Food Words: Essays in Culinary Culture

摘要

Looking through the contents page of this book, it would be easy to conclude that it is an encyclopaedia of food in society. Beginning with advertising and ending with work, it is (almost) an A-Z of issues relating to food. However, to view it in such simplistic terms would be to do it a considerable injustice. Indeed, the book is far more ambitious in both content and scope than a cursory glance might suggest. As the introduction notes, there is more than one way to read the book, and this is one of its core strengths. It will indeed be of interest to a wide audience for its short but authoritative essays on a wide range (61) of topics. But its ambition extends beyond this, aiming 'to map out the shifting meanings of our core vocabulary as applied to the interdisciplinary forms of food studies' (p. 2).