The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America Volume 41

Cheese is alive, and alive with meaning. Heather Paxson's beautifully written anthropological study of American artisanal cheesemaking tells the story of how craftwork has become a new source of cultural and economic value for producers as well as consumers. Dairy farmers and artisans inhabit a world in which their colleagues and collaborators are a wild cast of characters, including plants, animals, microorganisms, family members, employees, and customers. As "unfinished" commodities, living products whose qualities are not fully settled, handmade cheeses embody a mix of new and old ideas about taste and value. By exploring the life of cheese, Paxson helps rethink the politics of food, land, and labor today.

Author: Heather Paxson
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 12/10/2012
Pages: 332
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.98w x 0.71d
ISBN: 9780520270183

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2013

About the Author
Heather Paxson, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece (UC Press).