In How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers), associate professor of history Jennifer Jensen Wallach shows how Americans' eating habits have been used to articulate ideas about their identities since the Colonial era.

Wallach was inspired to write the book while reading the autobiography of Myrlie Evers-Williams, who was worried what police officers would think when they saw a watermelon — often associated negatively with African Americans — on her kitchen counter after her husband, civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was shot outside their home in 1963.

"This confession made me realize how deeply important food practices are and how they can be used as a lens to examine broader issues, such as racism," Wallach says.