ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we look at the way in which food works to ‘constructs’ us and by virtue of its ability, creates an identity for us, individually and collectively. We will start by looking at how food provides the basic building blocks that renew daily our bodies and thus influences our outer appearance, and what we show to the world. We will then look at how food provides a means of belonging to social and cultural groupings, again creating for us an identity. By way of giving us some direction, we will draw on the distinction between pre-swallowing and post-swallowing understandings of food. That is to say, the way that we can understand the role of food in creating identify by looking at its effects on the body (post-swallowing). We can also see how food before it is eaten makes for us an identity (pre-swallowing).
