Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region

"Theresa McCulla probes the overt and covert ways that the production of food and food discourse both creates and reinforces many strains of inequality in New Orleans, a city often defined by its foodways. She uses menus, cookbooks, newspapers, dolls, and other material culture to limn the interplay among the production and reception of food, the inscription and reiteration of racial hierarchies, and the constant diminishment and exploitation of working-class people. McCulla goes far beyond the initial task of tracing New Orleans culinary history to focus on how food suffuses culture and our understandings and constructions of race and power"--

The author of the bestseller The Official Redneck Handbook tries to explain how insurance companies work, how one becomes a senior citizen, how to hook up a VCR, why hospitals that charge hundreds of dollars a day provide you with a gown that doesn't cover you, why today's neckties cost so much, and more. Illustrated.