The course anchor text, The Cultural Feast: An Introduction to Food and Society, 2^nd Edition, is currently available on-line new from about $54.00-$103.41 [this is correct--it pays to comparison shop!] and $21.00 used (+ p/h, and at amazon.com you get FREE Super Saver Shipping on some orders). (15 May 2013)

Other on-line and brick and mortar stores should have comparable offers.

Carol A. Bryant, Kathleen M. DeWalt, Anita Courtney and Jeffrey Schwartz.
The Cultural Feast: An Introduction to Food and Society, 2^nd Edition.
Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2003.
432 pages
ISBN-10: 0534525822
ISBN-13: 978-0534525828

From the Publisher

THE CULTURAL FEAST looks at the impact of evolution, geography, environment, social structure, and religion on food practices around the world. The text is comprised of three units. The first unit explains the myriad influences on human diet and examines the role of evolution on contemporary food practices. The second unit looks at factors that influence current food practices, such as dietary revolutions that accompany advancements in agricultural practices; the influence of culture in what, how, when, and why we eat; and the influence of religion, social organizations and industrialization on foodways. The third unit of the text looks at nutrition problems and solutions to those problems. The text explores global and domestic hunger, examines diseases of under- and over-nutrition, and looks at dietary behavior change and large-scale programs to change dietary practices.

Synopsis

This textbook examines the evolutionary and historical factors influencing human dietary practices, the relationship between food and culture, and nutrition problems. Specific chapters discuss the relationship between food and industrialization, social organization, and religion, as well as issues like hunger. The authors include academics and health department officials. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Meaning of Food: The Companion to the PBS Television Series Hosted by Marcus Samuelsson is currently available online from about $3.71-$9.18 new / $3.84 used. (+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25). (15 May 2013)

This text is not available at the UMD Bookstore

Other on-line and brick and mortar stores should have comparable offers.

Description

From the Back Cover

The Omnivore's Dilemma is currently available online from about $13.27 new / $1.12 used. (+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25). (15 May 2013)

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Michael Pollan.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
NY: Penguin, 2007.
464 pages
ISBN-10: 0143038583
ISBN-13: 978-0143038580

From Barnes & Noble

In the ancient days of hunter-gatherers, a wrong food choice -- in the form of a poison mushroom or toxic root -- could have quick and fatal consequences. Today, according to Botany of Desire author Michael Pollan, we face comparable dangers in the midst of plenitude. Pollan notes that Fast-Food America is experiencing what can only be described as a national eating disorder. With compelling precision, he describes how parallel food chains (industrialized food, alternative or "organic" food, and home-gathered food) reflect differences and similarities in our ecology of eating. A fascinating look behind the labels.

From the Publisher

A New York Times bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us - whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed - he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.

The New York Times Book Review

Thoughtful, engrossing ... You're not likely to get a better explanation of exactly where your food comes from.

Publishers Weekly

Pollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again. Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly." Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets. Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister. Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted. This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota. (Apr.) Pamela Kaufman is executive editor at Food & Wine magazine. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Pollan (journalism, Univ. of California, Berkeley; The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World) defines the Omnivore's Dilemma as the confusing maze of choices facing Americans trying to eat healthfully in a society that he calls "notably unhealthy." He seeks answers to this dilemma by taking readers through the industrial, organic, and hunter-gatherer stages of the food chain. Focusing on corn as the keystone plant in the industrial stage, Pollan describes its role in feeding cattle and in food processing as well as its ultimate destination in the products we consume at fast-food restaurants. The organic, or pastoral, stage offers a pure and chemical-free eating environment for animals and humans. In the hunter-gatherer stage, omnivores hunt animals and gather the plant foods that comprise all or part of their diets. Pollan explains how a framework of environmental, biological, and cultural factors determines what and how we eat. Although a bit long and sometimes redundant, this folksy narrative provides a wealth of information about agriculture, the natural world, and human desires. Recommended for all omnivores. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/05.]-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2006 Reed Business Informatio

Kirkus Reviews

The dilemma-what to have for dinner when you are a creature with an open-ended appetite-leads Pollan (Journalism/Berkeley; The Botany of Desire, 2001, etc.) to a fascinating examination of the myriad connections along the principal food chains that lead from earth to dinner table. The author identifies three: the one controlled by agribusiness; the pastoral, organic industry that has sprung up as an alternative to it; and the very short food chain Pollan calls "neo-Paleolithic," in which he assumes the role of modern-day hunter-gatherer. He demonstrates the dependence of the agribusiness system on a single grain, corn, as it passes from farm to feedlot and processing plant. The meal that concludes this section is takeout from McDonald's and includes among other foods a serving of Chicken McNuggets. Of the 38 ingredients that make up McNuggets, 13, he notes, are derived from corn. This fact bolsters an earlier, startling statistic: Each of us is personally responsible for consuming a ton of corn each year. Pollan's exploration of the pastoral food chain takes two roads. Investigating "industrial organic," he assembles a meal composed entirely of ingredients from a Whole Foods supermarket. But he also visits a single, relatively small farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where grass, not corn, is the basis of production, and cattle, chickens and pigs are raised through management of the natural ecosystem. Pollan joins in the farm work and is clearly impressed by what he learns, observes and eats here. In the final section, he learns how to shoot a wild pig and how to scavenge for forest mushrooms. The author's extraordinarily labor-intensive final meal provides a perfect contrast to thefast-food takeout of Part I. Pollan combines ecology, biology, history and anthropology with personal experience to present fascinating multiple perspectives. Revelations about how the way we eat affects the world we live in, presented with wit and elegance.

• Mintz, Sidney W., and Christine M. Du Bois. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31: 99-119 (October 2002).