You aren't what you eat : fed up with gastroculture by Poole, Steven, 1972- instant download

You aren't what you eat : fed up with gastroculture by Poole, Steven, 1972- instant download

200 pages ; 19 cm, We have become obsessed by food: where it comes from, where to buy it, how to cook it and - most absurdly of all - how to eat it. Our televisions and newspapers are filled with celebrity chefs, latter-day priests whose authority and ambition range from the small scale (what we should have for supper) to large-scale public schemes designed to improve our communal eating habits. When did the basic human imperative to feed ourselves mutate into such a multitude of anxieties about provenance, ethics, health, lifestyle and class status? And since when did the likes of Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson gain the power to transform our kitchens and dining tables into places where we expect to be spiritually sustained? In this subtle and erudite polemic, Steven Poole argues that we're trying to fill more than just our bellies when we pick up our knives and forks, and that we might be a lot happier if we realised that sometimes we should throw away the colour supplements and open a tin of beans, Includes bibliographical references and index, Prologue : the food rave -- You aren't what you eat -- Soul food -- The hunger artists -- Word soup -- Sex on a plate -- Fashion on a fork -- Consuming history -- The real thing -- Back to nature -- Eating to utopia -- The great escape -- Time, gentlemen, please -- Il faut bien manger -- Envoi : virtual eating