Books

Fabio Parasecoli’s work ranges from food studies and the cultural politics of food heritage to food design and food business. His research interests extend to the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

 

GASTRONATIVISMS
Food, Identity, Politics
(Columbia University Press, 2022)

Fabio Parasecoli identifies and defines the phenomenon of “gastronativism,” the ideological use of food to advance ideas about who belongs to a community and who does not. As globalization and neoliberalism have transformed food systems, people have responded by seeking to return to their roots. Many have embraced local ingredients and notions of cultural heritage, but this impulse can play into the hands of nationalist and xenophobic political projects. Such movements draw on the strong emotions connected with eating to stoke resentment and contempt for other people and cultures. Parasecoli emphasizes that gastronativism is a worldwide phenomenon, even as it often purports to oppose local aspects and consequences of globalization. He also explores how to channel pride in culinary traditions toward resisting transnational corporations, uplifting marginalized and oppressed groups, and assisting people left behind by globalization. Featuring a wide array of examples from all over the world, Gastronativism is a timely, incisive, and lively analysis of how and why food has become a powerful political tool.

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GLOBAL BROOKLYN: DESIGNING FOOD EXPERIENCES IN WORLD CITIES
with Mateusz Halawa
(Bloomsbury, 2021)

What do the fashionable food hot spots of Cape Town, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv have in common? Despite all their differences, consumers in each major city are drawn to a similar atmosphere: rough wooden tables in postindustrial interiors lit by Edison bulbs. There, they enjoy single-origin coffee, kombucha, and artisanal bread.
This is ‘Global Brooklyn,’ a new transnational aesthetic regime of urban consumption. It may look shabby and improvised but it is all carefully designed. It may romance the analog, but is made to be Instagrammed. It often references the New York borough, but is shaped by many networked locations where consumers participate in the global circulation of styles, flavors, practices, and values

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FOOD
Essential Knowledge Series
(MIT Press, 2019)

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, food writer and scholar Fabio Parasecoli offers a consumer’s guide to the food system, from local to global. Parasecoli describes a system made up of open-ended, shifting, and unstable networks rather than well-defined chains; considers healthy food and the contradictory advice about it consumers receive; discusses food waste and the implications for sustainability; explores food technologies (and “culinary luddism”); and examines hunger and food insecurity in both developing and developed countries. Parasecoli reminds us that we are not only consumers but also citizens, and as citizens we have more power to improve the food system than we do by our individual food choices

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KNOWING WHERE IT COMES FROM

Labeling Traditional Foods to Compete in a Global Market

(University of Iowa Press, 2017)

Offering the first broadly comparative analysis of place-based labeling and marketing systems, Knowing Where It Comes From examines the way claims about the origins and meanings of traditional foods get made around the world, from Italy and France to Costa Rica and Thailand. It also highlights the implications of different systems for both producers and consumers. Labeling regimes have moved beyond intellectual property to embrace community-based protections, intangible cultural heritage, cultural landscapes, and indigenous knowledge. Reflecting a rich array of juridical, regulatory, and activist perspectives, these approaches seek to level the playing field on which food producers and consumers interact.

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FEASTING OUR EYES

Food Films and Cultural Identity in the United States

with Laura Lindenfeld
(Columbia University Press, 2016)

Feasting Our Eyes looks at Hollywood films and independent cinema, documentaries and docufictions, from the 1990s to today and frankly assesses their commitment to racial diversity, tolerance, and liberal political ideas. Laura Lindenfeld and Fabio Parasecoli find women and people of color continue to be treated as objects of consumption even in these modern works and, despite their progressive veneer, American food films often mask a conservative politics that makes commercial success more likely. A major force in mainstream entertainment, American food films shape our sense of who belongs, who has a voice, and who has opportunities in American society. They facilitate the virtual consumption of traditional notions of identity and citizenship, reworking and reinforcing ingrained ideas of power.

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AL DENTE
A History of Food in Italy

(Reaktion Books, 2014)

Including historical recipes for delicious dishes to enjoy alongside a glass of crisp wine, Al Dente is a fascinating survey of the history of Italy’s cuisine. Home to a dazzling array of cheese, breads, vegetables, and salamis, Italy has become a mecca for foodies who flock to its pizzerias, gelateries, and family-style and Michelin-starred restaurants. Taking readers across the country’s regions and beyond, Al Dente explores our obsession with Italian food and how the country’s cuisine became what it is today.
Fabio Parasecoli discovers that for centuries, southern Mediterranean countries such as Italy fought against food scarcity, wars, invasions, and an unfavorable agricultural environment. Lacking in meat and dairy, Italy developed foodways that depended on grains, legumes, and vegetables until a stronger economy in the late 1950s allowed the majority of Italians to afford a more diverse diet. Parasecoli elucidates how the last half century has seen new packaging, conservation techniques, industrial mass production, and more sophisticated systems of transportation and distribution, bringing about profound changes in how the country’s population thought about food. He also reveals that much of Italy’s culinary reputation hinged on the world’s discovery of it as a healthy eating model, which has led to the prevalence of high-end Italian restaurants in major cities around the globe.

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AL DENTE
Storia del Cibo in Italia

(Italian Translation of AL DENTE; LEG, 2015)

Le tradizioni gastronomiche italiane godono di crescente successo in tutto il mondo, affermando importanti valori culturali e stimolando le attività produttive. Gli italiani ne sono giustamente fieri, considerandole una parte importante della loro identità. Al tempo stesso, purtroppo ne ignorano spesso le origini e gli sviluppi storici, diventando così facile preda per approcci ideologici che cercano di misurare e giudicare l’italianità e l’autenticità di piatti e ingredienti. Al dente. Storia del cibo in Italia offre un viaggio nel passato della produzione e del consumo alimentare per spiegare il presente e riflettere sui futuri possibili. Attraverso l’esplorazione di paesaggi, costumi, prodotti, tecniche, riflessioni letterarie e immagini cinematografiche, il cibo italiano emerge come il risultato di secolari processi di flussi migratori e ibridazione, segnati dalle esigenze del commercio, del potere e della politica. La storia del cibo diventa una piacevole chiave di lettura per capire chi siamo, come viviamo e come affrontiamo le nuove realtà della globalizzazione.

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맛의 제국 이탈리아의 음식문화사 Al dente

Korean Translation of Al Dente

(니케북스, 2018)

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A CULTURAL HISTORY OF FOOD

general editor, with Peter Scholliers
(Bloomsbury, 2012)

A Cultural History of Food presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers nearly 3,000 years of food and its physical, spiritual, social, and cultural dimensions. Volume editors and authors, representing different nationalities and cultural traditions, constitute the cutting edge in historical research on food and offer an overview of the field that reflects the state of the art of the discipline. While the volumes focus mostly on the West (Europe in its broadest sense and North America), they also draw in comparative material and each volume concludes with a brief final chapter on contemporaneous developments in food ideas and practices outside the West. These works will contribute to the expansion of the food history research in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and South America, which is already growing at an increasingly fast pace.

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BITE ME
Food in Popular Culture
(Berg, 2008)

Food is not only something we eat, it is something we use to define ourselves. Ingestion and incorporation are central to our connection with the world outside our bodies. Food’s powerful social, economic, political and symbolic roles cannot be ignored – what we eat is a marker of power, cultural capital, class, ethnic and racial identity. Bite Me considers the ways in which popular culture reveals our relationship with food and our own bodies and how these have become an arena for political and ideological battles. Drawing on an extraordinary range of material – films, books, comics, songs, music videos, websites, slang, performances, advertising and mass-produced objects – Bite Me invites the reader to take a fresh look at today’s products and practices to see how much food shapes our lives, perceptions and identities.

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FOOD CULTURE IN ITALY
(Greenwood, 2004)

There is keen interest in the exquisite yet simple Italian cuisine and Italian culture. This volume provides an intimate look at how Italians cook, eat, and think about food today. It describes the cornucopia of foodstuffs and classic ingredients. An overview of the typical daily routine of meals and snacks gives a good feel for the everyday life. The changing roles of women are explored with a discussion of the inroads that convenience foods are making. In addition, the current concerns about the food supply, the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, and the slow food movement are tied in to the debates on these issues in the United States. Food is one of the main reasons why many Americans travel to Italy. Yet, the fascination with Italian cuisine is not all about health or taste. There is much more to it. Italian food is perceived and portrayed in the media as representing a whole lifestyle: Italians live la dolce vita, leisurely eating and drinking with friends and families, families are still important, and communities are close knit. The reality of Italian society is more complex, and this volume offers a balanced view of Italian culture and identity through its foodways.

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QUESTIONE DI GUSTI
editor, with Jennifer Berg
(Gambero Rosso, 2006)

Diciotto saggi per accostarsi e confrontarsi in modo inusuale ma molto stimolante con le realtà culinarie diverse dalle nostre: dalla cucina dei gitani d’Europa ai fast food in Iran e Medio Oriente, dai fish taco dei surfist alla peovocazione del body sushi, dai pancakes rivoluzionari delle Black Panthers alle tendenze della fusion e del nuevo latino.Al di là della curiosità per il nuovo e per l’esotico, il libro offer un percorso attraverso ingredient e piatti per conoscerne l’origine, le persone che li hanno realizzati e le culture che li hanno prodotti.
A collection of eighteen essays – translated into Italian – from the Food Studies Masters Program at New York University.

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LIBANO: RITORNO AL PARADISO
(Liber Internazionale, 1996)

Un viaggio attraverso il Libano degli anni ’90 per scoprirne la storia e le complesse realtà contemporanee. Parasecoli ripercorre le origini di un conflitto le cui conseguenze contintuano a pesare sul Medio Oriente.

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