Food and Power : A Culinary Ethnography of Israel.

ISBN:

9780520964419

Title:

Author:

Avieli, Nir.

Personal Author:

Avieli, Nir.

Edition:

1st ed.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (293 pages)

Series:

California Studies in Food and Culture Ser. ; v.67

California Studies in Food and Culture Ser.

Contents:

Cover -- Food and Power -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Hummus Wars -- 1 Size Matters -- 2 Roasting Meat -- 3 Why We Like Italian Food -- 4 The McDonaldization of the Kibbutz Dining Room -- 5 Meat and Masculinity in a Military Prison -- 6 Thai Migrant Workers and the Dog-Eating Myth -- Conclusion: Food and Power in Israel-Orientalization and Ambivalence -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Local Note:

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2019. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view book

Publication Date:

2017

Publication Information:

Berkeley :

University of California Press,

2017.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
641.595694	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ON-DEMAND	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Drawing on ethnography conducted in Israel since the late 1990s, Food and Power considers how power is produced, reproduced, negotiated, and subverted in the contemporary Israeli culinary sphere. Nir Avieli explores issues such as the definition of Israeli cuisine, the ownership of hummus, the privatization of communal Kibbutz dining rooms, and food at a military prison for Palestinian detainees to show how cooking and eating create ambivalence concerning questions of strength and weakness and how power and victimization are mixed into a sense of self-justification that maintains internal cohesion among Israeli Jews.

Author Notes

Avieli Nir :

Nir Avieli is a Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben Gurion University, Israel.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Food and Power offers an exceptionally satisfying foray into the Israeli food experience. Avieli (sociology and anthropology, Ben Gurion Univ., Israel) makes clear the limits to describing cuisine preferences for such a heterogeneous society, but by carefully choosing eating experiences and institutions he provides a fascinating picture of food preferences and sociocultural frames of interaction. As the title suggests, all of this relates to political issues, ethnicity, class, and gender. Using interview and participant-observation, Avieli explores a range of topics: the amusing contest between Lebanon and Israel over hummus, how Italian food crept into Israel from the US, the revamping of kibbutz dining, the myth that Thai migrant workers consume dog meat, and how limited access to meat by MPs and Palestinians in a military prison affected morale. The analyses are adroit, and though the author carefully eschews drawing broad conclusions from his research, the reader gleans much about Israel, the anxieties that wrack everyday life there, and the place of eating in the social fabric of this ever-changing society. The book is well documented and has an excellent index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Laurence D. Loeb, emeritus, University of Utah