Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past [Paperback]

Sidney Mintz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807046299 | ISBN-13: 978-0807046296 | Publication Date: August 14, 1997

A renowned anthropologist explores the history and meaning of eating in America.

Addressing issues ranging from the global phenomenon of Coca-Cola to the diets of American slaves, Sidney Mintz shows how our choices about food are shaped by a vast and increasingly complex global economy. He demonstrates that our food choices have enormous and often surprising significance.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sidney Mintz, a professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University 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. In his final essay, "Eating American," Mintz discusses the nation's obsession with fitness and diet and our progressive weight gain. He also provides an apocalyptic view of the future--predicting a doubling of the nation's population by 2064, and a loss of more than 180 million acres of arable land through erosion and urbanization. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In this collection of scholarly essays, some of which have been published previously, Mintz (Sweetness and Power) examines aspects of the intricate relationship between food and human culture. In several interesting articles, he discusses the symbolic power of food as shown by the case of Africans, who though forcibly transplanted to the Caribbean in colonial times, succeeded in creating a cuisine for themselves and their masters, even under the oppressive conditions of slavery. Mintz traces the complex rivalry between honey and sugar as the primary sweeteners and how the ascendancy of sugar was tied to economic development in Europe. In one controversial piece, Mintz argues that there is no such thing as an American cuisine. According to the author, although patterns of immigration peculiar to the U.S. have resulted in regional diets, a national cuisine that is cooked, eaten and talked about has not evolved (yet).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (August 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807046299
• ISBN-13: 978-0807046296
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #837,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sidney W. Mintz is professor emeritus, department of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. He founded the department there in 1975. He has done extensive field research in Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Haiti, as well as in Iran. He launched a research program in Hong Kong to study the consumption and production of soybean and examine soy products in the United States.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sugar, power, class, and meaning, June 11, 2004

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abt1950 "abt1950" (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past (Paperback)

This is an uneven book of essays on the anthropology of food by the well-known anthropologist, Sidney Mintz. Like many anthropologists these days, Mintz interprets local cultural phenomena within a broader global context, but without losing track of their insider meanings.

Several of the essays in this book concentrate on things sweet--sugar and its predecessor, honey. Mintz traces the history of rising sugar consumption and ties its wider availablity to perceptions of increased social status by the working class that consumed this former luxury item. In the title essay, he proposes a relationship between cooking choices and a sense of freedom among Caribbean slaves. In another piece, Mintz explores symbolic links between sugar and perceptions of morality and naturalness.

Not all of the essays are equally successful. The "Introduction" and the title essay are the best, in my opinion. "The Conquest of Honey by Sucrose" is also intriguing. The last two essays, one on high and low cuisine and the other on American food, are a bit muddled. One of the best things in the book is totally non-academic. Mintz's wonderfully evocative preface about his father and his memories of food while growing up is a joy to read and almost worth the price of the book itself.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Underwhelming--best for undergrads, December 9, 2002

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Quickhappy "quickhappy" (Big city, big country) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past (Paperback)

I enjoy Sidney Mintz' work quite a bit, though this book left me a bit underwhelmed. It in no way compares to his _Sweetness and Power_, which is a wonderful work. Instead, _Tasting Food_ offers some nice little essays. The title essay, on slave/creole cuisines of the Caribbean, is by far an away the best, and it is well worth reading. The other essays are just okay, or in the case of the last two (about national and American cuisines), quite bad. Nice, light reading as a complement to other anthropological writing about food. Carole Counihan's edited volumes are better.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting very short read to get up to speed on the subject, September 9, 2009

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1000Books "1000Books" (NY,NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past (Paperback)

Thematically this book is fantastic. The linkage between food consumption and political and sociological change is in fact rarely consider in the march of progress. His linkage of sugar, the sugar trade, to both the evolution of what is considered upper and lower caste is fascinating. I also loved the idea that sugar and coffee allowed for the greater than 8 hour work day and allowed for a certain type of domination over others. I wish he'd also considered tea (the other caffinated beverage).

Where the book could be expanded upon is to include greater comparison among a variety of cultures Eastern and Western. It would be interested to have greater discussions about the triangular trade (although I suspect he believes he is building upon this). I also think that his conclusions may not show a true appreciation for all the variables/probabilities in such a dire direction for food. I do not agree that the US may be doomed as a function of population to an Asian diet which would put us in competition with the world for food.