This introduction examines how food and foodways were used in Russia and in the Communist Bloc nations of Eastern and Central Europe as a means of envisioning and implementing the idea of a utopian future in the here and now. In the case of Russia, food imagery had been utilized in nineteenth-century literature to imagine the ideal community, which became a political and economic necessity after the October Revolution of 1917. Loudly proclaimed ideals of modernity and progress required tangible results, such as an abundance of cheap and healthy food. Local variants of this followed the spread of Soviet influence to Eastern Europe after World War II. Here new foodways and technologies were likewise introduced in order to create the “dreamworlds” of the future. The fall of communism (1989–91) brought about the need to reimagine culinary landscapes, both as a critique of socialism and—later—as a response to twenty-first-century globalization and homogenization.

In the face of globalization, chefs in Kyoto, Japan have worked to protect local food culture and revive the local food economy. Their actions do not constitute “resistance,” nor are they simply signs of the persistence of local difference in the context of large-scale changes. Drawing primarily on interviews I conducted with prominent chefs of “traditional” Kyoto cuisine and participant observation at events related to Kyoto cuisine, this article examines chefs’ approaches to outside influence and promotion efforts abroad. I pay specific attention to the incorporation of new foreign ingredients into Kyoto cuisine and new efforts to share culinary knowledge with foreign chefs, namely the establishment of a work visa system and the creation of a cookbook series targeted at professional chefs abroad. Kyoto's chefs, this article demonstrates, have been strategically engaging with globalization, actively refashioning the local to try to control it at a global scale.

The coastal region surrounding Charleston, South Carolina—commonly referred to as the Lowcountry—is a place famous for its foodways. Lowcountry cuisine is often portrayed as convivial and celebrated as multicultural. This article argues, however, that much of the Lowcountry's food culture is marked by the region's history of racism. It is important not only to recognize this dominant tendency, but also to acknowledge attempts to challenge it. Thus, this article also highlights recent efforts to articulate an alternative vision of the region and its cuisine. By investigating what is at stake when regional cuisines are contested, I attempt to place the future of Lowcountry food on firmer footing.

Black American women have long sustained a complex relationship to food—its production, consumption, and distribution within families, communities, and the nation. Black women, often represented in American culture as “natural” good cooks on the one hand and beset by obesity on the other, straddle an uncomfortable divide that is at the heart of contemporary debate about the nature of our food system. Yet, Black women as authorities in the kitchen and elsewhere in matters of food—culturally, politically, and socially—are largely absent, made invisible by the continued salience of intersecting vectors of disempowerment: race/gender/class/sexuality. In this dialogue, we bring together a variety of agents, approaches, explorations, and examples of the spaces where Black American women have asserted their “food voices” in ways that challenge fundamentally the status quo (both progressive and conservative) and utilize the dominant discourses to create spaces of dissent and strategic acquiescence to the logics of capital ever-present in our food systems.

The fear of want is one of the great protagonists of human history. Grain riots are its most spectacular illustration. Indigence, however, always combines with a sense of deprivation before leading to upheavals. The relations between biological and cultural definitions of need form the subject matter of this article. It offers a reflection on the ways in which historians have construed the rapports between individual metabolism and collective representation. It argues that accounting for foodways requires their inscription in pertinent contexts before they are measured in calories and cents. Comprehension of the meaning of alimentary practices constitutes an indispensable step for assuring a chance of success to attempts at inflecting behavior—whether in consumer societies where profusion brings about a great many life-style related afflictions (obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.) or developing countries where malnutrition continues to undermine health and hunger remains responsible for a majority of deaths.

The displaced of Sudan, due to both decades of civil war and natural disasters, are disproportionately female and many are responsible for dependents. For those settling in the capital, Khartoum, their livelihood depends on carving out ways to earn money in an urban area that is experiencing tremendous growth from the millions of recent arrivals. When confronted with the immediate need to provide for their families, women turn to a skill universally expected of them: cooking. Therefore, Khartoum is home to a thriving micro-economy of food vendors. By selling these dishes in the capital, they broaden the culinary horizons of the city while preserving their own food traditions. Their growing numbers provide an opportunity for regional foodways to gain wider introduction, adaptation, and, finally, adoption. These same vendors also facilitate a nascent sense of a shared Sudanese identity and nationalism. For established Khartoum urbanites, the definition of Sudanese food (and, by extension, what it means to be Sudanese) expands as street-vendor fare moves to restaurants and becomes more widely available throughout the city. As urban Sudanese overcome their preconceptions and discover a taste for regional cuisines, meals function as unofficial diplomacy during this turbulent time in Sudan's history.