Synopses & Reviews
What do your Eggs Benedict say about your notions of class?Every weekend, in cities around the world, bleary-eyed diners wait in line to be served overpriced, increasingly outré food by hungover waitstaff. For some, the ritual we call brunch is a beloved pastime; for others, a bedeviling waste of time. But what does its popularity say about shifting attitudes towards social status and leisure? In some ways, brunch and other forms of conspicuous consumption have blinded us to ever-more-precarious employment conditions. For award-winning writer and urbanist Shawn Micallef, brunch is a way to look more closely at the nature of work itself and a catalyst for solidarity among the so-called creative class.
Drawing on theories from Thorstein Veblen to Richard Florida, Micallef traces his own journey from the rust belt to a cosmopolitan city where the evolving middle class he joined was oblivious to its own instability and insularity.
The Trouble with Brunch is a provocative analysis of foodie obsession and status anxiety, but it's also a call to reset our class consciousness. The real trouble with brunch isn't so much bad service and outsized portions of bacon, it's that brunch could be so much more.
Review
"As Toronto grows into a more mature, more compelling city, a new group of non-academic, street-smart urbanists has emerged to appreciate it with-it young writers, architects and men and women about town who love big cities and see things in Toronto that most of us miss. Shawn Micallef is one of the sharpest of this sharp-eyed breed." Globe and Mail
"A smart and intimate guide to the city that makes you feel like an insider from start to finish."
Douglas Coupland [on Stroll]
Synopsis
What do your Eggs Benedict say about your notions of class?
Synopsis
Every weekend all across North America, bleary-eyed diners wait in long lines to be served overpriced eggs by hungover waitstaff. What does this ritual's enduring popularity say about shifting attitudes towards social status, leisure time, and consumption? Drawing on theories from Thorstein Veblen to Richard Florida, as well as Shawn Micallef's own journey from the rust belt to cosmopolitan metropolis, The Trouble with Brunch incisively explores how, as manufacturing economies morph into service and creative ones, long-held conceptions of class and taste transform with them.
Shawn Micallef is the author of Stroll and the co-editor of Spacing magazine. He was a 201112 Massey Fellow.
Synopsis
Every weekend, bleary-eyed diners wait in line to be served overpriced food by hungover waitstaff. What does the popularity of brunch say about shifting attitudes towards social status, leisure time, and consumption? Drawing on theories from Veblen to Florida and his own journey from the rust belt to a cosmopolitan city, Micallef explores how notions of class have changed.
The Trouble with Brunch begins with an exploration of brunch and moves on to other urrent lifestyle trappings (travel, health care trends). But Micallef doesn't end his look at food there. He also investigates food as identity and looks at the political divisions between things like Starbucks and Tim Hortons. The book also includes a more in-depth history of class and how class has been perceived, including documentation of Micallef's own awakening to class during his personal journey from Windsor to Toronto.
Shawn Micallef is the author of Stroll and the co-editor of Spacing magazine. He was a 201112 Massey Fellow.
About the Author
Shawn Micallef: Shawn Micallef is the author of
Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto and the co-editor of
Spacing magazine. He teaches at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design and was a 201112 Journalism Fellow at Massey College. He writes about cities, culture, architecture, art, and politics.