Eating Cultures, Filming Food: Cooking and the Negotiation of Cultural Identity in Anglophone Novels and Movies

Food is a favourite site of negotiations of cultural identities in an increasingly globalized world where not only people, but also ideas and cultural practices migrate and mingle. On the one hand, notions of “authentic” food expressing cultural difference abound, ranging from elaborate rules on what may be eaten and what not to the idea of “real” food from other parts of the world served in our favourite restaurant. On the other hand, the plates (or bowls) in homes around the world are often a prime cultural contact zone where notions of difference and purity are challenged by culinary creolization and the mundane transculturality of everyday eating practices. This seminar will explore theories of food as a major site where different understandings of culture clash, ideas of cultural identity are negotiated and new modes of ‘doing culture’ emerge. We will engage with concepts of cultural hybridity, creolization and transculturality, and then move on to analyze two novels and two films that – in very different modes – negotiate the terrain between “preserving” culture and culinary bordercrossing.