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Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World by Michael LaCombe (review)

Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World by Michael LaCombe (review) Utopian Studies 26.1 Michael LaCombe. Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 240 pp. Cloth, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-8122-4418-2 Reviewed by Patrick Erben, University of West Georgia In his book Political Gastronomy, Michael LaCombe takes up an element of early American history and culture that is still poorly understood--the function of food and its various ancillary activities such as the growing, eating, and exchanging of victuals. LaCombe focuses on the early English settlements around the Atlantic before 1660, which in his study means Roanoke, Jamestown, Bermuda, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay. Although LaCombe emphasizes the special status of food as both dietary necessity and symbolic value, the book primarily studies the symbolic meanings that English settlers and native peoples located and negotiated in their political actions, especially their continuous "struggle for precedence" (8), authority, and leadership. In order to sidestep debates about the alleged dysfunctionality of early English settlements, LaCombe asserts his interest in "what contemporaries envisioned as an appropriate social order, how that order should be manifest in everyday life, and how to respond when experiences diverged from the normative vision" (22). From the perspective of a literary scholar, it http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Utopian Studies Penn State University Press

Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World by Michael LaCombe (review)

Erben, Patrick M. -- (Patrick Michael)
Utopian Studies , Volume 26 (1) – Apr 17, 2015
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Publisher
Penn State University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Utopian Studies
ISSN
2154-9648
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Abstract

Utopian Studies 26.1 Michael LaCombe. Political Gastronomy: Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 240 pp. Cloth, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-8122-4418-2 Reviewed by Patrick Erben, University of West Georgia In his book Political Gastronomy, Michael LaCombe takes up an element of early American history and culture that is still poorly understood--the function of food and its various ancillary activities such as the growing, eating, and exchanging of victuals. LaCombe focuses on the early English settlements around the Atlantic before 1660, which in his study means Roanoke, Jamestown, Bermuda, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay. Although LaCombe emphasizes the special status of food as both dietary necessity and symbolic value, the book primarily studies the symbolic meanings that English settlers and native peoples located and negotiated in their political actions, especially their continuous "struggle for precedence" (8), authority, and leadership. In order to sidestep debates about the alleged dysfunctionality of early English settlements, LaCombe asserts his interest in "what contemporaries envisioned as an appropriate social order, how that order should be manifest in everyday life, and how to respond when experiences diverged from the normative vision" (22). From the perspective of a literary scholar, it

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Utopian Studies – Penn State University Press

Published: Apr 17, 2015

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