Stories
Gastronativism: Food, Identity, Politics
An excerpt from my new book Gastronativism: why reflecting on the connections between food, identity, and politics is important. "IN MANY ways, this book has been in the making for a long time. I have been interested in international politics for many years: I studied...
The cost of Putin’s war: A food security plan for Central and Eastern Europe
by Agata Bachórz, Natasha Bunzl, Eszter Kovacs, Diana Mincyte, Fabio Parasecoli, Simone Piras, Mihai Varga. In Central and Eastern Europe the strain of providing for the refugees from Ukraine is affecting not only large cities but also rural areas near the Ukrainian...
Food in Popular Culture: Why does it matter?
Whatever it is that pop culture does to reach it goals, it does it right. It is a spectacle that works, building on dreams and desires. And food is pervasive in contemporary Western pop culture, influencing the way we perceive and represent ourselves as individuals...
Do we really need more Julia Child?
Five episodes into the new HBO Max series about the beginning of Julia Child’s ascent as a media celebrity and the patron goddess of all things food TV, we are left wondering if we really need yet another show about her. It is hard to find anything particularly new or...
Vodka and Pierogi: Gastronativism during Putin’s War
In the midst of a war that is reshaping the global geopolitical landscape, food has been co-opted as a symbol-–some may say a tool— to show solidarity, buttress identities, and express hostility or even enmity. Just a couple of days had passed since Putin’s attack on...
(Again) A Plea for Pleasure
I happened to reread the afterword of my 2008 book Bite Me: Food in Popular Culture. Some of the observations were naive, some were weirdly prescient (al least regarding the present state of the political discourse), others are still on point. This is (again) a Plea...