Bite Me: Food in Popular Culture

by Fabio Parasecoli

Overview

Food is not only something we eat, it is something we use to define ourselves. Ingestion and incorporation are central to our connection with the world outside our bodies. Food's powerful social, economic, political and symbolic roles cannot be ignored - what we eat is a marker of power, cultural capital, class, ethnic and racial identity.

Bite Me considers the ways in which popular culture reveals our relationship with food and our own bodies and how these have become an arena for political and ideological battles. Drawing on an extraordinary range of material - films, books, comics, songs, music videos, websites, slang, performances, advertising and mass-produced objects - Bite Me invites the reader to take a fresh look at today's products and practices to see how much food shapes our lives, perceptions and identities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845207618
Publisher:	Berg Publishers
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Fabio Parasecoli is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Food Studies at the New School in New York City. Among his publications are Food Culture in Italy and Bite Me: Food and Popular Culture (2008).

FABIO PARASECOLI, based in Rome, writes on and teaches about Italian food and food history and represents the Italian media firm Gambero Rosso in New York City.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: Pop Culture Drama: Food and Body Politics
Chapter 2: Hungry Memories: Food, the Brain and the Consuming Self
Chapter 3: Of Breasts and Beasts: Vampires and other Voracious Monsters
Chapter 4: Tasty Utopia: Food and Politics in Science Fiction
Chapter 5: Quilting the Empty Body: Food and Dieting
Chapter 6: Jam, Juice, and Strange Fruit: Edible Black Bodies
Chapter 7: Tourism and Taste: Exploring Identities
Afterword: A Plea for Pleasure

Editorial Reviews

In Bite Me, Fabio Parasecoli gives us a riveting tour of the role of food in popular culture. Parasecoli takes a fresh and wonderfully analytical look at the deeper societal meanings of such matters as vampires, South Park, and the Atkins diet - subjects not often perceived as grist for scholarly mills. Never has semiotics been so much fun.” —Marion Nestle, New York University

“Parasecoli's analysis takes on vampires, aliens, body builders and booty, rap lyrics, and culinary tourism in a whirlwind ride that is deeply engaging, genuinely impassioned, and refreshingly saucy.” —A. B. Audant, CHOICE Magazine

“Parasecoli is a scholar with a heart. His writing is genuinely brilliant and genuinely genuine; his approach is refreshing, with lively and original material. Bite Me is an important book that will gain relevance as we advance into the frenetic zone of our century's second decade. There is little doubt that Parasecoli will be at the forefront with all the lines of communication and media open and at the ready.” —Gastronomica

From the Publisher