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Pressure Cooker brings readers into the homes and kitchens of a diverse group of mothers to uncover what it really takes to feed the modern family and what really needs to change to ensure a fair, healthy, and sustainable food system that nourishes everyone. Dispelling many common myths about food politics, this book challenges the revival of romantic food ideals that would have mothers returning en masse to the kitchen in order to reduce obesity or limit the environmental ravages of global food production.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1: Introduction: (Back) to the Kitchen?
- Part One: You Are What You Eat
- Chapter 2: Room 105
- Chapter 3: Deep Roots
- Chapter 4: By the Book
- Chapter 5: Hurtful Words
- Part Two: Make Time for Food
- Chapter 6: Taking the Time
- Chapter 7: Finding Balance
- Chapter 8: Shift Work
- Part Three: The Family that Eats Together, Stays Together
- Chapter 9: Spaghetti for an Army
- Chapter 10: Fourth of July
- Chapter 11: Where's the Gravy?
- Chapter 12: Takis
- Chapter 13: Scarce Food
- Part Four: Know What's on Your Plate
- Chapter 14: Vote with Your Fork
- Chapter 15: The Repertoire
- Chapter 16: Sour Grapes
- Part Five: Shop Smarter, Eat Better
- Chapter 17: Smart Shopper
- Chapter 18: Blood from a Turnip
- Chapter 19: The Checkout Line
- Part Six: Bring Good Food to Others
- Chapter 20: Lotus Café
- Chapter 21: A Small Fridge
- Chapter 22: Daily Bread
- Chapter 23: Stop Crying
- Part Seven: Food Brings People Together
- Chapter 24: Sunday Dinner
- Chapter 25: Cupcakes for Cousin
- Chapter 26: Thanksgiving
- Chapter 27: Communion
- Chapter 28: Conclusions: Thinking Outside the Kitchen
- Appendix: Notes on Methods
- References
- Endnotes
About the author
Sarah Bowen is Associate Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University. Her work focuses on food systems, local and global institutions, and inequality in the United States, Mexico, and France. She is author of Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production (University of California Press, 2015).
Joslyn Brenton is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Ithaca College. Her research focuses on the sociology of health and illness, with a particular focus on how mothers of young children think about food, health, and the body.
Sinikka Elliott is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia where she researches and teaches on the topics of gender, sexuality, inequality, and family. She is the author of Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers (NYU Press, 2012).
Summary
Food is at the center of national debates about how Americans live and the future of the planet. Not everyone agrees about how to reform our relationship to food, but one suggestion rises above the din: home-cooked meals. Amid concerns about obesity and diabetes, unpronounceable ingredients, and the environmental footprint of industrial agriculture, food reformers implore parents to slow down, cook from scratch, and gather around the dinner table. Voting with your fork, they argue, will lead to happier and healthier families. But is it really that simple?
Informed by extensive interviews and observations with families, Pressure Cooker examines how deep-seated differences shape the work done in kitchens across America. Conversations about family meals are dominated by a relentless focus on what individuals can better do to improve their own health and the health of their families and the nation. This book looks closely at the lives of nine diverse families to demonstrate how family meals are profoundly shaped by what happens inside and outside people's homes.
The scenes contained in this book contrast with the joyful images we see on cooking shows or read about in cookbooks. Romantic images of family meals are inviting. But they create a food fiction that does little to fix the problems in the food system. Even worse, they contribute to the pressure on families-and in particular, mothers-to strive for an ideal that has never been simple to achieve. A day of food reckoning cannot come without considering how class inequality, racism, sexism, and xenophobia pass through the kitchen. To ensure a food system that is fair and equitable, we must move the conversation out of the kitchen.
