This book is a really incredible intervention in food studies that takes consumption (literally, as in eating) as a mode of racial production, and intervening into Foucault's notion of biopower as being a localized process, rather than something that is located in a larger European state. It's also an incredibly beautifully written book--Tompkins' writing really aligns with her argument, and although it is theoretically dense, it's in no way impenetrable. My favorite chapters were chapter three and chapter five, looking at Uncle Tom's Cabin and at trade cards from the author's collection.