Foods of the gods
Subtitle: eating and the eaten in fantasy and science fiction
By: edited by Gary Westfahl, George Slusser, and Eric S. Rabkin.
Contributors: Westfahl, Gary.; Slusser, George Edgar.; Rabkin, Eric S.; Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature (13th : 1991 : University of California, Riverside)
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Athens [Ga.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 253
Subjects: Science fiction -- History and criticism; Fantasy literature -- History and criticism; Dinners and dining in literature; Gastronomy in literature; Food in literature
Description: Gluttony and starvation, pleasure and pain, growth and decay. These and other extremes of our condition related to food, though all but banned from the "civilized" tables of mainstream fiction, are ideal topics for the "undomesticated," free-roaming modes of fantasy and science fiction.

As acts and ideas, food and eating are fundamental to all that makes us human and dominate our symbolic realms of art, literature, and cuisine. These essays show us the power of speculative modes of fiction to help us look anew at prehistorical and psychomythical attitudes toward food and eating; historical and Western-cultural attitudes toward the material fact of food and the necessity of eating; and the relationship between attitudes toward food and how, how much, when, and where we eat.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Essays originally presented at the 13th annual J. Lloyd Eaton Conference which was held Apr. 1991, University of California, Riverside.