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This book explores the new applications of established theories or adapts theoretical approaches in order to illuminate behaviour in the field of food. It focuses on social processes at the downstream end of the food chain, processes of distribution and consumption. The book reviews the existing disciplinary approaches to understanding judgements about food taste. It suggests that the quality 'halal' is the result of a social and economic consensus between the different generations and cultures of migrant Muslims as distinct from the non-Muslim majority. Food quality is to be viewed in terms of emergent cognitive paradigms sustained within food product networks that encompass a wide range of social actors with a wide variety of intermediaries, professional and governmental. The creation of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) occurred at a juncture when perceptions of policy failure were acknowledged at United Kingdom and European Union governmental levels. The book presents a case study of retailer-led food governance in the UK to examine how different 'quality logics' actually collide in the competitive world of food consumption and production. It argues that concerns around food safety were provoked by the emergence of a new food aesthetic based on 'relationalism' and 'embeddedness'. The book also argues that the study of the arguments and discourses deployed to criticise or otherwise qualify consumption is important to the political morality of consumption.
This is a book about the risk politics of food safety. Food-related risks regularly grab the headlines in ways that threaten reasoned debate and obstruct sensible policy making. This book explains why this is the case, and goes on to make the case for a properly informed and fully open public debate about food safety issues. It argues that this is the true antidote to the politics of scare, scandal, and crisis. The book weaves together the many different threads of food safety and risk politics.
Food: the stuff of the everyday Food is, quite literally, the stuff of the everyday. It punctuates daily rhythms, constitutes social relationships, and shapes economic and political systems. Whether by looking at its origins, cultural relations, environmental and health impacts, or economic implications, social researchers have long been fascinated with food. As a material substance, food brings people together, whether at dinner tables or at certain times of the year, as well as being a point of shared memories, experiences and practices (see
chap 6 13/8/04 4:23 pm Page 129 6 Theorising food quality: some key issues in understanding its competitive production and regulation Terry Marsden Introduction Recent debates concerning food quality offer an important window on the changing nature of broader social, political and economic relations. Not least, this has reinforced a more serious concern with understanding food consumption processes; through more theorisation and conceptualisation of social and natural factors in the context of wider consumption trends and processes (see Goodman 2002). In
of respondents with children did eat dinner on the previous day with a family member. The family dinner is far from being eliminated from the schedule of meals. Dinner as the main meal Inquiring about main meals reveals some fundamental features of mundane domestic activities, with no points of strong disagreement. Accounts variously emphasise portion size, the company of household members, the food content, the location, and the time of day. Main meals are generally understood to be the largest of the day, eaten in the early evening, typically hot and
9 Food for all? Critically evaluating the role of the Incredible Edible movement in the UK Michael Hardman, Mags Adams, Melissa Barker and Luke Beesley Introduction The practice of Urban Agriculture (UA) –the growing of food and/or rearing of livestock within the city context –is on the rise globally (Hardman and Larkham, 2014). Arguments for UA vary, ranging from its potential to contract the food supply chain by relocating production closer to urban consumers, to the potential for improved social engagement, through bringing communities together on
2 Reforming food production: agricultural science and education ሉሊ The immediate post-Famine period was marked by profound optimism about the potential of Irish agricultural development. In the space of just a few years, Ireland’s socio-economic landscape had radically adjusted. By 1851, Ireland was a more desolate country, preparing itself for a gradual recovery from the socio-psychological scars left by the mass emigration, disease and death created by the Famine. Yet the country’s inhabitants appeared, or were at least presumed, to be ready and willing to
lifestyle in Barcelona, and how hard too it would be to make Tast’s high-end offer viable in Manchester. Hucknall’s Barca had done well for years before it fell out of fashion. Rio Ferdinand’s Rosso was a staple favourite of the city’s hen parties and the flashy weekend market, but hardly appealed to diners who knew their food, with a hyper-deluxe drinks list and an Italian menu delivered by a Mongolian chef. Neither pushed the boundaries of world-class cuisine or appealed to the discerning and high-spending dining
chap 7 13/8/04 4:17 pm Page 156 7 A new aesthetic of food? Relational reflexivity in the ‘alternative’ food movement Jonathan Murdoch and Mara Miele Introduction In recent times, an apparent contradiction between high levels of output and improved food quality has arisen within the food sector. The development of mass food markets, alongside ‘Fordist’ methods of production and their associated economies of scale, has generated unprecedented abundance (Montanari 1994). Yet, at the same time, industrialisation processes have resulted, seemingly, in greater and
Reforming food in post-Famine Ireland: Medicine, science and improvement, 1845-1922 is the first dedicated study of how and why Irish eating habits dramatically transformed between the Famine and independence. It also investigates the simultaneous reshaping of Irish food production after the Famine. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book draws from the diverse methodological disciplines of medical history, history of science, cultural studies, Irish studies, gender studies and food studies. Making use of an impressive range of sources, it maps the pivotal role of food in the reshaping of Irish society onto a political and social backdrop of famine, Land Wars, political turbulence, the First World War and the struggle for independence. It is of interest to historians of medicine and science as well as historians of modern Irish social, economic, political and cultural history.