ABSTRACT
Food is a many-splendored thing, central to biological and social life. People ingest food over and over again across days, seasons, and years to fill our bellies and satisfy emotional as well as physical hungers. The study of foodways contributes to the understanding of personhood across cultures and historical periods. The study of foodways enables a holistic and coherent look at how human beings mediate their relationship with nature and each other across cultures and through history. Because eating good food when hungry causes a euphoric feeling, feasts and meals are a wonderful way to create positive social relations. Class, caste, race, and gender hierarchies are maintained, in part, through differential control over and access to food. One of the most significant domains of meaning embodied in food centers on the relation between the sexes, their gender definitions, and their sexuality. In many cultures, eating is a sexual and gendered experience throughout life.
