Consuming Culture

by Jeremy MacClancy

Why do some pregnant American women eat clay? Why do Cornish women blush at the mention of skate? What is the secret of a healthy diet in Papua New Guinea? Consuming Culture is about why we eat what we eat - and what our eating habits say about us. Original, witty, and provocative, this world tour of food cultures shows how food relates to sex, to the culinary snakes and ladders of meat versus vegetables, and to the often baffling rules of eating etiquette. The first book to investigate the human fascination with food, Consuming Culture explains how food makes friends or enemies of us all and why many societies, including our own, are obsessed with eating what is bad for them. "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are," French gastronome Brillat-Savarin declared. To the Aboriginals of Australia it is fried witchetty grubs; to the Bameka of Cameroon it is spiced cat stew. As this pioneering work demonstrates, the use of food in different cultures a round the world is by turns perverse, fascinating, disquieting, and, above all, deeply revealing. From the psychology of supermarkets to the cuisine of trench warfare, from the diet industry to cannibalism, Consuming Culture gives valuable - and often hilarious - insight into the importance of food in our society. It will be an essential source of reference for life in the 1990s.

Genres: Food

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Briana Gilmore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this two stars only because I couldn't read the whole thing and so then felt bad giving it only one. I can't imagine why this author felt entitled to write this book. It is anecdotal, poorly researched, and lacks an objective narrative. None of the sparsely documented information is shared in a thorough or thoughtful way, but rather reads like the notes of someone preparing to undertake about 3 dozen ethnographic studies. It is insulting that someone has butchered my most inspired academic and personal topic--the reasons we consume what we do--and turned it into an orientalized, postmodern fiction in which rituals and custom are denigrated to the point of comedy. phoom.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay, but barely. Waver between giving this 1 or a 2 stars. An initially interesting but largely anecdotal, Brit-heavy, piece of fluff that skims the surface, grows tired, is ultimately forgettable, and does not deliver on it's promise as a history and study of why different cultures eat what they eat. Don't waste your time, there are better things to read.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

An spotty, amusing overview of the culture of food, with some oddly intense interest is a few obscure rainforest tribes. A beach read, not much more. If you live near a beach.