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.
Imagining a Different Food System
What would a better food system look like? Is it possible to turn debates around food politics and popular culture into arenas where a positive dialogue could develop between groups looking at the world from different points of view? Could food become an arena where a...
Tequila and Power: Salma Hayek’s “Monarca” on Netflix
In Salma Hayek's "Monarca" on Netflix, three siblings from the Mexican 1% learn how to manage their lives and their family Tequila company between personal vicissitudes, corporate intrigue, and the social constraints that the narrative presents as powerful as any...
Food, Migrants, and the Making of Traditions
For migrant communities, food is more than just physical sustenance: it produces meaning and sense, creating infinite culinary variations where ingredients, dishes, and meal structures can express agency, pride, comfort, but also embarrassment and cultural...
Food Studies in the Time of Sovranism
When it comes to the current political climate, I am not even remotely qualified to suggest to anybody how and when to work through their own fears, grief, and anger, or how to navigate the future. Personally, I feel I can’t enjoy the luxury of separating theory and...
Eating and Drinking in Global Brooklyn
Why do many restaurants and cafes around the world all look the same? Why they all seem to display similar upcycled materials, mismatched chairs, blackboards, plants, and menus that at times require some effort to interpret - let alone enjoy? Welcome to Global...
A cookbook for those alone and those in love: negotiating gender and class in socialist Poland (part 2)
A cookbooks author’s passion for food and his need to fit in the cultural and political expectation of his times allow us to peek into the material culture of later 1950s and early 1960s socialist Poland, where class differences were a touchy topic. How could a gay...
A cookbook for those alone and those in love: negotiating gender and class in socialist Poland (part 1)
How could a gay man who loved food express his passion for cooking and eating in socialist Poland? Easy: he created a fictional straight couple and had them write a cookbook meant to help singles (and the soon-to-be-married) improve their quality of life, at least in...
Food, sovranism, and Antonio Gramsci
In many countries around the world, farmers frequently support sovranist leaders and governments whose policies actually damage their business. These loyalties fluster political opponents, who often are not able to explain the how and why of these dynamics. Reading...
Infinite Appetite: Food in The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy
Food satire in US TV comedy shows, animated sitcoms such as South Park, and Internet videos provides an outlet to reflect on social and cultural problems, including racism. It also offers a rather benign critique of the vices of the average American. After all, the...
Heavenly Meals: Food in Amazon’s Good Omens
What do angels eat? And can food be a good reason for having a body, rather than being spirituals entities dancing on the head of a pin? These existential questions run through Good Omens, the adaptation of the1990 novel co-written by Neil Gaiman (who also wrote the...