bad news. It was if nothing good could come out of red meat eating or, frankly, the West for all its racist, genocidal, earth killing ways.
I went into the book knowing there would be a fair amount of critique but didn't expect it to be quite so much I suppose. So, it's nothing against the author or the book, I just don't think I am the right reader for this particular title.
Burger reads like a series of essays. Some are more intriguing than others. There's nothing wrong per se with the book but it is super liberal. It's almost as if the author is trying to find reasons to disparage conservative figures. For example, the author begins her chapter on the veggie burger like so: "Like the hamburger, the veggie burger has conflicting origin stories. A 2014 Smithsonian article traced the meatless burger only as far as 1982, crediting a British inventor of a boxed veggie burger. Conservative US talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (who knew he was even interested?) credits the multinational food corporation Archer Daniels Midland in that same decade for creation of the veggie burger." (p 87). Why take a dig at Rush Limbaugh? A strange choice.
In this book you can expect to find almost all fast food chains disparaged as well as eating cow in general. The author finds a way to highlight the poor decision making of several conservative figures.
I don't actually have a problem with most of the critiques raised. Fast food businesses have done some shady things, they've contributed to rape culture in the way they advertise their food, the U.S. has a lot to answer for for destroying the buffalo, etc etc. But it seemed like everything raised about the burger and the West was just bad news. It was if nothing good could come out of red meat eating or, frankly, the West for all its racist, genocidal, earth killing ways.
I went into the book knowing there would be a fair amount of critique but didn't expect it to be quite so much I suppose. So, it's nothing against the author or the book, I just don't think I am the right reader for this particular title.
February 14, 2018
I didn't know that the author was a vegan prior to reading this book but you learned that quickly. I think she was paid per use of "cow flesh" although I lost track of how many times she did. I'd be curious to see how a vegan or stronger feminist took her book.
Still, I enjoyed her take on the burger's role through American political, social and physical history. It's kind of crazy the paths a simple food item has taken. While many books cover Ray Kroc, fewer look into White Castle, Carl's/Hardees, Burger KIng and the others that have littered the American landscape over time.. I hadn't remembered Burger King's Whopper Virgins promotions and its historical overlay with the colonies was a wonderful rabbit hole.
Although I didn't enjoy this as much as the others in the Object Lessons series, I was glad to have had the chance to read it via NetGalley.
Still, I enjoyed her take on the burger's role through American political, social and physical history. It's kind of crazy the paths a simple food item has taken. While many books cover Ray Kroc, fewer look into White Castle, Carl's/Hardees, Burger KIng and the others that have littered the American landscape over time.. I hadn't remembered Burger King's Whopper Virgins promotions and its historical overlay with the colonies was a wonderful rabbit hole.
Although I didn't enjoy this as much as the others in the Object Lessons series, I was glad to have had the chance to read it via NetGalley.
January 7, 2023
Not the best book to start the new year....
I was expecting a history of the burger and its place in our current global culture. Ms. Adams touched on that, but mostly this was about how burgers represent everything wrong in the world. Environmental issues, mass production of food, even toxic masculinity are all blamed on the burger. Finally, the book delves into the vegetarian options that should replace this outdated construct.
It would be more honest to title this book "anti-burger". Maybe a vegetarian isn't the most objective person to capture this history? I enjoy the Object Lessons series but not this chapter. Disappointing.
I was expecting a history of the burger and its place in our current global culture. Ms. Adams touched on that, but mostly this was about how burgers represent everything wrong in the world. Environmental issues, mass production of food, even toxic masculinity are all blamed on the burger. Finally, the book delves into the vegetarian options that should replace this outdated construct.
It would be more honest to title this book "anti-burger". Maybe a vegetarian isn't the most objective person to capture this history? I enjoy the Object Lessons series but not this chapter. Disappointing.
March 12, 2018
I read this over the course of three work trips, eating burgers in hotel restaurants alone (that's why it took me so long to read – I don't often eat burgers or in hotel restaurants, but it seemed appropriate). I did find this interesting, and it was a great balance of factual historical detail and sociological analysis. However, at times the author's opinions on whether we should or shouldn't eat meat (she very clearly thinks we shouldn't) affected the otherwise quite fairly-balanced text. I do love the Object Lessons series though – I'm happy to read all of them.
April 15, 2018
Another interesting little book from the Object Lessons series. I particularly enjoyed this one as it is one of the more straightforward ones – some of them tend to be a bit airy-fairy and esoteric and I like facts! Here we have an account of the history, development, definition and future of the humble – or perhaps not-so-humble – burger. The author explores its cultural and societal significance, and even manages to bring in gender politics. Who’d have thought there was so much to say about that often maligned meat patty. Entertaining and informative.
November 1, 2017
Burger the all American favorite.Another wonderful entry in this unique series of different objects.The Burger from the Boca Burger that the Clintons introduced to us a vegetarian burger that tasted almost as good as the real thing to Macdonalds and on to an overview of burgers sellers & consumers.Behind the scene fun& scandals highly recode day .Thanks to NetGalley &Bloomsbury academic for advance readers copy for honest review
May 30, 2019
One in Bloomsbury's 'Object Lessons' series (objectsobjectsobjects.com), Adam offers a fascinating and exhaustive lesson on the history and evolution of the burger.
July 15, 2020
Brief on history & commercialization of burger eating in USA.
November 30, 2023
I do not like this book. Having to read it for a class is the only reason I finished.
December 2, 2018
I admit I had a hard time getting into this one initially, I think as a result of the series format. I felt a bit like I had mental whiplash, because there is so much information to be had on the history of the burger and it had to be done so succinctly. It is a bit like playing hopscotch. That being said, after a short while I adapted to the format and found myself learning new things. Some of the stuff I knew, but I supposed it doesn't hurt to be reminded of the atrocities associated with meat production (well, it hurts, it is painful to read, but I guess it can be considered necessary, and reminders are good, even when they're difficult).
I like the way Adams transitions us from the meat burger to the various types of veggie burgers, but I am a little bit at a loss about the lab-raised meat issue. She doesn't seem to support or reject these, and perhaps that is because it is too early yet to tell how these things will fare; perhaps it is because she tries to be a little more objective than in her writing about the sexual politics of meat. But it is Carol Adams, and anyone who has read her work or seen her presentations or lectures knows where she stands. I find lab-raised meat to be problematic, and was therefore interested in her opinion.
In any case, she also throws in some lovely perceptions about meat and sexism, which is always fascinating - the connections are so cringeworthy!
This is a great little read, loaded with information, and I recommend it. (It took me so long to read because I have been reading so many books at once, and as a new book came up for our book group, I would set this one aside and read that. Really, this can be read in a day or two without a problem.)
I like the way Adams transitions us from the meat burger to the various types of veggie burgers, but I am a little bit at a loss about the lab-raised meat issue. She doesn't seem to support or reject these, and perhaps that is because it is too early yet to tell how these things will fare; perhaps it is because she tries to be a little more objective than in her writing about the sexual politics of meat. But it is Carol Adams, and anyone who has read her work or seen her presentations or lectures knows where she stands. I find lab-raised meat to be problematic, and was therefore interested in her opinion.
In any case, she also throws in some lovely perceptions about meat and sexism, which is always fascinating - the connections are so cringeworthy!
This is a great little read, loaded with information, and I recommend it. (It took me so long to read because I have been reading so many books at once, and as a new book came up for our book group, I would set this one aside and read that. Really, this can be read in a day or two without a problem.)
to-start-soon
November 12, 2017A digitized ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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