Description:
This book demonstrates that traditionality as attributed to foods goes beyond the notions of heritage and authenticity under which it is commonly formulated. Through case studies the complexity behind the attribution of the term 'traditional' to food is explored.
Review Quotes:
"Eating Traditional Food: politics, identities and practices wrestles down the concept and practices of producing and consuming 'traditional foods', without falling either into the ethnocentric, nationalist, rendering of tradition, or the blanket denunciation of the very concept of tradition by critical scholars...
The authors do a great service in trying to draw the boundaries of the modern and the traditional, past and the present, community and consumer practices, to enable us to protect what comes from long duration and is widely shared from the commons without the protection of intellectual property rights, against the encroachment of private, commodified, consumer culture, undertaken primarily for profit and for social prestige." - From the Foreword by Krishnendu Ray, New York University, USA and President of the Association for the Study of Food & Society