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Read My Plate

The Literature of Food

Deborah R. Geis

Whether perusing a recipe or learning what a literary character eats, readers approach a text differently when reading about food. Read My Plate: The Literature of Food explores what narrators and characters (in fiction, in performance, and in the popular genre of the “food memoir”) cook and eat. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the inmates of the Terezin concentration camp, performance artist Karen Finley, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and the celebrated chef-turned-travel-journalist Anthony Bourdain are just a few examples of the writers whose works are discussed. Close readings of the literal and figurative “plates” in these texts allow a unique form of intimate access to the speakers’ feelings and memories and help readers to understand more about how the dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and social class affect what the narrators/characters eat, from tourtière to collard greens to a school lunch bento box.
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  • Reviews
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Lexington Books
Pages: 180 • Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-4985-7443-3 • Hardback • May 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-4985-7445-7 • Paperback • July 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)
978-1-4985-7444-0 • eBook • May 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)
Subjects: Literary Criticism / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Social Science / Agriculture & Food, Literary Criticism / Comparative Literature, Literary Criticism / Modern / General
Deborah R. Geis is professor of English at DePauw University.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One. The Hungry Yawp: Eating and Orality in Whitman and Ginsberg

Chapter Two. The Politics of Gluttony in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature

Chapter Three. Chukla Bukla: Cooking, Bengali-Indian-Anglo-American Writers, and the Merging of Cultures

Chapter Four. Feeding the Audience: Food, Feminism, and Performance Art

Chapter Five. The Last Black Man’s Fried Chicken: Soul Food, Memory, and African American Culinary Writing

Chapter Six. Cooking Up a Storm: Recent Food Memoirs and the Angry Daughter

Chapter Seven. Eat and Run: Food Writing, Masculinity, and the “Male Midlife Crisis”

Chapter Eight. School Lunch: Bicultural Conflicts in Asian-American Women’s Food Memoirs

Conclusion



Bibliography

Index

About the Author
Deborah R. Geis expands our understanding of the literature of food, both in terms of genre and of methods to approach a portion of food writing. Her delicate explication of food memoir and performance art through lenses of gender, race, and migration melds with treatment of more traditional texts of fiction and poetry to yield a deeply empathetic contemplation about food’s personal and political resonance.
— Miriam Mara, Arizona State University


Read My Plate

The Literature of Food

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Whether perusing a recipe or learning what a literary character eats, readers approach a text differently when reading about food. Read My Plate: The Literature of Food explores what narrators and characters (in fiction, in performance, and in the popular genre of the “food memoir”) cook and eat. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the inmates of the Terezin concentration camp, performance artist Karen Finley, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and the celebrated chef-turned-travel-journalist Anthony Bourdain are just a few examples of the writers whose works are discussed. Close readings of the literal and figurative “plates” in these texts allow a unique form of intimate access to the speakers’ feelings and memories and help readers to understand more about how the dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and social class affect what the narrators/characters eat, from tourtière to collard greens to a school lunch bento box.
Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 180 • Trim: 6¼ x 9
    978-1-4985-7443-3 • Hardback • May 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
    978-1-4985-7445-7 • Paperback • July 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)
    978-1-4985-7444-0 • eBook • May 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)
    Subjects: Literary Criticism / Modern / 21st Century, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Social Science / Agriculture & Food, Literary Criticism / Comparative Literature, Literary Criticism / Modern / General
Author
Author
  • Deborah R. Geis is professor of English at DePauw University.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments

    Introduction

    Chapter One. The Hungry Yawp: Eating and Orality in Whitman and Ginsberg

    Chapter Two. The Politics of Gluttony in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature

    Chapter Three. Chukla Bukla: Cooking, Bengali-Indian-Anglo-American Writers, and the Merging of Cultures

    Chapter Four. Feeding the Audience: Food, Feminism, and Performance Art

    Chapter Five. The Last Black Man’s Fried Chicken: Soul Food, Memory, and African American Culinary Writing

    Chapter Six. Cooking Up a Storm: Recent Food Memoirs and the Angry Daughter

    Chapter Seven. Eat and Run: Food Writing, Masculinity, and the “Male Midlife Crisis”

    Chapter Eight. School Lunch: Bicultural Conflicts in Asian-American Women’s Food Memoirs

    Conclusion



    Bibliography

    Index

    About the Author
Reviews
Reviews
  • Deborah R. Geis expands our understanding of the literature of food, both in terms of genre and of methods to approach a portion of food writing. Her delicate explication of food memoir and performance art through lenses of gender, race, and migration melds with treatment of more traditional texts of fiction and poetry to yield a deeply empathetic contemplation about food’s personal and political resonance.
    — Miriam Mara, Arizona State University


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