Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage (Heritage, Culture and Identity) - Hardcover

Brulotte, Ronda L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1409442632 ISBN 13: 9781409442639

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

Food - its cultivation, preparation and communal consumption - has long been considered a form of cultural heritage. A dynamic, living product, food creates social bonds as it simultaneously marks off and maintains cultural difference. In bringing together anthropologists, historians and other scholars of food and heritage, this volume closely examines the ways in which the cultivation, preparation, and consumption of food is used to create identity claims of 'cultural heritage' on local, regional, national and international scales. Contributors explore a range of themes, including how food is used to mark insiders and outsiders within an ethnic group; how the same food's meanings change within a particular society based on class, gender or taste; and how traditions are 'invented' for the revitalization of a community during periods of cultural pressure. Featuring case studies from Europe, Asia and the Americas, this timely volume also addresses the complex processes of classifying, designating, and valorizing food as 'terroir,' 'slow food,' or as intangible cultural heritage through UNESCO.By effectively analyzing food and foodways through the perspectives of critical heritage studies, this collection productively brings two overlapping but frequently separate theoretical frameworks into conversation.

About this title

Review:

'How can something as perishable as food become a concrete connection with the past? This imaginative and sophisticated collection of case studies shows us how cuisines can both unite and divide people, connecting daily routine meals with lofty ideals of nationality and global citizenship. It is full of convincing evidence that communities are not just imagined, they are also eaten.' ----- Richard Wilk, Indiana University, USA

'This is an excellent book. For those with an interest in food, heritage and tourism (separately and combined), it is a valuable academic text; for everyone else, it is still valuable as an important read.' -----Journal of Heritage Tourism, 2015

About the Author:

Ronda L. Brulotte is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and faculty affiliate with the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico. Michael A. Di Giovine is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a member of the American Anthropological Association's Task Force on Cultural Heritage.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1409442632
• ISBN 13: 9781409442639
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252
• Editor: Giovine Michael A. Di