Solier, I: Food and the Self

Acknowledgments Introduction: Foodies: Material Culture and the Self in Postindustrial Society 1. Moralities of Productive Leisure and Material Culture 2. Learning Things: Material Media and Gastronomic Education 3. Consuming Things: Material Cultures and Moralities of Consumption 4. Dining Out: Restaurants, Serious Consumption and Molecular Gastronomy 5. Shopping: Slow Food, Ethical Consumption and the Morality of Quality 6. Producing Things: Material Media and Moralities of Production 7. Cooking: Manual Leisure and Material Production 8. Blogging: Digital Leisure and Material Media Production Afterword: Materializing Moral Selves Bibliography Index

Isabelle de Solier is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Victoria University, Australia. She has published on food in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Continuum, and the edited collection Exposing Lifestyle Television, and is the editor of Food Cultures, a special issue of Cultural Studies Review.

Isabelle de Solier has produced an invaluable account of the foodie--a phenomenon that crept up on wealthy nations as food went from being hard to obtain to being easy to savor, regardless of climate or geography. And what an account this is, a fascinating blend of an insider's and an outsider's observations. A tour de force. Toby Miller, Distinguished Professor of Media & Cultural Studies, University of California Riverside USA Food has become a growing obsession in Western society, as can be seen in the spread of restaurants, cookbooks, TV shows, and blogs, but what does it actually mean to foodies? Although scholars have examined the professional production of gourmet culture, this innovative work follows ordinary people as they navigate the material and moral complexities of eating. Jeffrey M. Pilcher, author of Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food and Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA Food and the Self is a bold and original book about the formation of selves in the culture of food and foodies, and a carefully researched account of the material supports and transmission of that culture in the circuits of professional and amateur expertise. John Frow, ARC Professorial Fellow, Department of English, University of Sydney, Australia This brilliantly written volume provides a timely and critical intervention to the rapidly growing fields of food studies and material culture. Isabelle de Solier has literally written the definitive book on how and what it means to make one's self as a foodie in postindustrial times. This must-read volume is set to make a substantive intellectual and interdisciplinary impact on the study of food politics, media cultures, contemporary lifestyles and much beyond. Mike Goodman, Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, UK