Food and Culture

Until recently, producing, cooking, and eating were not a common topic for civic debates, let alone polite conversations and educated discussions. These aspect of everyday life used to run almost invisibly in the background, except in the case of crisis. That is no longer the case. Featured in media, popular culture, advertising, literature, and film, food is now visible in cultural considerations, social movements, and political negotiations. The urgency of these phenomena have also brought food into academia. Since the late 1980s, food studies have matured into a field of interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research and teaching that explores biological, cultural, social, economic, technical and political issues concerning the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food in its material and immaterial aspects. It is increasingly evident that the study of food can provide us with the tools to approach complex problems while imagining innovative scenarios of what our daily lives could be. It can support our choices as consumers and our agency as citizens. With a background in food journalism, I have always been attuned to the cultural and social undercurrents that shape and shift the global food system. Over the years I have researched and published about food in popular culture, in contemporary media, in film,and in political debates. In this page I will share updates on my research projects and my thoughts on current issues.