Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity, and Symbolism

Michael Owen Jones, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Los Angeles known for his work in folklore and cultural studies, examines the way that people use foodways to make sense of the world and have their understanding shaped in turn by those choices.

In eleven essays, Jones explores topics as varied as the language of food, the aspirations revealed by food choices, the rituals of last meals accorded to soon-to-be executed prisoners, and the association of vegetarianism with the impetus for social change. (And yes, he does acknowledge that it was Frankenstein's creation, not the doctor himself, who advocated vegetarianism).

Jones moves nimbly through a wealth of cultural references, from Sandra Bullock quotations and Charles Darwin to cookbooks published by prison inmates and and French President Jacques Chirac's dual slam of Great Britain and another European country: "You cannot trust people [the British] who have such bad cuisine. It is the country with the second worst food after Finland."

With endnotes and a good bibliography.

Paperback.