At a time when the relationship between 'the country' and 'the city' is in flux worldwide, the value and meanings of food associated with both places continue to be debated. Building upon the foundation of Raymond Williams' classic work, The Country and the City, this volume examines how conceptions of the country and the city invoked in relation to food not only reflect their changing relationship but have also been used to alter the very dynamics through which countryside and cities, and the food grown and eaten within them, are produced and sustained.
Leading scholars in the study of food offer ethnographic studies of peasant homesteads, family farms, community gardens, state food industries, transnational supermarkets, planning offices, tourist boards, and government ministries in locales across the globe. This fascinating collection provides vital new insight into the contested dynamics of food and will be key reading for upper-level students and scholars of food studies, anthropology, history and geography.
The volume is especially appropriate for those working in rural and urban studies and can easily be assigned for undergraduate and graduate level coursework [?] Individual chapters
will be of interest to those with related regional and topic focuses, though the material is heavily
weighted towards Portugal. And for those interested in Williams's work, the intrigue of this
volume remains, in large part, due to the strength of his original insight. What the editors give
readers, where perhaps many food anthologies fall short, is a comprehensive theoretical perspective
from which to analyze the plethora of ways humans produce, consume, represent, and interpret contemporary foodways.