Cheap Meat: Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands

Errington, Frederick, Gewertz, Deborah

"Cheap Meat" follows the controversial trade in inexpensive fatty cuts of lamb or mutton, called 'flaps', from the farms of New Zealand and Australia to their primary markets in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji. Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington address the evolution of the meat trade itself along with the changing practices of exchange in Papua New Guinea. They show that flaps - which are taken from the animals' bellies and are often 50 per cent fat - are not mere market transactions but evidence of the social nature of nutrition policies, illustrating and reinforcing Pacific Islanders' presumed second-class status relative to the white populations of Australia and New Zealand.

Collectability score

An offbeat and compelling anthropological study of global trade and culinary imperialism examined through the Pacific Islands' appetite for mutton flaps.

EAN

9780520260931

Publisher

University of California Press

Published

8 February 2010

Pages

224

Available copies

• New
  £21.99