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The Globalization of Food

Leonard Plotnicov and Richard Scaglion

This fascinating collection of diverse essays, written by anthropologists who have lived in a wide variety of communities around the world, explores postcolumbian cultivar diffusion and its importance in human history. As varied as the foods discussed are the factors affecting their acceptance and adaptability—for example, environmental compatibility; storage capability; psychological and medical repercussions; and social, economic, and political impact. Students gain a rich understanding of the material basis of human existence, specifically the effect of New World cultivars on the Old World.
 

$15.50 list, 151 pages

10-digit ISBN: 1-57766-257-1

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-57766-257-0

© 1999

“One of the most satisfying sessions [of the 1998 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association] that I attended . . . and apparently the first comparative examination of the subject.” —Jonathan Benthall, Anthropology Today

“. . . I was pleased to encounter this volume documenting the postcolumbian diffusion of cultivars between the hemispheres. . . . [It] deserves to be read by anyone interested in cultural diffusion.” —Betty J. Meggers, American Anthropologist

“. . . a rather eclectic volume of refreshingly unpretentious discussion. For those from undergraduate to researcher fascinated by questions of how ‘we are what we eat,’ this collection provides enjoyable reading about the transformation of food, people, and land.” —Laurence C. Becker, Journal of Political Ecology
 

Table of Contents

1. Introduction (Leonard Plotnicov)

2. The Incorporation of Maize in Africa (Bruce D. Roberts)

3. The Cultivar as Civilizer: European and Samburu Perspectives on Cultivar Diffusion (Jon D. Holtzman)

4. Miskito Foods, Miskito Forests: Crop Adoption and the Alteration of an Indigenous Landscape (David J. Dodds)

5. The Root and the Problem: Cassava Toxicity and Diffusion to Africa (John Frechione)

6. Sweet Interloper (Mary Weismantel and Sidney W. Mintz)

7. The Capsicums in Old World Culinary Structures (Susan Tax Freeman)

8. The Perilous Potato and the Terrifying Tomato (Stanley Brandes)

9. Kuku—“God of the Motuites”: European Tobacco in Colonial New Guinea (Terence E. Hays)

10. Tuber Transformations: The Impact of the Sweet Potato in the Indo-Pacific (Richard Scaglion and Todd R. Hooe)

11. Coffee: The Mechanism of Transition to a Money Economy (Paula Brown)

12. Final Words (Sidney W. Mintz)