ABSTRACT

In the course of the previous eleven chapters we have threaded our way through a maze of issues, studies and sources all related, directly or obliquely, to the search for a better understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of food and eating. At this point it is time to take stock, in order to attempt to provide some sort of overall appreciation of just what it is that emerges from this broad spread of material, and in order to begin to speculate about the possibilities for the future.