This volume addresses the unique relationship between the American dream and the manifold ways in which food and food-related topics support and expand upon elements that constitute the American dream. The contributors discuss instances in which Americans of one heritage or another attempt to find freedom and fashion a life for themselves and a uniquely American identity. Through various forms of literaturenovels, short stories, cookbooks, and memoirsthese essays explore the American Dream through a myriad of cultures, food, and their intertwined meanings.
Acknowledgments
Introduction, Robert C. Hauhart
Part 1: Using Food to Craft American Dream Fiction
1. Food and the American Dream in Four Celebrated American Novels, Robert C.
Hauhart and Anahi Arenas
Part 2: Narratives of Identity at the Intersection of Food and the American
Dream
2. Queer Hunger, Unseen Food, and the American Dream, Lucky Issar
3. Grilling Manhood: Food, Masculinity, and the American Dream, David Magill
4. An Exploration of Bizarre Foods and the Representation of the American
Dream and American Identity through Food, Erin Dicesare
Part 3: Food and Memoir in Service of the American Dream
5. From Dishtowels to Riches: Chasing the American Dream in Restaurant
Kitchens, Philine Schiller
6. Devouring and Reconstructing the American Dream in Bich Minh Nguyens
Stealing Buddhas Dinner, Stephanie Couey
7. In a Corn-Field Number Every Grain: Corn and Anne Bradstreets American
Dream, Ann Beebe
Part 4: Food in Diaspora Narratives and their Relevance to the American
Dream
8. On the So-Called Hummus Wars: Palestinian Food and the Making of an
Identity , Benay Blend
9. The Underbelly of the American Dream: Feeding, Eating, and Starving for
Love in Toni Morrisons Beloved, Cristavao Nwachukwu
Part 5: The Kitchen as a Stage for Feminine Resistance and as a Place to
Achieve the American Dream
10. I Dream of Fried Chicken: Black Women, Black Foodways, and the American
Dream, Khari Chanel Johnson
11. Just Add Eggs: Mixing up the American Dream, Kelly Spivey
Part 6: African American Food Tropes as a Source of the American Dream
12. Soul Food in a Shoebox: How Culinary Resistance Helped African Americans
Achieve the American Dream of Travel, Telia Mary U. Williams Anderson
13. The American Alimentary: Black Eating Cultures and Personhood in Toni
Morrisons Paradise, Diana Farin Molina
14. Loving My Soul: Reconciling African American Foodways with the American
Dream, Rod Taylor
Part 7: Consuming the American Dream as a Means to Constitute It
15. Consuming the American Immigrant Dream in Michael Golds Jews without
Money, Jeff Birkenstein
16. Eating towards the American Dream: Consumption, Class, and
(Un)fulfilment in Hanya Yanagiharas A Little Life, Natalie Wall
17. Never an American: Cathartic Food Practices against the Inhospitable
in Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Maria Mothes
18. Intersecting Dreams of a Nation and its Gourmet: Culinary Readings of
Select Short Stories, Gigy Alex
Contributors
Index
Robert Hauhart is a professor in the Department of Society and Social Justice at St. Martins University in Lacey, Washington. He and Jeff Birkenstein have coedited six volumes of essays, including most recently Significant Food in American Literature. He is the author of The Lonely Quest: Constructing the Self in Twenty-First Century American Life and Seeking the American Dream: A Sociological Inquiry.
Jeff Birkenstein is a professor of English at Centralia College in Washington. He and Robert Hauhart have coedited six volumes of essays, including most recently Significant Food in American Literature. He is also coeditor, with Anna Froula and Karen Randell, of The Cinema of Terry Gilliam: Its a Mad World.
