Consuming the American Dream
Essays Celebrating the Intersection of Food, Literature, and Our National Myth

Robert Hauhart (Edited by), Jeff Birkenstein (Edited by)

9798895270813

Hardback, published 5 June 2026

369 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.654 kg

This volume addresses the unique relationship between the American dream and the manifold ways in which food and food-related topics support and expand upon elements that constitute the American dream. The contributors discuss instances in which Americans of one heritage or another attempt to find freedom and fashion a life for themselves and a uniquely American identity. Through various forms of literature—novels, short stories, cookbooks, and memoirs—these essays explore the American Dream through a myriad of cultures, food, and their intertwined meanings.

Acknowledgments
Introduction, Robert C. Hauhart
Part 1: Using Food to Craft American Dream Fiction
1. Food and the American Dream in Four Celebrated American Novels, Robert C. Hauhart and Anahi Arenas
Part 2: Narratives of Identity at the Intersection of Food and the American Dream
2. Queer Hunger, Unseen Food, and the American Dream, Lucky Issar
3. Grilling Manhood: Food, Masculinity, and the American Dream, David Magill
4. An Exploration of Bizarre Foods and the Representation of the American Dream and American Identity through Food, Erin Dicesare
Part 3: Food and Memoir in Service of the American Dream
5. From Dishtowels to Riches: Chasing the American Dream in Restaurant Kitchens, Philine Schiller
6. Devouring and Reconstructing the American Dream in Bich Minh Nguyen’
s Stealing Buddha’
s Dinner, Stephanie Couey
7. “
In a Corn-Field Number Every Grain”
: Corn and Anne Bradstreet’
s American Dream, Ann Beebe
Part 4: Food in Diaspora Narratives and their Relevance to the American Dream
8. On the So-Called “
Hummus Wars”
: Palestinian Food and the Making of an Identity , Benay Blend
9. The Underbelly of the American Dream: Feeding, Eating, and Starving for Love in Toni Morrison’
s Beloved, Cristavao Nwachukwu
Part 5: The Kitchen as a Stage for Feminine Resistance and as a Place to Achieve the American Dream
10. I Dream of Fried Chicken: Black Women, Black Foodways, and the American Dream, Khari Chanel Johnson
11. Just Add Eggs: Mixing up the American Dream, Kelly Spivey
Part 6: African American Food Tropes as a Source of the American Dream
12. Soul Food in a Shoebox: How Culinary Resistance Helped African Americans Achieve the American Dream of Travel, Telia Mary U. Williams Anderson
13. The American Alimentary: Black Eating Cultures and Personhood in Toni Morrison’
s Paradise, Diana Farin Molina
14. Loving My Soul: Reconciling African American Foodways with the American Dream, Rod Taylor
Part 7: Consuming the American Dream as a Means to Constitute It
15. Consuming the American Immigrant Dream in Michael Gold’
s Jews without Money, Jeff Birkenstein
16. Eating towards the American Dream: Consumption, Class, and (Un)fulfilment in Hanya Yanagihara’
s A Little Life, Natalie Wall
17. “
Never an American”
: Cathartic Food Practices against the Inhospitable in Mohsin Hamid’
s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Maria Mothes
18. Intersecting Dreams of a Nation and its Gourmet: Culinary Readings of Select Short Stories, Gigy Alex
Contributors
Index