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This longitudinal case study affords opportunistic infra-cross-cultural and gendered comparisons of foodways within the fourth-world Saami societies across four north-European nation-states and through two generations. The study centers on 44 years of ethnographic research in arctic Norway, among both nomadic reindeer-herding and sedentary Saami together with their nearest neighbors within and without northernmost Norway.

General ethnographic immersion, from five years in duration down to single months or weeks, since early 1972, provides qualitative and quantitative data relevant to gender and food, collected in the two local languages, and supplemented by archeological and historical records as well as literatures from contiguous areas.

Two generations ago, most families, nomadic, or settled, could remember being self-sufficient with respect to food, and to lesser extents to clothing and shelter. Women’s roles in food acquisition and preparation have expanded in recent times. Some families, given choices largely made by wives and mothers, may today have a diet comparable with that in other parts of the West.

This holistic ethnographic research continues indefinitely. Any ethnography is both enabled and limited by its investigator and by local social relations, in this case synergistic and positive.

By the close of the 20th century, Saami researchers joined others in social science, often focusing on their indigenous culture and language. These provide usually corroborating and always fascinating data for outsiders, and many anecdotal narratives illustrating these data.

This introduction provides an overview of the themes and chapters of this volume.

The chapters present original qualitative and quantitative research illustrating the complex relationship between gender and food. The need to understand the relationship intersectionally and in historical context is apparent and provisioning as caring emerges as a major theme.

Food is a human right yet it is not always and everywhere available and when it is not always humanly produced and healthful. The fact that food production and consumption is gendered cannot be ignored in the quest for feeding our planet.

The chapter and the volume are intended to illustrate some of the many ways that food and gender are related and to encourage gender scholars to continue to pay attention to food research.