How to Use This Book

In putting out the call for submissions to this book, we prompted our contributors to think about the distinctions and interconnections among food matter, food meaning, and food movement. They responded to this prompt, and each chapter both highlights how these different elements are also inseparable. Some texts may foreground the symbolic, traditional importance of, say, Green Bean Casserole, while others demonstrate how fermentation can transform not just molecules but also the cultural and economic significance of a given food stuff.

We encourage you to note for yourself what elements come forward as you read and listen and look. Does a chapter about backyard chicken polices make you think about municipal governments, the architecture of hen houses, or maintaining neighbourly relationships? Do the sounds of Cuban ice cream street vendors make your mouth water? Do they raise questions about the history of sugar production? Do they make you want to travel?

We also asked our contributors to format their chapters in one of three ways: as a Case, a Creative, or a Perspective. Cases look at more ground-level examples of food system contexts, from food in the Polynesian country of Sāmoa to the practices of artisan cheesemakers in Vermont to the communications challenges facing migrant farm workers in Canada. Creatives come at food from more oblique angles, visualizing the sense of closeness one can have with pollinators, or using poetry to shout, cry, and laugh about food’s emotional impacts. Perspectives pull the reader up to a broader view of things, sometimes of the invisible but powerful effects of financialization, sometimes of how eating and identity can produce both a sense of belonging and problematic effects of isolation and othering.

Overall, the book is organized within a loose, thematic evolution. We start with subjects that are close to everyone’s personal experience: food-making, the self, and the intimate meanings that food conveys. Subsequent chapters flow into questions about the relationships among humans, other living things, and the places and issues that food production and consumption implicate. Toward the latter part of the book, more challenging themes are presented, including the morals and ethics of meat, the complexities of financialization and law, and the intersecting futures of digital technology, people, and food. As much as we could, we created a certain logic in the transitions from one chapter to another—whether creative or more concrete—so as to help readers identify or build connections among them.

Abbreviated chapter titles summarize the main focus of each, noting also the format (Case, Creative, or Perspective) that the chapter takes. The authors’ own, more expansive titles then follow, deepening the framing they have used. Author biographies also appear at the top of each chapter, intentionally positioning themselves and their text, all in support of critical reading. Learning objectives follow, guiding students and teachers to attend to key elements of the text, whether more factual or more synthetic. (Creatives do not include learning objectives, largely to enable more subjective and open-ended reading of what follows. We encourage teachers to use these chapters in both guided and unguided ways, and to propose to students ways they can think about what these pieces suggest.)

Most chapters include one or more highlighted glossary terms; clicking on a link will bring up our interpretation of that term, which is sometimes more generalized and sometimes more specific to food or to the chapter’s content. It should be noted that these terms are neither definitive nor exhaustive; as with much knowledge related to food, word meanings are pluralistic. Many terms also cross chapters and show connectivity among themes.

Overall, we have attempted to keep references and citations to a minimum, both to support an accessible, generalized reading experience and to help readers grasp key aspects of the text without extensive distraction. Bibliographies and additional resources are nonetheless included, to give teachers and learners prompts for further exploration. Similarly, discussion questions and exercises follow most chapters, enabling the text to serve as a jumping off point for a broader classroom exploration, debate, and customization.