Gillian Crowther

This book exhibits an identity conflict. The first three-fourths of it work fairly well (if densely) at the advanced-undergraduate level as an anthropological overview of foods, cuisine, culture identities, and the social communication involved in food production and consumption. Mostly pretty good stuff, and I was pleased that Crowther presents a range of theoretical perspectives without really favoring one over the other (huzzah for leaning on Malinowski!). From the middle of Chapter Seven onwards, however, the issues that had been in the background come forward and swamp the work into a frustrating might-have-been.

Let me preface the following by stating that I have taught four-field anthropology at universities for years; I'm not simply a "user" with this platform. I question what audience UTPress intended for this project.

The text is sufficiently verbose and over-written that undergraduates will not spare the time to read it. The analyses are too shallow for graduate students to need them. If a (very-)educated non-professional reader is imagined, then sticking to topic and avoiding jargon would have been better anthropology than the morass that is Chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 8 is not anthropology of food at all, it is a discourse on global politics delving into UN bodies (the FAO, WHO) and problems with globalization, warfare, climate change, and population displacement more at home in any Poli Sci course than in the midst of this material. It is intrusive between chapters 7 and 9, derailing the topical flow and should have been relegated to an appendix or another book altogether.

Worse, Crowther seizes a Postmodernist, iconoclastic platform and begins to flaunt both jargon and perspectives that antagonize colleagues and confuse the hell out of students by turning from "is" statements to "ought" statements, critiquing the world as it works. Coffee as a trade commodity is NOT cultural appropriation, GC; otherwise the Neolithic spread of agriculture would be problematic for you, now wouldn't it? Who the hell uses terms like "ethnosite"? And "global ideoscape of of cosmopolitanism" (p. 257)? Really? Yer killin' me, Smalls.

Editing again seems to be the arrow in Achilles' heel, since these issues could have been ameliorated: Chapter 8 could have been moved, terms could have been altered or better defined. Paragraphs could have been cut down for easier comprehension. And some assertions certainly could have been fact-checked. I leave you all with this proofing humdinger from Chapter 9: "But this act presents a challenge to locavorism: tea and coffee, and other much-loved foods such as olive oil, chocolate, bananas, and many spices, cannot be grown in the northern hemisphere. (p. 278)" On this planet, those are ALL grown in the northern hemisphere.… (més)