
Food Is At The Center Of National Debates About How Americans Live And The Future Of The Planet. Not Everyone Agrees About How To Reform Our Relationship To Food, But One Suggestion Rises Above The Din: We Need To Get Back In The Kitchen. Amid Concerns About Rising Rates Of Obesity And Diabetes, Unpronounceable Ingredients, And The Environmental Footprint Of Industrial Agriculture, Food Reformers Implore Parents To Slow Down, Cook From Scratch, And Gather Around The Dinner Table. Making Food A Priority, They Argue, Will Lead To Happier And Healthier Families. But Is It Really That Simple? In This Riveting And Beautifully-written Book, Sarah Bowen, Joslyn Brenton, And Sinikka Elliott Take Us Into The Kitchens Of Nine Women To Tell The Complicated Story Of What It Takes To Feed A Family Today. All Of These Mothers Love Their Children And Want Them To Eat Well. But Their Kitchens Are Not Equal. From Cockroach Infestations And Stretched Budgets To Picky Eaters And Conflicting Nutrition Advice, Pressure Cooker Exposes How Modern Families Struggle To Confront High Expectations And Deep-seated Inequalities Around Getting Food On The Table. Based On Extensive Interviews And Field Research In The Homes And Kitchens Of A Diverse Group Of American Families, Pressure Cooker Challenges The Logic Of The Most Popular Foodie Mantras Of Our Time, Showing How They Miss The Mark And Up The Ante For Parents And Children. Romantic Images Of Family Meals Are Inviting, But They Create A Fiction That Does Little To Fix The Problems In The Food System. The Unforgettable Stories In This Book Evocatively Illustrate How Class Inequality, Racism, Sexism, And Xenophobia Converge At The Dinner Table. If We Want A Food System That Is Fair, Equitable, And Nourishing, We Must Look Outside The Kitchen For Answers.
Does the cultural mandate for families to cook from scratch and gather for home-cooked meals address the systemic realities of modern American life? The authors, all sociologists, utilize extensive ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with nine mothers to challenge the prevailing narrative that individual food choices are the primary solution to public health and environmental crises. They argue that structural barriers such as poverty, racism, and time constraints render the 'back to the kitchen' movement an unrealistic and often harmful expectation for many families.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Sociologists and food studies scholars frequently cite this work for its rigorous critique of individualistic food politics and its empathetic portrayal of domestic labor. Experts highlight the text as a necessary counter-narrative to popular media depictions of family mealtime, noting its effectiveness in grounding abstract policy debates in the lived realities of marginalized families.
Page Count:
256
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190663316
ISBN-13:
9780190663315
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