“Significant Food” builds a textual analysis and criticism that chews on the role and prominence of food in American literature.
This collection of essays offers close readings of well-known and somewhat obscure examples of American writing, as studied through the food culture sensibilities of a well-stocked cupboard of contributors.
Editors Jeff Birkenstein and Robert C. Hauhart unify critical theory to guide analyses of uses of food in American literature, offering the theory of “significant food,” a method that asks literary critics to evaluate and assess the extent, nature and role that food plays in literary production.
When food and “food moments” are used intensively and “significantly” within the drama, memoir, poem, novel or short story, one can say that is has achieved a status that makes it indispensable to the work.
