Uncovering the Past: Documentary Readers in American History: Food and Eating in America: A Documentary Reader (Hardcover)

Description

Guides students through a rich menu of American history through food and eating This book features a wide and diverse range of primary sources covering the cultivation preparation marketing and consumption of food from the time before Europeans arrived in North America to the present-day United States. It is organized around what the authors label the Four P s –production politics price and preference–in order to show readers that food represents something more than nutrition and the daily meals that keep us alive. The documents in this book demonstrate that food we eat is a highly condensed social fact that both reflects and is shaped by politics economics culture religion region race class and gender. Food and Eating in America covers more than 500 years of American food and eating history with sections on: An Appetizer: What Food and Eating Tell Us About America; Hunting Harvesting Starving and the Occasional Feast: Food in Early America; Fields and Foods in the Nineteenth Century; Feeding a Modern World: Revolutions in Farming Food and Famine; and Counterculture Cuisines and Culinary Tourism. Presents primary sources from a wide variety of perspectives–Native Americans explorers public officials generals soldiers slaves slaveholders clergy businessmen workers immigrants activists African Americans Hispanics Asian Americans artists writers investigative reporters judges the owners of food trucks and prison inmates Illustrates the importance of eating and food through speeches letters diaries memoirs newspaper and magazine articles illustrations photographs song lyrics advertisements legislative statutes court rulings interviews manifestoes government reports and recipes Offers a new way of exploring how people lived in the past by looking closely and imaginatively at food Food and Eating in America: A Documentary Reader is an ideal book for students of United States history food and the social sciences. It will also appeal to foodies and those with a curiosity for documentary-style books of all kinds.