Food is not only something we eat, it is something we use to define ourselves. Ingestion and incorporation are central to our connection with the world outside our bodies. Food's powerful social, economic, political and symbolic roles cannot be ignored - what we eat is a marker of power, cultural capital, class, ethnic and racial identity.
Bite Me considers the ways in which popular culture reveals our relationship with food and our own bodies and how these have become an arena for political and ideological battles. Drawing on an extraordinary range of material - films, books, comics, songs, music videos, websites, slang, performances, advertising and mass-produced objects - Bite Me invites the reader to take a fresh look at today's products and practices to see how much food shapes our lives, perceptions and identities.

Fabio Parasecoli is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Food Studies at the New School in New York City. Among his publications are Food Culture in Italy and Bite Me: Food and Popular Culture (2008).
FABIO PARASECOLI, based in Rome, writes on and teaches about Italian food and food history and represents the Italian media firm Gambero Rosso in New York City.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Pop Culture Drama: Food and Body Politics
Chapter 2: Hungry Memories: Food, the Brain and the Consuming Self
Chapter 3: Of Breasts and Beasts: Vampires and other Voracious Monsters
Chapter 4: Tasty Utopia: Food and Politics in Science Fiction
Chapter 5: Quilting the Empty Body: Food and Dieting
Chapter 6: Jam, Juice, and Strange Fruit: Edible Black Bodies
Chapter 7: Tourism and Taste: Exploring Identities
Afterword: A Plea for Pleasure