Culinary Capital

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. 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. This book 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. Defining Culinary Capital -- Fixing Dinner/fixing The Self: The Contradictions Of New Trends In Food Procurement -- Television Cooking Shows: Gender, Class, And The Illusory Promise Of Transformation -- Democratizing Taste? Culinary Capital In The Digital Age -- Culinary Resistance: State Fairs, Competitive Eating, And Junk Foodies. Peter Naccarato And Kathleen Lebesco. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. From celebrity cookery shows and competitive eating contests to food fairs, all are sites for understanding the role of culinary capital in shaping individual and group identities in our culture. This book analyses the ways in which food and food practices promise viewers and consumers status through the acquisition of culinary capital 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