Consuming Passions takes into account that humans do not simply eat to sustain life, but have an ongoing relationship with food, its preparation, and its presentation. Eating is associated with initiations, burial rites, gender roles, hospitality - virtually every human activity. The thesis of this book is, quite simply, if you know what, where , when, and with whom to eat, then you know a great deal about the character of society. Food choices and production are influenced by biological and social needs, technology, and ecological restrictions.

1982. Sanjur, D. Social and Cultural Perspectives in Nutrition. (Prentice Hall: N.J.)

Diva Sanjur has written a critical text on perspectives in nutrition, discussing the patterns of food habits and including 'various conceptual methodological schemes' she believes will add to our understanding of cultural aspects of food procurement and preferences. She has worked as a public health nutritionist in Panama and researched food habits in Latin American and U.S. communities.

1969. Glubok, S. Home and Child Life in Colonial Days (New York: Macmillan Co.).

Adams' photographs of eastern Kentucky document the individuals as well as the Appalachian culture. The photographs show living conditions and express the importance people place on the family, home, and food. Some portraits reveal music, religious and funeral practices. In all of the photos, the facial expressions of the people tell their stories, however, the book would not be as interesting without the fictional stories by Lee Smith.

1995 Ed. by MB Pudup, DB Billings, and AL Walker. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press).

Appalachia in the Making examines how and why the Appalachian economy and community changed during the nineteenth century. The focus on agriculture is helpful in understanding frontier vs. settled farm families of the region. The people's agricultural way of life changed when they confronted industrialization. The Appalachians witnessed class formation and struggled to keep alive their traditions and their agricultural economy.

1987 Cunningham, R. Apples on the Flood: The Southern Mountain Experience. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press).

The foodways of Appalachia adapted from 'Celtic' agriculture and livestock husbandry and were affected by regional differences in Scotland and Ireland. The book includes analyses of historical effects on agricultural development in the U.S. with references to periods in both North American and European history.

1986. Anderson, Janet Alm. A Taste of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky).

 The book is an excellent resource for Southern foods (especially Kentucky) in general. It includes mainly recipes (i.e. red-eye gravy, oppossum, rabbit, hominy and hoe cake), witty quotes (p.25: "You can tell the type by the meat they eat."), pictures and little tidbits of information regarding things such as home remedies ( p.11: "Drink lard and turpentine for a sore throat."). Once again, the favorite meat was listed as pork, and Kentuckians subsisted on preserved pork from the smokehouse and dried beans and corn during the long winter months when food couldn't be grown or hunted easily, if at all. The Scots and the English were the first settlers in the area and they adopted many of the foods that they Native Americans were using such as deer, turkeys, greens, wild cherries, pumpkins, squash and corn. Actually, corn was one of the most important foods because wheat does not grow well in uncultivated soil. The uses of corn were varied ranging from breads and porridges to corn whiskey (Kentucky is famous for it) and hog feed.

This book has several chapters exploring foodways of the tribes of North America extensively (pp. 53-104). Topics include natural vegetation areas, domesticated animals, hunting, fishing, wild plant foods, food preparation and preservation, nutrition, and social/religious aspects of food.

1989. Nabhan, G.P. Enduring Seeds.(San Francisco: North Point Press).

This is a study of American Indian agriculture and the chief principles: local cultural stability, local adaptation of cultures and crops, connections and exchanges between groups, and relationships between the local domestic economy and the surrounding wild ecosystem. Many areas of the Americas are represented; in each area farming methods and forced agricultural changes are explored in detail.

1974. Niethammer, C. American Indian Food and Lore. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.).

 Collected here are 150 recipes using 50 different species of cactus, nuts and seeds, wild fruits, greens, and agricultural staples. Each chapter is prefaced by methods of preparation, medicinal or ceremonial uses, and other traditional ways of using these edibles. Included are hints on where to find the ingredients in the wild and their seasonal or regional availability.

1911. Swanton, J.R. Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office).

A catalogue of the tribes of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and northwest Florida. Ceremonial feasts of the Natchez group are described in detail on p. 110.

 The portion of this book that was useful was a small section detailing the faunal findings in and around a slave cabin. It appears that the records kept by slave owners of the food that they provided for slaves is insufficient in detailing the complete slave diet. From the archaeological remains it becomes obvious that the slaves were spending a great deal of time fishing, hunting and even keeping small gardens. They also had a few domesticated animals of their own and the most common one was the pig. This trend has carried through to the tidewater region of Virginia today where pork remains extremely popular. Surprisingly, it appears that a great deal of catfish (few and difficult to catch) were consumed and few shad or herring (numerous and easy to catch) were eaten. Oysters shells were also found in great quantities, but these must have been provided by the master because the closest source of fresh oysters was at least twenty-five miles away. The foods most often eaten (based on the percentage of identifiable remains found) were pork, catfish, birds (unidentified), fish (unidentified), sturgeon, chicken, cattle and oppossum.

1971. Gelfand, M. Diet and Tradition in an African Culture (Edinburgh: E & S Livingstone).

 This book is an excellent resource for a holistic look at the foodways of the Bantu speakers of South Africa. The author is of the opinion that in order to understand the foodways of any group, you must understand some things about the group themselves. As a result, he gives an overall look at Shona culture, as well, as an in-depth look at their food-related traditions. Gelfand discusses important aspects of the foodways such as food preparation, sources of protein and avoidance rules. He then goes on to elaborate on the typical Shona meal and makes an assessment of the Shona diet. Overall, this is a great resource for those interested in the diet of the Bantu speaking people.

1972. Hilliard, S.B. . Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Carbonville: Southern Illinois University Press).

 This book is probably the best example I read describing the overall foodways of the South. The author extrapolates not only on the foodways of Southern whites, but also of blacks and even black slaves. The main idea that the author got across is the importance of pork to the Southern diet. According to the author the per capita consumption of pork in the colonial South was three times that of Europe. Mainly Southerners were dependent upon pork, corn, turnips, sweet potatoes, okra and peas. Doctors in the past would even plea with Southerners to stop eating the way that they did because it was unhealthy, but they refused. Even the vegetables had a meat component to them; greens, cabbages, and peas were boiled with a chunk of bacon. The book is excellent and utilizes numerous charts and graphs that prove useful.

1992. Whitehead, T. "In Search of Soul Food and Meaning: Culture, Food and Health", in African Americans in the South: Issues of Race, Class and Gender, ed. Hans A. Baer and Yvonne Jones (Athens: The University of Georgia Press).

This article is based on a study done by University of North Carolina students and their professor. The point of the research was to discover the broad consumption patterns in the African American community and how these foodways affect the health of the people. They also attempted to discover the reason members of the community continue to eat in ways that they know are very unhealthy for them. Dr. Whitehead and his students created what they called the Cultural Systems Paradigm (CSP). The CSP is basically defined as an ecological model that emphasizes the socio-cultural context of historical process.

1982.Taylor, J.G. . Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South: an Informal History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press).

 This text is about foodways in the South. The main chapter that we concentrated on was chapter 6, "Cornmeal and Salt Pork: The Food of the Slaves. The chapter describes the food that was provided to the slaves by the plantation owners and the food that they were able to obtain themselves. It also describes preparation techniques. According to the text, the slaves usually ate a less desirable portion of whatever the owners were eating. The book seems to assert that the diet of the adult slaves was adequate. The author says that the slaves consumed enough calories to do their work and, despite the high fat content in the foods they were eating, there was not a high incidence of coronary heart disease among the slave population.

It took several generations for the emerging social structure and cultural identity to form in Cajun Louisiana. Acadian refugees to Louisiana gradually divided into two relatively distinct classes: the elite planter class and the working farmer class. Acadians gradually adopted some of the Anglo (English-speaking) culture at all levels of social class. The decline in use of the French language in 1840's to 1850's is associated with the rise in Anglo population and the stress given to the adjoining states. The Cajun culture eventually developed as a blend of French, Spanish, and English cultures.

1983. Dormon, J.H. The People Called Cajuns (Lafayette, LA: The Center for Louisiana Studies, USWL).

Dormon addresses the ethnohistory of Cajuns in Louisiana; the book is mainly in reference to the evolution of Cajuns from their Acadian ancestry through the Civil War to the present day. The origin of Acadians, their expulsion from Nova Scotia, their developing xenophobia and the Cajuns' relationship with other Louisiana groups (Anglos, Spanish, and blacks) as well as the emergence of a class structure are discussed. Foodways are covered briefly, especially the food sources of the settlements and the adopted foods that are considered classic "Cajun".

1987. Egerton, J. Southern Food. (New York: Knopf).

Southern Food discusses both eating in and dining out in the southern U.S. today and in the past. In the section devoted to eating in, topics include meals, family customs, seafood, and barbeque. A section on Louisiana cooking gives a brief historical summary of both Creole and Cajun-style cuisine, the origins of specific foods, and identifies a modern "Cajun food craze" inspired by chef Paul Prudhomme and Al Copeland, founder of 'Popeye's' fast food chain.

This section of the book describes technological changes in the kitchen from Jamestown to the 1900's, with special attention to the manufacturing of molds that were made for gelatin desserts, ice cream, and other foods that needed a pre-shaped form for cooking and freezing.

1938 Parkins, A.E. The South: its Economic-Geographic Development. (West Port, CT: Greenwood Press).

This book deals with the American South and its growth both economically and geographically from colonial times to 1930's. It also draws conclusions from data, predicts trends and goes into detail about agriculture in the south and the railways that supplied it.

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