Anastasia Day reviews Amy B. Trubek’s “Making Modern Meals: How Americans Cook Today,” a book that problematizes the concept of cooking at every turn.

Will Payne reviews Robert Ji-Song Ku’s “Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA,” a book that illuminates the many cultural and political hazards inherent in Asian-American cuisine.

Jennifer Lacy-Nichols reviews Marion Nestle’s “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning),” a book that explores the political strategies used by the soft drink industry.

Romina Delmonte reviews Jean Pierre Poulain’s “The Sociology of Food: Eating and the Place of Food in Society,” as translated by Augusta Dörr, which reads as a theoretical essay and an introductory guide to sociologies of food.

Jeffrey Rowe reviews Alison Hope Alkon and Julie Guthman’s edited volume “The New Food Activism: Opposition, Cooperation, and Collective Action,” which he reads as a call to action.

Erica Zurawski reviews Emma-Jayne Abbots’s “The Agency of Eating: Mediation, Food and the Body,” which unites the eater, food, and knowledge to demonstrate the entanglement of matter and meaning-making.