Food and Foodways in African Narratives

Community, Culture, and Heritage

Jonathan Highfield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138630734
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351764421
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Food is a defining feature in every culture. Despite its very basic purpose of sustaining life, it directly impacts the community, culture and heritage in every region around the globe in countless seen and unseen ways, including the literature and narratives of each region. Across the African continent, food and foodways, which refer to the ways that humans consume, produce and experience food, were influened by slavery and forced labor, colonization, foreign aid, and the anxieties prompted by these encounters, all of which can be traced through the ways food is seen in narratives by African and colonial storytellers. The African continent is home to thousands of cultures, but nearly every one has experienced alteration of its foodways because of slavery, transcontinental trade, and colonization. Food and Foodways in African Narratives: Community, Culture, and Heritage takes a careful look at these alterations as seen through African narratives throughout various cultures and spanning centuries.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: The Spider and Fanon
• 2 Food and the Epic: Sunjata Swallowing the Magic Fruit
• 3 Food and Labor: Domestic Colonialism and Domestic Audience
• 4 Food and Sustainability: Agriculture, Colonialism, and Foodways in the Writing of Bessie Head
• 5 Food and Violence: Conflict, Foodways, and Slow Violence
• 6 Food and Global Capital: Black Tyger, Elvis Presley, and Yam Peppersoup: Food and Stories and the Global Capitalist System in Nigeria
• 7 Food and Exile: Keeping the Recipes Safe: Emigration and Food
• Bibliography
• Index