The Cultural Feast: An Introduction to Food and Society

In The Cultural Feast; an Introduction to Food and Society, theauthors have sought, at the most basic level, to describe humans andtheir relationships to food. More specifically, the cultural growing pains of food exploitation are investigated in great detail. From the most basic and simple form of food acquisition to the complexity of organic chemistry and understanding of organismal development, this introductory text charts the history of humans and food. It is seemingly intuitive that food has altered culture, after all it is culture that serves as the main conduit for acquiring knowledge of techniques to most readily utilize food sources. However, less recognized is the fact that culture has changed food. Although this is widely accepted in some circles the instances of such change when thought of by most people today would probably relate to the genetic manipulations that have become increasingly common within the last few years. To think of recent cultural practices that change the face of food is appropriate, but humanity has a long history of such manipulation and in that context the manipulation that is taking place today makes much more sense, and is less shocking when viewed in that light. It would seem that sections of these chapters could be made into entire books or foci of lifelong research and so in this regard the authors' had a daunting task in making this book. The overview of the interrelationship of culture and food was quite extensive and gave plenty of examples of real world people who had passed through or were in each of the categories presented. Politics, religion, and economics are all critical factors in human dietary patterns and were well represented. This book serves well as a generalized introduction to the discipline of nutritional anthropology and leaves the reader with enough cursory exposure to fuel the desire for more specific information on the topics introduced. *Please note that having given this book 4 stars relates to its usefulness as a textbook...which is what this book is.