Foodways in the Twentieth-Century City

This Element explores urbanization and globalization's impact on food chains and consumption in cities in the twentieth century.

Maria-Aparecida Lopes (Author), María Cecilia Zuleta (Author)

9781009500876, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 January 2025

92 pages
23.5 x 16 x 1 cm, 0.275 kg

Foodways in the Twentieth-Century City explores a fundamental question through the lens of the modern metropolis: How did the experience of food and eating evolve throughout the twentieth century? In answering this query, this Element examines significant changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of food in cities worldwide. It takes a comprehensive view of foodways, encompassing the material, institutional, and sociocultural conditions that shaped food's journey from farm to table. The work delves into everyday practices like buying, selling, cooking, and eating, both at home and in public spaces. Central themes include local and global food governance and food access inequality as urban communities, markets, and governments navigated the complex landscape of abundance and scarcity. This Element highlights the unique dynamics of urban food supply and consumption over time.

Introduction
1. The enduring challenge: feeding the urban multitude
2. Transforming urban diets: transoceanic trade and migration flows
3. Feeding cities in times of scarcity
4. A new food order tackles old urban dilemmas
5. The taste of capitalism: supermarkets, convenience foods, and pervasive inequalities
Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]