This text uses food as a case study of consumption and the expression of taste, providing a structural analysis of changes and continuities in the representation and purchase of food. It outlines theories of change in the 20th century and considers the parallels between their diagnoses of consumer behaviour and actual trends in food practices. The book argues that various dilemmas of the modern predicament and certain imperatives of the culture of consumption make sense of food selection. It also suggests that contemporary consumption is best viewed as a process of continual selection among an unprecedented range of generally accessible terms.
Alan Warde is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. He has worked in the sociology of consumption over the last 15 years and has published extensively on the topic. He was Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition, between 1999 and 2007, where he was responsible for a programme of research on consumption. He has written a dozen books and edited a further eleven.
PART ONE: ISSUES OF TASTE Consumption, Taste and Social Change The New Manners of Food Trends and their Sociological Interpretation Measuring Change in Taste PART TWO: INDICATORS OF TASTE: CHANGING FOOD HABITS Novelty and Tradition Health and Indulgence Economy and Extravagance Convenience and Care PART THREE: INTERPRETATIONS OF TASTE The Reconstruction of Taste Theories of Consumption and the Case of Food
`Alan Warde, professor in sociology at the University of Lancaster, makes here a well argued and important contribution, on the basis of empirical research, to current theories of consumption. The book is in three parts: `Issues of Taste', `Indicators of Taste: Changing Food Habits', and `Interpretations of Taste'. In each, fresh material is usefully explored and new viewpoints presented regarding the relationship between consumption patterns and processes of economic production of food' - `Food is of immediate interest to work, employment and society. It straddles a number of sectors, from agriculture through processing and retailing to catering. As such it is the source of a wide variety of jobs, in number and type. Further, food is not fodder; it is prepared both in and out of the home, has enormous symbolic significance, and is intimately related to social and economic reproduction. Warde's carefully constructed and argued book is primarily concerned with food and consumption... This book does much to clear the ground of other, over-generalized theories of food consumption, and it provides a considerable range of alternative perspectives informed by empirical material. As such, it will prove invaluable to those examining food and consumption. It opens the way for further analytical advance if wedded to, and reconstructed on the basis of , a more detailed attention to specific foods and how they are provided' - Work, Employment and Society
