Carole Counihan is a Professor o Anthropology and the Director of Women's Studies at Millersville University in Millersville, PA. She is currently senior editor of Foodand Foodways journal. Her previous books include Food andCulture: A Reader and The Anthropology of Food and Body, both published by Routledge.

"For anyone who has wondered just what food means to Americans, this volume is indispensable. Carole M. Counihan has compiled an important collection of articles that explores American food in all its diversity and examines its larger meanings in U.S. society and beyond. Both those who decry and those who celebrate American foodways will find much of value in this volume, which convincingly demonstrates the importance of food studies to any understanding of national culture." -- Darra Goldstein, Editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Foodand Culture"Food in the USA includes cutting-edge essays on a variety of topics.. Among the recent collections of readings on food and society, this is the most extensive." -- William Whit, author of Food and Society: A Sociological Approach"An exceptionally strong collection.I'd like to place my order now!" -- Warren Belasco, editor of Food Nations"The U.S. is so extraordinary in its food habits, food industries and overarching global power that one can hardly overdo this subject.a useful and popular reader." -- Sydney Mintz, author of Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom

• Acknowledgments Part I - Food and the Nation 1. Introduction: Food and the Nation, Carole M. Counihan 2. The Taste of Y2K, John L. Hess and Karen Hess 3. Eating American, Sidney Mintz 4. What Do We Eat?, Donna Gabaccia 5. The Invention of Thanksgiving: a Ritual of American Nationality, Janet Siskind 6. Future Notes: The Meal-in-a-Pill, Warren Belasco Part II - Making U.S. Food 7. The American Response to Italian Food, 1880-1930, Harvey Levenstein 8. The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity: Chicago, 1915-1947, Tracy N. Poe 9. The Nutritional Impacts of European Contact on the Omaha: A Continuing Legacy, Christiana E. Miewald 10. Consumer Culture and Participatory Democracy: The Story of Coca Cola during World War II, Mark Weiner 11. Farm Boys Don't Believe in Radicals: Rural Time and Meatpacking Workers, Deborah Fink 12. The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States, William Roseberry Part III - Complexities of Consumption 13. Islands of Serenity: Gender, Race, and Ordered Meals during World War II, Amy Bentley 14. The Passover Seder: Ritual Dynamics, Foodways, and Family Folklore, Sharon R. Sherman 15.Continuity and Change in Symptom Choice: Anorexia, Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Ruth Striegel-Moore 16. 'A Way Outa No Way': Eating Problems among African-American, Latina, and White Women, Becky Wangsgaard Thompson 17. Diabetes, Diet, and Native American Foraging Traditions, Gary Paul Nabhan 18. The Contemporary Soup Kitchen, Irene Glasser Part IV - Food Signifying Identities 19. The Signifying Dish: Autobiography and History in Two Black Women's Cookbooks, Rafia Zafar 20. 'To Eat the Flesh of His Dead Mother': Hunger, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Frank Chin's Donald Duk, Eileen Chia-Ching Fung 21. 'We Got Our Way of Cooking Things': Women, Food, and Preservation of Cultural Identity among the Gullah, Josephine Beoku-Betts 22. Food as Women's Voice in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Carole Counihan 23. Food, Masculinity and Place in the Hispanic Southwest, James Taggart 24. Who Deserves a Break Today?: Fast Food, Cultural Rituals, and Women's Place, Kate Kane Part V - Food and the Emerging World 25. The International Political Economy of Food: A Global Crisis, Harriet Friedmann 26. China's Big Mac Attack, James L. Watson 27. NAFTA and Basic Food Production: Dependency and Marginalization on Both Sides of the US/Mexico Border, James H. McDonald 28. New Agricultural Biotechnologies: The Struggle for Democratic Choice, Gerad Middendorf, Mike Skladany, Elizabeth Ransom, and Lawrence Busch 29. Hunger in the United States: Policy Implications, Marion Nestle 30. Growing Food, Growing Community: Community Supported Agriculture in Rural Iowa, Betty L. Wells, Shelly Gradwell and Rhonda Yoder