Synopses & Reviews
TV cookery shows hosted by celebrity chefs. Meal prep kitchens. Online grocers and restaurant review sites. Competitive eating contests, carnivals and fairs, and junk food websites and blogs. What do all of them have in common? According to authors Kathleen LeBesco and Peter Naccarato, they each serve as productive sites for understanding the role of culinary capital in shaping individual and group identities in contemporary culture.
Beyond providing sustenance, food and food practices play an important social role, offering status to individuals who conform to their culture's culinary norms and expectations while also providing a means of resisting them. Culinary Capital analyzes this phenomenon in action across the landscape of contemporary culture. The authors examine how each of the sites listed above promises viewers and consumers status through the acquisition of culinary capital and, as they do so, intersect with a range of cultural values and ideologies, particularly those of gender and economic class.
Synopsis
TV cookery shows hosted by celebrities. On-line grocers and restaurant review sites. Competitive eating contests, fairs and food blogs. Food plays a vital social role, offering status for those who conform to their culture's culinary norms. Culinary Capital analyzes this phenomenon in action across the landscape of contemporary culture.
About the Author
Peter Naccarato is Professor of English and Chair of the Humanities Division at Marymount Manhattan College, USA.
Kathleen LeBesco is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Marymount Manhattan College, USA.
Table of Contents
IntroductionTheorizing Culinary CapitalFixing Dinner/Fixing The Self: the Contradictions of New Trends In Food ProcurementTelevision Cooking Shows: Gender, Class and The Illusory Promise Of TransformationDemocratizing Taste? Culinary Capital In The Digital AgeCulinary Resistance: State Fairs, Competitive Eating, and "Junk" FoodiesConclusionWorks Cited