There is no sapient question: to eat or not to eat? Eating comes before culture, but with culture it becomes more than just eating. It is with the purpose of exploring the relation between culture and consuming food – a relation far more complex than it might seem at first sight – that this book has been intended. In this sense, the book inscribes itself within that trend in cultural studies whose main objectives include the defamiliarization of the commonplace. While its subject matter is quite specific, the range of particular issues – apart from theoretical ones – involves different geo-cultural areas and different temporal environments: from Sri Lanka via Europe to South America, and from ancient Rome via medieval times to contemporary England. Likewise, the cultural realms in which food and eating appear as significant and meaningful components of reality range from fiction to practices of everyday life, from gender identity to eroticism, from economy to epistemology.
