Sameness in Diversity: Food and Globalization in Modern America

by Laresh Jayasanker, Carol Helstosky (Foreword by)

Overview

Americans of the 1960s would have trouble navigating the grocery aisles and restaurant menus of today. Once-exotic ingredients—like mangoes, hot sauces, kale, kimchi, and coconut milk—have become standard in the contemporary American diet. Laresh Jayasanker explains how food choices have expanded since the 1960s: immigrants have created demand for produce and other foods from their homelands; grocers and food processors have sought to market new foods; and transportation improvements have enabled food companies to bring those foods from afar. Yet, even as choices within stores have exploded, supermarket chains have consolidated. Throughout the food industry, fewer companies manage production and distribution, controlling what American consumers can access. Mining a wealth of menus, cookbooks, trade publications, interviews, and company records, Jayasanker explores Americans’ changing eating habits to shed light on the impact of immigration and globalization on American culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520343955
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/14/2020
Series:	California Studies in Food and Culture , #72
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Laresh Jayasanker (1972–2018) was Associate Professor of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver and the author of numerous articles on food in US history.

Table of Contents

List of Tables
Foreword by Carol Helstosky
Editor’s Note

Introduction
1. The Globalization of the Fruit and Vegetable Trade
2. The Consolidation and Globalization of Grocery Stores
3. Marketing Ethnic Foods at Supermarkets
4. The Changing American Restaurant
5. Cookbooks Navigate the Globe
6. Indian Restaurants in America: A Case Study in Translating Diversity
7. Chinese Food from Chinatown to the Suburbs
8. Tortilla Politics
Conclusion: What Is an Authentic Taco?

List of Abbreviations Used in Notes and Bibliography
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Tensions between homogenizing and diversifying influences in the supply chain throw uncertainty on what we now mean by ‘authenticity’ when it comes to food and culture. This book would appeal to social scientists, anthropologists, historians and the general public."

Nature

"The book’s wide range of topics . . . affords an opportunity, especially for non-specialists, to explore many important issues related to agriculture and food in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century United States."

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Tensions between homogenizing and diversifying influences in the supply chain throw uncertainty on what we now mean by ‘authenticity’ when it comes to food and culture. This book would appeal to social scientists, anthropologists, historians and the general public."

Nature Lib