ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at food as identity. The argument here is that food is used to construct individual and social identities, that is, the ways in which we use food as a class divider and cultural glue. The book explores food as politics. Politics concerns the ways that we live together in certain arrangements – such as families and communities – and the rules that are used to organise those arrangements. The industrialisation of food is a remarkable achievement, and in the eyes of many, a stand-out success story in human development. The book looks at food as environment, noting that food production has, for thousands of years, had an uneasy relationship with the environment, which in some cases has brought about the devastating tranformation of arable land into deserts.
