Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface: these are the stakes --I︣ntroduction: gender, consumption, and the Great Recession era of corporate food marketing --C︣rafting dude food media: from advertising to men's cookbooks --C︣reating a dude chef: Food Network's Guy Fieri --P︣roducing food for dudes: the masculinization of diet soda & yogurt --M︣arketing diets to dudes: health, bodies & selves on Weight Watchers --C︣onclusion: dude, what happened?

"In Diner, dudes, and diets, Emily Contois examines contemporary food culture and a variety of its consumer products to reveal how the food, marketing, and media industries sought to create new markets by catering to men through the idea of 'the dude.' Contois identifies today's 'dude masculinity' as arising from a late twentieth-century crisis in traditional gender roles at a time of major social, cultural, and economic change. Though the term 'dude' originated in the late nineteenth century as a term for dandyish men overly concerned with fashionable appearance, Contois defines today's dude as a man who doesn't meet traditional standards of economic and social success or manly self-control but nevertheless retains a degree of masculine privilege. As Contois shows, food culture has been on the front lines of producing and deploying this dude masculinity. Her study uses methods from history, media studies, and gender studies, and she draws on a broad popular culture archive that includes print media, television, social media, and sports talk radio".