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A Bite Off Mama's Plate Mothers' and Daughters' Connections through Food
(Click to Enlarge)
Miriam Meyers
Book Code: H788
ISBN: 0-89789-788-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-89789-788-4
208 pages, cartoons
Bergin & Garvey Trade
Publication: 9/30/2001
List Price: $34.95 (UK Sterling Price: £19.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • A Bite Off Mama's Plate is a colorful, affectionate, and often humorous exploration of the "connection(s) women in families have through food"....[r]aises important and provocative questions that could inspire further research.
    —Gastronomica     Fall 2004
  • Delightfully combining commentary, recipes and telling anecdote, Meyers shows how relationships are developed and nurtured through food preparation and consumption and how many lessons about life come through the same routes. This book ranks high as an editor's choice; you'll enjoy it in your personal library; it will make timeless gifts; and it belongs in every public and academic library.
    —Women & Language     .
  • Endorsement From Marion Cunningham, author of Fannie Farmer Cookbook, The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham, and other books: As Miriam Meyers demonstrates in her book, food is the catalyst that brings us together. When we forget that, and neglect the place of food in the family, we lose the way to home. It's a significant loss, and we must get the word out in order to counter current trends. A Bite off Mama's Plate is an impressive contribution to that effort.
  • Endorsement From Lisa Brock, in Minnesota Women's Press (Book Talk): A sense of generosity pervades A Bite off Mama's Plate....In both a spiritual and physical sense, the insights and individual histories this work shares about the importance of food as women's contribution to a civilized culture are as magnanimous as a Thanksgiving table.
  • Endorsement From Lynne Rossetto Kasper, food writer and host of the nationally syndicated radio program The Splendid Table: A joy and a pleasure.
Description: Browse through the list of books that come out each year on women and food. The vast majority treat food as the enemy of women everywhere, either by pitching (or criticizing) the latest diet fad or by focusing on such problems as eating disorders, and parents' implication in them. Taking a different path, Miriam Meyers celebrates the positive role that food plays in women's lives, and in the relationship between mother and daughter. Despite the changes wrought by modern technology, the provision of food remains necessary to sustain physical, social, religious, and familial life. The idealized homemaker of the 1950s, working ceaselessly to achieve the perfectly clean home and perfectly arranged food, has all but disappeared from the American scene. While the ways we acquire and prepare our food has shifted, women still have primary responsibility for home food management, despite their increasing pursuit of other roles. With that responsibility comes considerable work, but it also affords women in families a special opportunity for companionship, communication, learning, and inspiration.

Beginning with a look at food's place in the greater family, A Bite Off Mama's Plate explores the connections mothers and daughters enjoy in the kitchen and beyond. To illuminate those links, Meyers combines original research, encompassing focus groups, interviews, and a national survey, with personal memoir and a wide range of other sources. She shows, in women's own voices, how food offers, more than just nourishment for the body, something for the mind, heart, and soul.
Table of Contents:
  • "Thinking Back Through Our Mothers": Introduction
  • "A Subject of the Greatest Importance": Food and the Family
  • "The Best Thing": Communication about and through Food
  • "Secrets of Life": Food-Related Learning
  • "As If Nutrition Were Enough": Food for the Circumstances of Life
  • "The Presence of Many Women": Food as a Way of Ensuring Continuity across Generations of Women
  • "What Life Requires": Messages about Life through Food
  • "Strength for the Journey": What We Take from Our Mothers
  • Notes Bibliography
  • References
  • Index
LC Card Number: 2001018478
LCC Class: GT2853
Dewey Class: 394
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