What can the history of America's one-hundred-year love-hate relationship with sliced white bread tell us about contemporary efforts to change the way we eat? Fluffy industrial loaves are about as far from slow, local, and organic as you can get, but the story of social reformers, food experts, and diet gurus who blieved that getting people to eat certain food could restore the nation's decaying physical, moral, and social fabric will sound very familiar. White bread teaches us that when Americans debate what one should eat, they are also wrestling with larger questions of race, class, immigration, and gender. As Bobrow-Strain traces the story of bread, from the first factory loaf to the latest gourmet pain au levain, he shows how efforts to champion "good food" reflect dreams of a better society--even as they reinforced stark social hierarchies. Bread and power -- Untouched by human hands : dreams of purity and contagion -- The invention of sliced bread : dreams of control and abundance -- The staff of death : dreams of health and discipline -- Vitamin bread boot camp : dreams of strength and defense -- White bread imperialism : dreams of peach and security -- How white bread became white trash : dreams of resistance and status -- Beyond good bread.
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