Conceptualizing taste: Food, culture and celebrities

Abstract

Highlights We chart celebrity inheritance among the UK culinary elite, and the shifting production of habitus.  We model the changing dynamics of culinary taste depicting popularization and legitimation.  Bourdieu's system of thought offers scope to further our understanding of taste and status systems.  Society's appetite for consumption of celebrity can transform cultural fields such as tourism. AbstractTourism is a potent realm for theorizing broader issues of culture and taste. Exploring dining and culinary pursuits can shed light on the production and reproduction of gastronomic culture and broader struggles for authenticity. We explore the 'liquid times' of late modernity, and how the competing processes of popularization and legitimization contribute to the ongoing reconfiguration of tourism's field of taste within a context of culinary celebrification. Applying Bourdieu's theory of distinction to culinary elites, we develop a model that captures transitions in habitus. This model can be applied to any cultural context within the tourism industry to illustrate the impact of competing processes of taste. Implications of this model are that the celebrification of products and services can potentially narrow the field of production and undermine the cultural contribution tourism can make to society at large.

The use of Pierre Bourdieu's distinction concepts in scientific articles studying food and eating: A narrative review

“…Kraaykamp (2002) argued that those with cultural and economic resources could be expected to be the most elitist in their tastes and that they "should not be situated between the cultural and economic status groups, but should be positioned above these uni-dimensional groups" (p. 139). Stringfellow et al (2013) state that Bourdieu's framework had much promise for explaining the detachment in cultural fields due to the fluidity of late modernity. 6 According to McNay (1999), this is the very value of Bourdieu's work.…”

“…Stringfellow, MacLaren, Maclean, and O'Gorman (2013) were interested in applying Bourdieu's theory of distinction to develop a model that could capture transitions in habitus. They studied culinary elites (professional chefs and celebrities) and found that professional chefs who were oriented towards the arts, aesthetics, and history rather than market demands had to popularize their profiles in order to prevent new celebrities from occupying their territory.…”

Reading Urban Ingredients: What characterizes eating out space in urban spatial context

“…Mintz & Du Bois (2002) studied food in the form of social construction of society. Some of them also explored food and tourism (Stringfellow et al, 2013); food and psychological factors (Muhammad, Ibrahim, Ahmad, Hanan, 2016). There are also studies about eating activities and memorabilia (Wardono, Hibino, Koyama, 2017); eating as cultural expression (Stringfellow et al, 2013); eating and consumer behavior or emotion (Ariffin, Bibon, and Abdullah, 2017;Astuti & Hanan, 2016).…”

“…Some of them also explored food and tourism (Stringfellow et al, 2013); food and psychological factors (Muhammad, Ibrahim, Ahmad, Hanan, 2016). There are also studies about eating activities and memorabilia (Wardono, Hibino, Koyama, 2017); eating as cultural expression (Stringfellow et al, 2013); eating and consumer behavior or emotion (Ariffin, Bibon, and Abdullah, 2017;Astuti & Hanan, 2016). Some researchers explored the relationship of traditional food and group identity and authenticity (Muhammad, Zahari Shariff, and Abdullah, 2016); self-identification of the customer (Rahadi, 2017); the influence of urban food system in urban space (Lim, 2014).…”

How ‘il caffé sospeso’ became ‘suspended coffee’: The neo-liberal re-‘invention of tradition’ from Bourdieu to Bourdieu

“…However, even journalists, critics, and private companies (through PR campaigns, advertising, websites and influence over the media) may become tastemakers, and confer cultural capital. Stringfellow et al (2013) argue that tastemakers operate between the opposite poles of legitimization and popularization, which may be meant as corresponding to Bourdieu's cultural and economic capital. Thus, in order to gain and maintain their power, tastemakers need popularity, in order to spread their power over a large amount of people; moreover, they need legitimization, in order to demonstrate their expertise in the field and defeat their competitors.…”