Book Review: Food, Media & Contemporary Culture

 

Publisher: Palgrave Macmilan

Editor: Peri Bradley

This book provides an insight that enables you to see contexts, which are hidden under the surface, around modern foodie culture. I selectively read some of the essays to save time.

1. More Cake Please - We're British! Locating British Identity in Contemporary TV Food Texts, The Great British Bake Off and Come Dine With Me.

by Peri Bradley

This essay explains how British convention works within the shows not only with the foods but also with ancillary aspects such as location, judges, etc.

After reading this, I watched an episode of The Great British Baking Show (actually, I am sure this is the same thing that Bradley mentioned) on Netflix, and the notions of British standard and authority were important in the show.

2. Benidorm and the 'All You Can Eat' Buffet: Food, Bodily Functions and the Carnivalesque

by Christopher Pullen

This shows the idea of class that resides on consumption & digestion of food and body, but I felt like most of assertions were working only on the textual level, which means, the author interpreted elements of the drama, which are even obvious to undergrad students. Not bad, but other ones are more interesting to read.

3. A Pinch of Ethics and a Soupçon of Home Cooking: Soft-selling Supermarkets on Food Television

by Tania Lewis and Michelle Phillipov

"[...] Australian supermarkets have recently begun to actively intervene in the space of food ethics and politics, [...] Key here is the desire to claim a market-based, moral high ground in a context where supermarkets are under mounting media pressure and public scrutiny in relation to their practices of sourcing [...]" (121, emphasis added)

This essay explains how shows and campaigns that are sponsored by supermarket chains invisibly enhances consumer's trust and companies' image. Due to the exemplary program's cyclical structure in which the consumer can also become a producer, this essay reminds me of Professor Jung-bong Choi's lecture of affective labor. In other words, laymen's food contest can be interpreted as a transmuted form of consumption since it consumes customers' effort, not to mention their money.

4. Cooking on Reality TV: Chef-Participants and Culinary Television

by Hugh Curnutt

The chef contest show is beneficial for a chef for some reasons:

a) It becomes a part of his/her career.

b) Competing with one's contemporaries enhances his/her recognition in the community of chefs.

c) It helps running one's restaurants, vice versa.

5. Food Porn: The Conspicuous Consumption of Food in the Age of Digital Reproduction

by Erin Metz McDonnell

This explains imagery and contextual nature of food porn in regards to cinematography (e.g. Framing, orientation, depth of field). McDonnell is also highly sensitive to class: the purpose of food porn is to create a seemingly attainable illusion that is actually unattainable.