San Antonio College Library

"Paul Mullins turns his attention to the simple doughnut in order to learn more about North American culture and society. Doughnuts cross lines of gender, class, and race like no other food item. Favorite doughnut shops that were once neighborhood institutions remain unchanged even as their surrounding neighborhoods have morphed into strip clubs, empty lots, and abandoned housing." "Mullins offers a look into doughnut production, marketing, and consumption....

Whether you call them franks, wieners, or red hots, hot dogs are as American as apple pie, but how did these little links become icons of American culture? Man Bites Dog explores the transformation of hot dogs from unassuming street fare to paradigms of regional expression, social mobility, and democracy. World-renowned hot dog scholar Bruce Kraig investigates the history, people, decor, and venues that make up hot dog culture and what it says about...

Answers questions about the role of food in American life, showing how food expresses and shapes American eating habits and culture.

"In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time. It's a tale that moves from curiosity...

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....

"For many Americans, eating is a religion. We worship at the temples of celebrity chefs. We raise our children to believe that certain foods are good and others are bad. We believe that if we eat the right foods, we will live longer, and if we eat in the right places, we will raise our social status. Yet what we believe to be true about food is, in fact, quite contradictory. Part expose, part social commentary, The Gospel of Food is a rallying cry...

"By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the nation's rapidly growing cities. Red Meat Republic tells the remarkable story of the violent conflict...

From the Gilded Age to the end of World War II, what, where, when, and how Americans ate all changed radically. Migration to urban areas took people away from their personal connection to food sources. Immigration, primarily from Europe, and political influence of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific brought us new ingredients, cuisines, and foodways. Technological breakthroughs engendered the widespread availability of refrigeration, as...

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...

Beer culture has grown exponentially in the United States, from the days of Prohibition to the signing of HR 1337 by then-President Jimmy Carter, which legalized homebrewing for personal and household use, to the potential hop shortage that all brewers are facing today. This expansion of the culture, both socially and commercially, has created a linguistic and cultural turn that is just now starting to be fully recognized. The contributors of Beer...