Food and Love: A Cultural History of East and West

by Jack Goody

Overview

The development of romantic love, the evolution of national and regional cuisines, the globalization of Chinese food, the histories of various taboos on certain types of food and drink, the uniqueness of the European family—such are the fascinating and diverse themes Goody addresses in Food and Love.

Starting with a sustained discussion of the debates on social development in the thought of classic theorists as well as contemporary historical and sociological notions of modernization, Goody goes on to tease out the general historical processes embedded in the most intimate recesses of our lives. In a final bracing section challenging dominant relativist conceptions, Goody considers the difficulties and complexities of cross cultural and comparative analysis, and he picks apart the doubts involved in the very process of representation and symbolic communication.

Throughout this collection, Goody demonstrates that the ethnocentricity of much of Western scholarship has distorted not only the comprehension of the East but also developments in the European past and present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781844674381
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	03/15/2010
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Jack Goody is Professor of Anthropology at Cambridge University and a Fellow of St. John’s College. His publications include The East in the West, The Culture of Flowers, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, and Food and Love.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

Part I Family 27

1 The East in the West 29

2 The uniqueness of the European family? 45

3 Comparing family systems in Europe and Asia: are there different sets of rules? 59

4 Women, class and family 79

5 Love, lust and literacy 96

Part II Food 125

6 Food, family and feminism 127

7 Structuralism, materialism and the horse 148

8 The globalisation of Chinese food 161

9 Why no wine on the table? 172

Part III Doubts 183

10 The Great and Little Traditions in the Mediterranean 185

11 A kernel of doubt 203

12 Man and the natural world: reflections on history and anthropology 222

13 Creation and evolution 239

14 Civil society in a comparative perspective 261

Bibliography 279

Index 297