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June 2016 Vol. 53 No. 10

Food is not an afterthought but central to the story of race in the US, and this volume demonstrates a myriad of approaches to studying these complex relations.  Timely and illuminating, these essays set a new standard for food studies, not just the study of African American foodways.  With forceful confidence, authors have brought forth histories buried in archives, cookbooks, and library shelves.  They turn accepted truths on their heads by revealing complexities and contradictions, using an array of methodologies.  The title chapter, written by editor Wallach, examines the role of food at Tuskegee Institute as a cultural, political, and economic strategy to advance “racial progress.”  Another chapter focuses on the intersections of soul food and “magic and occult.”  Each tells a story or analyzes how power, gender, class, and race intersect in, at, and through food.  The authors give voice to generations of women and men whose foodways were rendered invisible by caricatures (Mammy, Aunt Jemima, watermelon, and fried chicken), and whose agency through food (assimilation, protest, poison) was ignored in the face of dominant (read white) narratives and histories.  Every chapter tells a story that sheds light on convention while underscoring the centrality of food in the production and reproduction of race, identity, and nation.  An exciting read.

--A. B. Audant, CUNY Kingsborough Community College

Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries.