Cooking Lessons: The Politics of Gender and Food: The Politics of Gender and Food

Meatloaf, fried chicken, Jell-O, cake-because foods are so very common, we rarely think about them much in depth. The authors of Cooking Lessons however, believe that food is deserving of our critical scrutiny and that such analysis yields many important lessons about American society and its values. This book explores the relationship between food and gender. Contributors draw from diverse sources, both contemporary and historical, and look at women from various cultural backgrounds, including Hispanic, traditional southern White, and African American. Each chapter focuses on a certain food, teasing out its cultural meanings and showing its effect on women's identity and lives.

Sherrie A. Inness is associate professor of English at Miami University. She lives in Fairfield, Ohio. She is the editor of several books including Running for their Lives: Girls, Cultural Identity, and Stories of Survival and Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth Century American GirlsO Cultures.