Finding the fundamentals of culture

On forging meaning through food

Featured in

  • Published 20221101
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-74-0
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

THE SURGEON PEERS at my scan, then looks up at me.

‘I can fix that,’ he says, pointing two fingers at my throat. ‘We cut a seven-centimetre hole in the front of your neck, then push your windpipe out of the way,’ he says as he gestures left with his fingers. ‘We push your oesophagus the other way,’ and again the two fingers pointed at my Adam’s apple waggle. ‘Then we go in deep.’

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

More from this edition

Confected outrage

EssayMany of us can name our favourite childhood lollies. But what if a lolly’s name, or the name of another popular food item, is out of date? What if it’s racist, harmful or wrong? What happens when the name of a lolly doesn’t work anymore?

The fight for the white stuff

EssayAlthough non-dairy milks are hardly unique to the US, there seemed something distinctly ‘American’ about the consumerist techno-utopianism of engineered nutrition. In its seductive promises and dazzling abundance, in its massification and drive for profit, and its bold-yet-arrogant ambition, the world of plant milks became a metonym for everything I loved and loathed about US culture. Give me a carton of Blue Diamond Almond Breeze and you have given me America.

Heat and hope and attention

MemoirRules that were once rooted in religion have settled into our insides as secular, self-imposed rules about ‘good’ food and ‘bad’ food and, by extension, ‘good’ bodies and ‘bad’ bodies.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.