Gastronomic cosmopolitanism: Supermarket products in France and the United Kingdom

Everyone deserves quiche: French school lunch programmes and national culture in a globalized world

“…My definition of a menu item follows the menu courses (starter, main course, side, cheese, dessert). To code the main influence, I follow the same methodology used in Maxwell and DeSoucey () and focus on the central element in each item. For example, pasta and pizza are always coded as Italian, and couscous and tabbouleh are always coded as North African.…”

“…First, I highlight the value of using an underexplored mainstream cultural institution (French school lunch programmes) to examine national culture. In doing so, I extend existing work that uses food as a lens for understanding national culture (DeSoucey ; Maxwell and DeSoucey ). In France, restaurants have been especially central to studies of gastronomy and national culture, because of their historical importance for the development of French cuisine (Ferguson ; Rao, Monin and Durand ).…”

Ancient cosmopolitanism: Feminism and the rethinking of Maya inter-regional interactions during the Late Classic to Postclassic periods (ca. 600–1521 CE)

“…Another setting often considered central to contemporary cosmopolitan experiences (García, 2013; Heldke, 2006; Maxwell and Desoucey, 2016) but largely ignored in archaeological studies of inter-regional interactions is the kitchen, a domain that is largely associated with women in Mesoamerica (Ardren, 2015; Brumfiel, 1991). Since food and drink are so intimately tied to ideas of self (e.g., for many people insulting what one eats is tantamount to insulting someone directly), what and how food and drink are prepared and the practices surrounding their consumption are intimately part of the expressions and performances of belonging in the world.…”

“…Since food and drink are so intimately tied to ideas of self (e.g., for many people insulting what one eats is tantamount to insulting someone directly), what and how food and drink are prepared and the practices surrounding their consumption are intimately part of the expressions and performances of belonging in the world. For contemporary supermarkets in France and the UK, Maxwell and DeSoucey (2016) suggest that one way a growing gastronomic cosmopolitanism emerges is when foreign food products and foreign prepared foods are no longer exoticized and become familiar parts of quotidian food regimes. In this last case study, I examine not the spread of food products themselves, but the adoption and spread of a culinary technique, the banal practice of toasting, as a complement to other forms of inter-regional engagements that were occurring at the end of the Classic period.…”

Conceptualizing the Field. Consuming the Other, Marketing Difference

“…In addition, and, alongside skills, competences and capitals, the capacity for people to 'be cosmopolitan' cannot be attained without the organization of transnational markets which provide opportunities for cosmopolitan types of exchange. Market environments such as supermarkets, for example, become increasingly cosmopolitan in their product offers, selling products originating from diverse countries in the world (Maxwell and DeSoucey, 2016). Existing research has focused on how complications and antinomies of consuming cultural difference are articulated in social contexts.…”