"Warren Belasco is a witty, wonderfully observant guide to the hopes and fears that every era projects onto its culinary future. This enlightening study reads like time-travel for foodies."--Laura Shapiro, author of "Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America""In his insightful look at human imaginings about their food and its future sufficiency, Warren Belasco makes use of everything from academic papers, films, and fiction to journalism, advertising and world's fairs to trace a pattern of public concern over two centuries. His wide-ranging scholarship humbles all would-be futurists by reminding us that ours is not the first generation, nor is it likely to be the last, to argue inconclusively about whether we can best feed the world with more spoons, better manners or a larger pie. Truly painless education; a wonderful read!"--Joan Dye Gussow, author "This Organic Life""Warren Belasco serves up an intellectual feast, brilliantly dissecting two centuries of expectations regarding the future of food and hunger. "Meals to Come" provides an essential guide to thinking clearly about the worrisome question as to whether the world can ever be adequately and equitably fed."--Joseph J. Corn, co-author of "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future""This astute, sly, warmly human critique of the basic belly issues that have absorbed and defined Americans politically, socially, and economically for the past 200 years is a knockout. Warren Belasco's important book, crammed with knowledge, is absolutely necessary for an understanding of where we are now."--Betty Fussell, author of My "Kitchen Wars"

Preface PART I. DEBATING THE FUTURE OF FOOD: THE BATTLE OF THE THINK TANKS 1. The Stakes in Our Steaks 2. The Debate: Will the World Run Out of Food? 3. The Deep Structure of the Debate PART II. IMAGINING THE FUTURE OF FOOD: SPECULATIVE FICTION 4. The Utopian Caveat 5. Dystopias PART III. THINGS TO COMEE: THREE CORNUCOPIAN FUTURES 6. The Classical Future 7. The Modernist Future 8. The Recombinant Future Postscript Notes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Index