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Food Studies

This guide covers resources for researching the history and related culture of food.

Getting Started

Food Studies is a newer interdisciplinary field that is growing and establishing itself all the time. The intent of work in the field is to engage in multifaceted exploration of a particular food-related topic; you may find yourself examining your topic through historical, sociocultural/socioeconomic, anthropological, or agricultural and scientific lenses or some combination of all of these areas.

In this guide you'll find: 

  • things to consider when developing a research topic in food studies, food history, or foodways
  • suggestions for searching CLIO and other library catalogs for scholarly food studies, food history, and foodways
  • links to food-related resources on the Internet
  • a selection of useful reference and specialized titles across disciplines
  • information about the Barnard Foodways Collection (BFC) and a few suggestions on how to use it

Search Tips

Food studies materials are generally distributed across multiple subject areas and that traditional subject headings you may find in catalog records are more limited. Searching with multiple keywords in the catalog and across databases will be an effective way to approach your food studies research.  

A list of possible Library of Congress subject headings for food studies research. 

  • Cooking

  • Food
  • Food - Analysis
  • Food - Biotechnology
  • Food - Composition
  • Food - History
  • Food - Microbiology
  • Food - Preservation
  • Food - Religious aspects
  • Food - Social aspects
  • Food in art
  • Food in literature
  • Food in motion pictures
  • Gastronomy

The subject heading Food can be used as a subdivision under specific ethnic groups (e.g. Inuit—Food)

Works on cooking in specific locations are applied the heading Cooking which is then subdivided by the location’s name (e.g. Cooking—Appalachian Region; Cooking—Myanmar), whereas works on national or ethnic cuisines and cooking styles have headings such as Cooking, American and Cooking, Chinese applied to them

Additional Library of Congress Subject Headings to combine with food-related terms

  • Biotechnology
  • "Economic aspects"
  • Folklore
  • "Health aspects"
  • "Moral and ethical aspects"
  • "Political aspects"
  • "Religious aspects"
  • Research
  • "Social aspects"
  • "Symbolic aspects"

 

Suggested Search Terms: 

You will find a range of articles, cookbooks, and food histories by searching the following 

  • Cooking, European
  • Cooking, (region, country)
    • example: Cooking, France; Cooking, Southern (Italy)​​​​​​
  • Cooking (ingredient, commodity, etc.)
    • example: Cooking (Cod); Cooking (Olive Oil)

OR

  • Cookery, (region, country, ingredient, commodity, etc.)
    *proceed as above
For cookbooks
  • Cookbooks, China or Chinese Cookbooks
  • For regional cookbooks try the term cookbooks followed by  the region of style of cooking you're researching
    • Cookbooks, French Provencial or
    • Cookbooks AND PROVENCE
For interdisciplinary materials including food histories, analyses, cultural information, etc. try using the following terms combined with the specific topic you are researching
  • Foodways
  • Food History (of course)
    *with this term you will uncover results comprising social, cultural, anthropological, economic aspects of the topic you are researching. Combine these terms cwith region, ingredient, or country names, etc. 
  • Food combined with  colonialism or imperialism
    *you can also try combing these terms with the specific country, region, area that you are researching
  • Food technology
  • Food industry and trade, etc.

Methods