NUS Libraries

   Central Library

An Acquired Taste

The Significance of Food in Everyday Life

Have you ever wondered how culture influences the food that we eat? Do you know some people think insects are the best food while others just cannot live without hot and spicy food? Learn more about the food business, the ingredients used in cooking and what we drink.

Tuck into our Vacation Reading List for 2005 to understand more about food and drink. This reading list is divided to 6 sections:

ä Cultural

ä Historical 

ä Social    

ä Food Business

ä Beverages

ä Ingredients    

Cultural

Carnal appetites: food, sex, identities / Elspeth Probyn.

London: Routledge, 2000.
BD450 Pro 2000 (CL Books)

Charts the explosion of interest in food - from the cults that spring up around celebrity chefs, to our love/hate relationship with fast food, our felicitation of food and sex, and the impact of our modes of consumption on our identities.

 

The cultural feast: an introduction to food and society / Carol A. Bryant, et al.

Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003. 2nd ed.

TX353 Cul 2003 (SC Books)

Examines the evolutionary and historical factors influencing human dietary practices, the relationship between food and culture, and nutrition problems.

The cultural politics of food and eating: a reader / edited by James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell.

Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

GT2850 Cul 2005  (CL Books)

Offers an ethnographically informed perspective on the ways in which people use food to make sense of life in an increasingly interconnected world. It includes studies from eleven countries across five continents on such hot topics as sushi, fast food, gourmet foods, and food scares and contamination.

The fine art of Japanese food arrangement / Yoshio Tsuchiya.

Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2002.

TX740.5 Tsu 2002  (CL Books)

Japanese cooking, it is often said, is to be eaten with the eyes. This guide illustrates the aesthetic delights of Japanese food presentation. The text demonstrates how beauty, colour, form and flavour are married within one presentation.

Food and love: a cultural history of East and West / Jack Goody.

London: Verso, 1998.

CB251 Goo (CL Books)

The development of romantic love, the evolution of national and regional cuisines, the histories of various taboos on certain types of food and drink, the uniqueness of the European family - are some of the fascinating and diverse themes addressed.

Food culture in China / Jacqueline M. Newman.

Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004.

TX724.5 Coo.Ne 2004  (CL Books)

Loaded with information on the cuisine's prominent role in Chinese culture. Learn about Chinese food history through the dynasties and Silk Road migrations up until today. Each chapter contains a number of recipes for a meal based on the specific topic.

Food culture in India / Colleen Taylor Sen.

Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004.

TX724.5 Ind.S 2004  (CL Books)

Covers the extreme diversity of Indian food culture. India has no national dish or cuisine; however, certain ingredients, dishes, and cooking styles are typical of much of the subcontinent's food ways.

Food culture in Japan / Michael Ashkenazi and Jeanne Jacob.

Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.

TX724.5 Jap.A 2003  (CL Books)

Provides a host of knowledge on Japanese foodstuffs, cooking styles, utensils, aesthetics, meals, etiquette, nutrition, and more.

Food in the USA: a reader / edited by Carole M. Counihan.

New York: Routledge, 2002.

GT2853 Uni.Fo 2002  (CL Books)

From Thanksgiving to fast food to anorexia nervosa, this collection looks at how and why Americans are what they eat.

Food, the body, and the self / Deborah Lupton.

London: Sage, 1996.

GT2850 Lup  (CL Books)

Explores the relationship between food and embodiment and the connection between emotions and subjectivity, and excellent in showing the ways in which food takes on moral meaning.

The invention of the restaurant: Paris and modern gastronomic culture / Rebecca L. Spang.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
TX910 Fra.Sp  (CL Books)

A book about the French Revolution in taste and of the table; a book about how Parisians invented the modern culture of food, thereby changing their own social life and that of the world.

The primal feast: food, sex, foraging, and love / Susan Allport.

New York: Harmony Books, 2000.

TX353 All  (CL Books)

Show how food affects the lives of every creature, from forest animal to dining room gourmet and probes connections between food sharing and human evolution, and between food and reproduction.

Tasting food, tasting freedom: excursions into eating, culture, and the past / Sidney W. Mintz.

Boston: Beacon, 1996.

GT2850 Min  (CL Books)

Examines how foods such as sugar, alcohol, chocolate, and tea, once limited to the rich and powerful, became accessible to the general populace, and how companies such as Coca Cola gained international recognition - exporting their products to even the most remote regions of the world.

Why some like it hot: food, genes, and cultural diversity / Gary Paul Nabhan.

Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004.

QH431 Nab 2004  (MD Books)

An award-winning natural historian takes us on a culinary odyssey to solve the puzzles posed by "the ghosts of evolution" hidden within every culture and its traditional cuisine. Offers us a view of genes, diets, ethnicity, and place that will forever change the way we understand human health and cultural diversity.

You eat what you are: people, culture and food traditions / Thelma Barer-Stein.

Willowdale, Ont.: Firefly, 1999.

GT2850 Bar  (SC Books)

Covers 170 different cultural groups, providing a culinary historical overview of a country, information on a particular culture's domestic life with reference to food and cooking, a survey of commonly used ingredients and foods, a section devoted to special occasions.

  Historical

All manners of food: eating and taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the present / Stephen Mennell.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. 2nd ed.

GT2853 Gre.Me  (CL Books)

A sweeping look at the parallel development of the two countries’ food and almost everything to do with it: fasting & gluttony, cookbooks, chefs & cooks, ‘court’ & ‘country’ food, table manners.

At the South-East Asian table / Alice Yen Ho.

Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995.

TX724.5 Sou.H (CL Books)

Explores the multifaceted aspects of food in South-East Asia: historical and sociological survey of South-East Asian food and eating habits, the ingredients and spices used in the region, the character of the food markets, the changing styles of the kitchens, and the different styles of cooking and eating that have evolved over the years.

The control of fuddle and flash: a sociological history of the regulation of alcohol and opiates / Jan-Willem Gerritsen.

Leiden: Brill, 2000.

HM1 Isss 76  (CL Books)

Provides a historical and comparative overview of the regulation of the use of alcohol and drugs in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Provides original insights into the political economy of regulatory regimes, and sheds new light on the contemporary debate on the 'drug problem'.

Culinary cultures of the Middle East / edited by Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper.

London: I.B. Tauris, 1994.

GT2853 Mid.Cu  (CL Books)

Explores the culinary cultures of the Middle East in a variety of contexts: history, sociology, geography, anthropology and literature, and covers a wide geographical area from Central Asia to Morocco.

Culture of the fork: a brief history of food in Europe / Giovanni Rebora.

New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

TX641 Cul  (CL Books)

Discoveries, travels, conquests, and expansions during the Renaissance introduced Europeans to exotic cultures, mores, manners, and ideas. The cross-fertilization between the Old and the New Worlds, the East and the West brought new foods, preparations, and flavours.

 

A history of food / Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat.

Oxford: Blackwell Reference, 1992.

TX353 Tou  (CL Books)

The book covers the history of foodstuffs, the story of cuisine and the social history of eating.

Magic harvest: food, folklore and society / Piero Camporesi.

Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998.

GT2853 Ita 1998  (CL Books)

A rich and wide-ranging account of the history of popular beliefs about food in Europe. Focusing on Italy, Camporesi examines the social symbolism of food, and its associated rituals.

Narratives of colonialism: sugar, Java, and the Dutch / G. Roger Knight.

Huntington, NY: Nova Science, 2000.

HD9116 Ind.K  (CL Books)

Examines the interwoven issues of sugar Java and the Dutch from a broadly post-colonial standpoint. Sugar's history forms one of the crucial meta-narratives of Western colonialism.

The spice route: from Europe to Asia / Harry Holcroft.

London: Pavilion, 2000.

HD9210 *Ind.H  (CL Books)

Artist Harry Holcroft visits over twenty countries across Europe and Asia as he retraces the path of the ancient spice routes. His diary conveys the idiosyncratic charm of these exotic lands and a unique collection of paintings and sketches capture the haunting atmosphere of some of the world's most evocative places from Venice to Cairo and Bombay to Java.

 

Social

The anthropology of food and body: gender, meaning, and power / Carole M. Counihan.

New York: Routledge, 1999.

GT2850 Cou  (CL Books)

Explores the way that making, eating, and thinking about food reveal culturally determined gender-power relations in diverse societies. It uses a cross-cultural approach to ask compelling questions about eating disorders, body dissatisfaction and gender differences around food.

Asian food: the global and the local / edited by Katarzyna Cwiertka with Boudewijn Walraven.

Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2002.

TX641 Asi (CL Books)

Tries to pinpoint the consequences of the tension between homogenisation and cultural heterogenisation. By focusing on Asian food ways, how the local and global forces negotiate new hybrid lifestyles, how new commodities become embedded in new cultures and how new identities are embraced through the acceptance and rejection of new forms of consumption is demonstrated.

Consumption, food and taste: culinary antinomies and commodity culture / Alan Warde.

London: Sage, 1997.

HC79 Con.Wa  (CL Books)

Provides an evaluation of current theories of consumption. It uses food as a case study of consumption and the expression of taste, and provides a structural analysis of changes and continuities in the representation and purchase of food.

Fast food nation: the dark side of the all-American meal / Eric Schlosser.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

TX354 Sch  (CL Books / HSSML Books / Online version)

A myth-shattering survey that stretches from the California to New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavours are concocted. Schlosser hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention and to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations.

The globalization of Chinese food / edited by David Y.H. Wu and Sidney C.H. Cheung.

London: Curzon, 2002.

GT2853 Chi.G (CL Books)

Describe changes, variations and innovations to Chinese food in many parts of the world.

 

Making fast food: from the frying pan into the fryer / Ester Reiter.

Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996. 2nd ed.

TX945 Rei (CL Books / HSSML Books)    

Analyses the profound consequences of the flourishing fast food industry for many spheres of life: women’s work, youth employment, the labour movement, the family, and the community.

Paradox of plenty: a social history of eating in modern America / Harvey Levenstein.

New York: Oxford University Press , 1993.

GT2853 Uni.Le (CL Books)

Author offers a sweeping social history of food and eating in America, exploring the economic, political, and cultural factors that have shaped the American diet from 1930 to the present.

Resisting McDonaldization / edited by Barry Smart.

London: Sage, 1999.

HF5415.32 Res (CL Books)

George Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis argued that contemporary life is succumbing to the standardization, flexibility and practicability of fast-food service. This book brings together specially commissioned papers by leading social and cultural analysts to engage in a critical appraisal of the thesis.

Sociologies of food and nutrition / Wm. Alex McIntosh.

New York: Plenum, 1996.

GT2855 Mcin  (CL Books)

Assesses the relationship between current social factors and empirical problems in food and nutrition, looking at the role of food within society and the changing nature of the food industry.

A sociology of food and nutrition: the social appetite / edited by John Germov and Lauren Williams.

South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, 2004. 2nd ed.

GT2855 Soc 2004 (CL Books)

Examines the social context of food and nutrition by exploring the socio-cultural, political, economic, and philosophical factors that influence food production and consumption.

 

Food Business

America's favorite food: the story of Campbell Soup Company / Douglas Collins.

New York: Abrams, 1994.

HD9330 Sou.C   (HSSML Books)

Campbell's origins go back to 1869, when Joseph Campbell and Abraham Anderson created a business in preserved foods.

 

Beer blast: the inside story of the brewing industry's bizarre battles for your money / Philip Van Munching.

New York: Times Business, 1997.

HD9397 *Uni.Va   (CL Books / HSSML Books)

A veteran of the beer wars (from the famous Van Munching clan, importers of Heineken) shares his wealth of colourful, often amazing stories about the personalities, battles, and follies of the beer business.

The Cola conquest [videorecording]: a trilogy / directed by Irene Angelico.

Montreal: DLI Productions, 1998.

HD9349 Sof.C pt.1-3 (CL Multimedia (Loans Desk 2) - CVC12670-1 - VIEW IN LIBRARY)

Tells the story of Coca-Cola, "the sublimated essence of all that America stands for," and its century-long battle with arch-rival Pepsi. Along the way, it explores the paradox at the heart of Coke: How does a soft drink, more than 99% sweetened water, come to wield enormous power and assume such significance in so many peoples' lives.

For God, country, and Coca-Cola: the unauthorized history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it / Mark Pendergrast.

New York: Maxwell Macmillan, 1993.

HD9349 Sof.C  (CL Books)

Reveals how Coke has irrevocably transformed our world. As family saga, cultural history, and, finally, the complete story of an American icon, this book is "the Real Thing.”

Golden arches east: McDonald's in East Asia / edited by James L. Watson.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.

TX945.5 Mac.G  (HSSML Books)

Analyzes consumers' reactions to McDonald's in five East Asian cities. Demonstrates how consumers have "localised" McDonald's.

Harvesting the dream: the rags-to-riches tale of the Sutter Home Winery / Kate Heyhoe and Stanley Hock.

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2004.

TP557 Hey 2004  (HSSML Books)

Chronicles the rich history of the Trinchero family, who emigrated from Italy to the United States during the 1920s and after decades of struggle, turned their small Napa Valley winery into one of the largest and most successful in the world.

Hungry corporations: transnational biotech companies colonise the food chain / Helena Paul and Ricarda Steinbrecher.

London: Zed Books, 2003.

HD9000.5 Pau 2003  (HSSML Books)

Looks at the hi-tech agro-chemical and genetic engineering companies that now dominate the food chain. Also covers the growing dominance of transnational corporations over many aspects of our lives.

McLibel: burger culture on trial / John Vidal.

New York: New Press, 1997.

KB182 Lib.V  (LW Books)

McLibel tells the story of the "McLibel Two" and the two-and-a-half-year trial in which the jeans-clad and impoverished defendants represented themselves against the best powdered-wig lawyers McDonald's could buy.

 

Pepsi: 100 years / Bob Stoddard.

Los Angeles: General, 1997.

TP630 Sto  (HSSML Books)

Pour your heart into it: how Starbucks built a company one cup at a time / Howard Schultz and Dori Jones Yang.

New York: Hyperion, 1997.

HD9199 *Uni.S   (CL Books / HSSML Books)          

Traces the growth of the company to a foundation of values seldom found in corporate America. A company that places as much importance on its employees as they do on profits, as much attention to creativity as to growth.

Reshaping work: the Cadbury experience / Chris Smith, John Child and Michael Rowlinson.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

HD9011.9 *Cad.S  (CL Closed Stacks - D25148 )

HD7453 *Cad.S)   (HSSML Books)

Focusing on Cadbury Ltd, this study provides an in-depth examination of the management of organizational change. The authors develop a new theory of organizational change which emphasizes the interaction between external market forces and internal management.

Rowntree and the marketing revolution, 1862-1969 / Robert Fitzgerald.

Cambridge: University Press, 1995.

HD9200 Gre.F  (HSSML Books)

Reveals the importance of marketing to the success of Rowntree, and makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of marketing and mass consumption in economic development. Rowntree was also a pioneer in managerial organization and industrial relations, as well as in marketing.

To the desert and back: the story of one of the most dramatic business transformations on record / Philip Mirvis, Karen Ayas and George Roth.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

HD9015 *Net.M 2003  (HSSML Books)

This book tells the story of dramatic turnaround of Unilver Bestfoods. Owner of some of the best known names like Lipton, Bertolli, Knorr. SlimFast, Dove, Pond’s, Signal, Close-up, Unox and Surf, the company was in crisis. The authors of this book describe how a workforce and its leaders created growth, energised the market and brought new spirit to a traditional and tired organisation. Accolades go to Louis Willem “Tex” Gunning who was the turnaround leader with a philosophy to grow people to grow the business.

  Beverages

A cup of Java / Gabriella Teggia and Mark Hanusz.

Jakarta: Equinox, 2003.

HD9199 Ind.T 2003 (CL Books)

Explores the history and culture of coffee on the island of Java.

Green gold: the empire of tea / Alan Macfarlane and Iris Macfarlane.

London: Ebury, 2003.

GT2905 Mac 2003  (CL Books)

Tells the story of how a humble East Himalayan camellia bush became the world’s favourite drink.

A history of beer and brewing / Ian S. Hornsey.

Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003.

TP573 Hor 2003  (CL Books)

Provides a comprehensive account of the history of beer and covers a time-span of around 8,000 years.

 

Liquid pleasures: a social history of drinks in modern Britain / John Burnett.

New York: Routledge, 1999.

TX815 Bur (CL Books)

Engrossing study of the social history of drinks in Britain from the late seventeenth century to the present.

The origins and ancient history of wine / edited by Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming and Solomon H. Katz.

Philadelphia: Gordon and Breach, 1995.

TP549 Ori  (CL Books)

Presents contemporary evidence scientific, archaeological, botanical, textual, and historical for major revisions in our understanding of winemaking in antiquity and offers wide ranging treatment of wine in the early history of western Asia and the Mediterranean.

A short history of wine / Rod Phillips.

New York: Ecco, 2000.

TP549 Phi  (CL Books)

Recounts the story of wine in the Western world with all its grandeurs and miseries.

Uncommon grounds: the history of coffee and how it transformed our world / Mark Pendergrast.

New York: Basic Books, 2000.

HD9199 Pen  (CL Books)

A comprehensive business and social history of coffee which describes how coffee has dominated and moulded the economies, politics, and social structures of entire countries.

Ingredients

The art of rice: spirit and sustenance in Asia / Roy W. Hamilton.

Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2003.

GR265 Ham 2003  (CL Books)

Explores beliefs and practices relating to rice as they are made manifested in the unique arts and material cultures of the various peoples considered.

Chocolate fads, folklore & fantasies: 1,000+ chunks of chocolate information / Linda K. Fuller.

New York: Haworth, 1994.

GT2920 Cho.Fu  (CL Books)

Documenting the chocolate phenomenon by means of 1,000+ chocolate chunks of information, this tempting book discusses chocolate fad,; chocolate folklore and chocolate fantasies.

Cocoa and chocolate, 1765-1914 / William Gervase Clarence-Smith.

London: Routledge, 2000.

HD9200 Coc.Cl  (CL Books)

This pioneering study examines all aspects of the history of cocoa and chocolate and the effect of these commodities globally.

Eat not this flesh: food avoidances from prehistory to the present / Frederick J. Simoons.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. 2nd ed.

GT2865 Sim  (CL Books)

Fat land: how Americans became the fattest people in the world / Greg Critser.

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

RA645 Obe.C 2003 (CL Books)

Highlights the groundbreaking research that implicates cheap fats and sugars as the alarming new metabolic factor making our calories stick and shows how and why children are too often the chief victims of such foods.

Man eating bugs: the art and science of eating insects / Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio.

Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1998.

GN409.5 Men  (CL Books)

Documents the practice and history of entomophagy around the globe. Discovers that insects are a nutritious, plentiful, and varied food source.

Meat, a natural symbol / Nick Fiddes.

London: Routledge , 1991.

GT2868.5 Fid  (CL Books)

A broad-ranging and provocative study of the human passion for meat. It argues that meat's primary cultural importance is founded on its vividly representing to us the domination we have sought over nature - not as individuals, but as members of a society which has historically placed great value on that power.

Peppers / by Amal Kumar Naj.

New York: Knopf, 1992.

SB307 Pep.N (SC Books)

Go on a series of adventures in pursuit of the fruit that gives so much pleasure to aficionados (twenty-five percent of the world is hooked) and so much pain to the uninitiated.