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François Ascher

The Hyper-Modern Eater Publication date : March 24, 2005

Following his earlier works on cities, François Ascher continues his examination of our “hyper-modern” society - this time through the perspective of changing eating habits. Forks and chopsticks, the microwave and individual servings, greediness, anorexia and obesity, fast food and “slow” food, gourmet cooking, take-away: these are some of the subjects that Ascher studies, arguing that they reveal characteristic traits of contemporary society.
His study leads Ascher to draw several far-reaching and stimulating hypotheses on the proliferation of the individualised restaurant serving as a model, including in the home; on the relations between sociability and eating habits; on the emergence of a new social group, the “creative class”, for whom food is a daily aesthetic issue.
The author gives us a detailed picture of everyday life as seen through food preferences, eating habits, and nutritional innovations, and, in the process, offers us an original reflection on individual freedoms as they are exercised on a day-to-day basis.

François Ascher teaches at the University of Paris VIII and at the University of Geneva. He is the author of Métapolis.