With a focus on class, race, and food acquisition in Cuba, Hanna Garth’s first monograph does everything a riveting, analytical, and accessible ethnography should do. Locating herself within the narrative of particular people’s lives, she outlines the political and economic context of Cuba within its recent and long history. By telling the stories of households and individuals, and the significant struggles they face to acquire meaningful foods, Garth demonstrates what is at stake: the ability to provide a decent and culturally appropriate meal as part of maintaining race- and class-contingent pride and social standing, especially for women. Taking the local concept of “level of culture” (p. 21) she demonstrates how people living in contemporary Santiago de Cuba use food, and the consumption of certain foods, as a mechanism for making social distinctions that are racialized and classed, as well as being highly gendered and complicated by sexuality.
Garth’s strength in...
University of California Press