Food & Everyday Life in the Postsocialist World

"The authors of Food and Everyday Life provide a text that is rich in historical and cultural context and that examines the interactions of the regular people of the old Soviet states in ways that are convincing, thorough, and otherwise mind-blowing." --Counterpoise, Winter/Spring 2010 Indiana University Press

"Food and Everyday Life in the Post-Socialist World is a significant contribution to the field of food studies and to the anthropology of post-socialism." --Anthropology of East Europe Review

"By illuminating the ways in which people previously living under state socialism have variously responded to new food markets and regulatory regimes, this volume constitutes an important contribution to post-socialist studies and to the anthropology of food." --Jakob A. Klein, School of Oriental and

African Studies, Jrnl Royal Anthropological Inst JRAI , #16 2010

"No advanced students or scholars of the social sciences concerned with globalizing topics and post-socialist states should miss the opportunity to examine this book.... We are fortunate to have such a worthy contribution to food studies and Eurasian anthropology." --The Russian Review

"[E]ach essay in this collection is exceptionally well written and thoroughly researched. In its unique look at how food practices have reflected and responded to the transition from the socialist past to the capitalist present, this collection provides a valuable contribution to the ongoing academic debates about the Europeanization and globalization of the countries of the former Soviet bloc." --Slavic and East European Journal

Across the Soviet Union and eastern Europe during the socialist period, food emerged as a symbol of both the successes and failures of socialist ideals of progress, equality, and modernity. By the late 1980s, the arrival of McDonald's behind the Iron Curtain epitomized the changes that swept across the socialist world. Not quite two decades later, the effects of these arrivals were evident in the spread of foreign food corporations and their integration into local communities. This book explores the role played by food--as commodity, symbol, and sustenance--in the transformation of life in Russia and eastern Europe since the end of socialism. Changes in food production systems, consumption patterns, food safety, and ideas about health, well-being, nationalism, and history provide useful perspectives on the meaning of the postsocialist transition for those who lived through it.

Melissa L. Caldwell is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is author of Not by Bread Alone: Social Support in the New Russia and editor (with James L. Watson) of The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating.

Foreword / Marion Nestle

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Food and Everyday Life after State Socialism / Melissa L. Caldwell

1. From Canned Food to Canny Consumers: Cultural Competence in the Age of Mechanical Production / Yuson Jung

2. The Tale of the Toxic Paprika: The Hungarian Taste of Euro-Globalization / Zsuzsa Gille

3. Self-Made Women: Informal Dairy Markets in Europeanizing Lithuania / Diana Mincyte

4. Tempest in a Coffee Pot: Brewing Incivility in Russia's Public Sphere / Melissa L. Caldwell

5. The Geopolitics of Taste: The "Euro" and "Soviet" Sausage Industries in Lithuania / Neringa Klumbyt

6. A Celebration of Masterstvo: Professional Cooking, Culinary Art, and Cultural Production in Russia / Stas Shectman

7. The Social and Gendered Lives of Vodka in Rural Siberia / Katherine Metzo

Afterword. Turnips and Mangos: Power and the Edible State in Eastern Europe / Elizabeth C. Dunn

List of Contributors

Index