Culinary Capital

TV cookery shows hosted by celebrity chefs. Meal prep kitchens. On-line 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 analyzesthis phenomenon in action across the landscape of contemporary culture. The authors examine how each of the sites listed above promisesviewers 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.

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.