The Cultural Politics of Food, Taste, and Identity: A Global Perspective

Description

The Cultural Politics of Food, Taste, and Identity examines the social, cultural, and political processes that shape the experience of taste. The book positions flavor as involving all the senses, and describes the multiple ways in which taste becomes tied to local, translocal, glocal, and cosmopolitan politics of identity. Global case studies are included from Japan, China, India, Belize, Chile, Guatemala, the United States, France, Italy, Poland and Spain. Chapters examine local responses to industrialized food and the heritage industry, and look at how professional culinary practice has become foundational for local identities. The book also discusses the unfolding construction of “local taste” in the context of sociocultural developments, and addresses how cultural political divides are created between meat consumption and vegetarianism, innovation and tradition, heritage and social class, popular food and authenticity, and street and restaurant food. In addition, contributors discuss how different food products-such as kimchi, quinoa, and Soylent-have entered the international market of industrial and heritage foods, connecting different places and shaping taste and political identities. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Map Introduction: The Cultural Politics of Taste in Global Perspective Part I: Taste and the Politics of Identity Chapter 1: Food, Taste, and Identity in the Global Arena Chapter 2: Centralization and Standardization of Taste Chapter 3: Heritagization of Fermented Taste in Southwestern Fukui, Japan Chapter 4: Tides High and Low: The Changing Landscapes of Gongfu Cha Tea Culture in Contemporary China Chapter 5: Italian Cheese in the Global Heritage Arena Chapter 6:The Gastronomic Capital of the World: Food, Politics, and Identity in Lyon Part II: Translocal and Transnational Politics of Taste and Identity Chapter 7: Fetid Flesh and Fragrant Fare: Food, Scandal, and Identity in Contemporary Bengal Chapter 8: Tasting “Innovation”: The Politics of Taste in Contemporary Restaurant Food in Seville, Spain Chapter 9: Of Corn and Coconuts: Taste and the Cultural Politics of Gastronationalism in Belize Chapter 10: Street Food to Restaurant: Politics of Eating and Cultural Heritage in Antigua, Guatemala Chapter 11: Popular Urban Taste and Mass Culture: Chancho and Terremoto in Chile Part III: The Global-Local Politics of Taste Chapter 12: Foreign Influences in Polish Culinary Taste during the Twentieth Century Chapter 13: Kimchi’s Transnational Journey: Tastes of Authenticity and Ambiguity Chapter 14: Tasting Quinoa: From Indigenous Food to “Healthy” US Dining Chapter 15: The Taste of the Mediterranean Diet: Food, Taste, and Identity in the Campania Region, South Italy Chapter 16: Soylent: The Cultural Politics of Functional and Tasteless Food Postface: Heritage-Making after the US Century Contributors Index