ABSTRACT
In 1997, when we proposed the fi rst Food and Culture Reader , we had to persuade Routledge of the importance of publishing it. In 2012, Routledge had to persuade us to undertake the arduous task of reviewing the incredibly expanded literature to produce a third edition. We hope that the current selection of articles gives a snapshot of how the fi eld has grown and developed from its early foundations. Cultural anthropology remains the central discipline guiding this fi eld. Food and nutritional anthropology in particular, and food studies generally, manage to rise above the dualisms that threaten to segment most fi elds of study. This fi eld resists separating biological from cultural, individual from society, and local from global culture, but rather struggles with their entanglements. Food and culture studies have somehow made interdisciplinarity workable. Sometimes co-opting, more often embracing the history and geography of food as part of the holistic emphasis of anthropology, food studies have become increasingly sophisticated theoretically. We hope these papers reveal the roots of contemporary issues in food studies, and we acknowledge our bias towards particular subjects that most engage our interest.
