I What I tend to do is quickly explain how varied the literature is, in terms of subject matter, theoretical approach, and method. As the reader will quickly learn, one's sociological imagination can truly run wild thinking about food systems. Even a question as seemingly simple as"What is food?" proves to e exceedingly complex once exposed to sociological treatment. As Harris(1986: 13) reminds us, "[w]e can eat and digest everything from rancid mammary gland secretions to fungi to rocks[or cheese, mushrooms, and salt if you prefer euphemisms] Anyone who has traveled to another country or spent much time watching, say, the Discovery Channel knows the label"food" is a terminological box that can be filled with wildly different phenomena depending on culture, circumstances, and time period. behind,