ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relatively narrow set of primary materials to dwell at length on the principles and stylistic dimensions of two literary genres that locate virtuous eating in the interstices between imagined and real-world social reforms: utopia and manifesto. It builds on the case for the value of literary criticism and history to food studies by examining how writers employ irony, satire, and parody to investigate structures of power, inequality, and cultural identity that underlie ideas of virtuous eating. This analysis begins with Sir Thomas More's alternately earnest and ironic Utopia, and then proceeds from Louisa May Alcott's satire of a failed dietary utopia called Fruitlands to two examples of the vegetarian treatise: Benjamin Franklin's chronicle of his attempts at a meat-free diet as compared to Percy Shelley's argument for vegetarianism and animal welfare. As the anecdote of eating pan-fried cod conveys with characteristically dry wit, the Autobiography achieves a balance between principled vegetarianism and spontaneous omnivorism.
