Prison Recipes and Prison Cookbooks

Prison Recipes and Prison Cookbooksprovides an innovative exploration of U.S.-based prison cookbooks using a narrative criminological approach.

The book relies on the voices of prison cookbook authors to argue that cookbook narratives are a form of communication with the free world. Further, the book undertakes thematic analyses of prison cookery and narratives to illuminate the intersections of incarceration with abolition, gender, literacy, and dehumanization. The reader is introduced to the power and symbolism of cell made food, as well as the agency and resourcefulness of those who cook, bake, and write about food behind bars.

Prison Recipes and Prison Cookbooks is of interest to instructors of courses covering the sociology of food, criminology, human geography, and anthropology. The book is also appropriate for prison and probation services, health organizations, and anyone engaged in the criminal-legal system, abolition movements, or social reform.

A.E. Stearns is an assistant professor of criminology at Coastal Carolina University where she teaches sociology, criminology, gender, hate crimes, and social problems. She publishes and presents on prison foodways, peer support and hope among jailed women, and experiences of social isolation in populations incarcerated long-term. Her mission is to facilitate the public’s empathy for and understanding of incarcerated individuals. She has volunteered in jails and prisons across the south. Stearns serves on a community board that amplifies incarcerated voices and she teaches a college course inside the local jail.