This book takes a look at food riots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and food related social conflict, from the Newlyn fish riots to the Cod Wars. Using words and verse from contemporary broadside ballads and folk song, Josh Sutton looks closely at the evolution of the modern food system.

He suggests that the spirit of the food riot is still very much alive today, and is apparent in the practice of those engaged in providing food charity in modern Britain and in the United States, where food banks and recycling of supermarket waste are now common and vital.