San Antonio College Library

Discusses why beliefs vary on what is good and what is bad to eat. Food taboos tell us much about society, and they change only as quickly as society does. War and famine, which change societies drastically, are perhaps the strongest motivators for change in which foods are considered acceptable to eat. Why do we prefer sweet to bitter foods? Why do we find certain foods repellant? The reaction of disgust toward a particular food is based on our knowledge...

Loaded with tips on everything from navigating neighborhood restaurant menus to making smart choices in the drive-thru to cutting cash and calories at the country's largest chain restaurants, Eat This, Not That! Restaurant and Fast-Food Survival Guide is the indispensable encyclopedia to the world of eating out.

This volume brings together ethnographically based anthropological analyses of shifting meanings and representations associated with the foods, ingredients, and cooking practices of marginalized and/or indigenous cultures. Contributors are particularly interested in how these foods intersect with politics, nationhood and governance, identity, authenticity, and conservation. The chapters cover diverse locales, issues, and foods ... A conceptual essay...

"Humans have an appetite for food, and anthropology--as the study of human beings, their culture, and society--has an interest in the role of food. From ingredients and recipes to meals and menus across time and space, Eating Culture is a highly engaging overview that illustrates the important role that anthropology and anthropologists have played in understanding food. Organized around the sometimes elusive concept of cuisine and the public discourse--on...

"One-third of the world's human population is sensitive to certain foods due to your genes' interactions with them." "Formerly misunderstood as "genetic disorders," many of these sensitivities are now considered to be adaptations that our ancestors evolved in response to the dietary choices and diseases they faced over millennia in particular landscapes. They are liabilities only when we are "out of place," on globalized diets depleted of certain...

How people eat reveals to an astonishing degree all of the other qualities of their society. A look at an American fast-food restaurant is as diagnostic of culture as a New Guinea headhunter's shopping list of edible relatives. Beginning with an explanation of what happens to a steak dinner--and to you--when you eat it, Farb constructs a fascinating demonstration of the connections between eating habits and human behavior, explaining, for example,...

Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is an account of how food has helped to shape societies around the world, from the emergence of farming in China by 7,500 BCE to today's use of sugar cane and corn to make ethanol.

The Taste of America is a compendium of the best food in the USA. From the finest artisan cheeses to the fieriest chili sauce to the juiciest oysters, it is a celebration of the very best food produced in America, selected by renowned food expert and passionate eater, Colman Andrews. It covers 250 of the most exceptional food products manufactured and on sale in the USA (whether on a small or a large scale), with an emphasis on those with distinctive...

Uses a variety of methodological perspectives to demonstrate that throughout time black people have used both overt and subtle food practices to resist white oppression. "The fifteen essays collected in Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop utilize a wide variety of methodological perspectives to explore African American food expressions from slavery up through the present. The volume offers fresh insights into a growing field beginning to reach maturity....