Author: Smith, Robyn

Source: Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Volume 11, Number 4, December 2008 , pp. 419-448(30)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

Abstract:

This article considers the possibility for an aesthetics approach to food and eating as both a way to fashion ethics and a way to understand culinary aspects of society. I consider the possibilities for a critical ethics within dietary aesthetic practices through an interpretive investigation of vegetarian cookbooks. For this work I examined two books each from the English and Anglo-American vegetarian movement (1879 and 1904) and the Anglo-American vegetarian movement of the 1960s and 1970s. I argue that, although all the cookbooks under consideration here contain aesthetic practices of food and eating, there are profound ethical differences and distances between them. I argue further that some practices, rather than others, are ethically useful and important insofar as they allow sensual experiences "corresponding to change" (Massumi 1987: xvi).

Keywords: AESTHETICS; ETHICS; VEGETARIANISM; COOKBOOKS

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/175174408X389111

Publication date: 2008-12-01

More about this publication?

• Formerly, The Journal for the Study of Food and Society (ISSN: 1528-9796). Click here to see all previous issues.
• Subscribe to this Title
• ingentaconnect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites

Related content

• In this: publication
• By this: publisher
• In this Subject: Nutrition & Food ,  Social Sciences
• By this author: Smith, Robyn

Website © Publishing Technology. Article copyright remains with the publisher, society or author(s) as specified within the article.

• Terms and conditions
• Privacy policy
• Information for advertisers