French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age

From mad cows to McDonaldisation to genetically modified maize, European food scares and controversies at the turn of the millennium provoked anxieties about the perils hidden in an increasingly industrialised, internationalised food supply. These food fears have cast a shadow as long as Africa, where farmers struggle to meet European demand for the certifiably clean green bean. Britain and France still do business mostly with their former colonies, in ways that differ as dramatically as their national cuisines. French Beans and Food Scares explores the cultural economies of two "non-traditional" commodity trades between Africa and Europe - one anglophone, the other francophone - in order to show not only why they differ but also how both have felt the fall-out of the wealthy world's food scares.… (more)