Making change in the kitchen? A study of celebrity cookbooks, culinary personas, and inequality

Johnston, Josée; Rodney, Alexandra; Chong, Phillipa K.

doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2014.10.001

Cited by 56 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Mills is positioned differently to many other 'food celebrities' (Johnston and Goodman, 2015) and 'culinary personas' (Johnston et al, 2014) in the contemporary UK context. While household names such as Lawson and Oliver have considerable business dealings, these are generally backgrounded so as not to distract from their identities as cook and chef, respectively.…”

Section: A Recipe For Successmentioning

confidence: 98%

‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

O'Neill

2020

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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This article examines the branded persona of Ella Mills, founder of the multi-platform, multi-product and multi-million pound food brand Deliciously Ella. It begins from the premise that Mills represents a new kind of cultural intermediary: that of the wellness entrepreneur. Through a discourse analysis of Mills’ own media productions alongside news and magazine features about the entrepreneur, I consider how ‘healthy eating’ is being sold to young women as a means to realise physical and financial empowerment. Commercial entrepreneurship is made to function in tandem with health entrepreneurship, as Mills makes it her business to model a healthy lifestyle and enjoins others to follow this example. The article further examines how the Deliciously Ella narrative perpetuates already dominant understandings of health as a private good and personal responsibility through its emphasis on healing and recovery through food. Relating this analysis to recent debates about the shifting terrain of postfeminism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, I argue that the spotlighting of Mills elevates self-care as a gendered imperative while obfuscating the classed and racialised privileges that attend this.

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Section: A Recipe For Successmentioning

confidence: 98%

‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

O'Neill

2020

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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“…Food media are communicative spaces where consumers can 'creatively produce and enact their own food identities' (Abbots, 2015: 224). The mediatized representations of food can shape food practices and brand preferences (Phillipov, 2016b;Johnston et al, 2014;Halkier, 2013 (Phillipov, 2017;Phillipov, 2016a). Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi publish supermarket food media such as product catalogs, food magazines and recipe websites.…”

Section: Using Supermarket Food Media To Increase Market Competitivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Food media are communicative spaces where consumers can ‘creatively produce and enact their own food identities’ (Abbots, 2015: 224). The mediatized representations of food can shape food practices and brand preferences (Halkier, 2013; Johnston et al, 2014; Phillipov, 2016b). Coles and Woolworths have sought to extend their market power in Australia using food media, for instance, by sponsoring food television programs such as MasterChef Australia and My Kitchen Rules (Phillipov, 2016a, 2017).…”

Section: Using Supermarket Food Media To Increase Market Competitivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicative and globalizing impacts of food labels: an Australian study

Lee

2019

Media International Australia

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This article analyzes the impacts of the Australian Federal Government’s food labeling reforms on the formation of food practices and the market for local food products. It considers how the inclusion of product and ingredient origin information blurs the distinction between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ food products, and foregrounds different ‘support local’ behaviors. Findings from the study highlight the influence of structural and cultural factors, complemented by the strategic use of media tools, in shaping how food labels function as mechanisms to mediate domestic and transnational food practices. Retail concentration, support for the ‘buy local’ discourse, and the mediating influence of supermarket food media are presented as key factors that underpin the diffusion of and the demand for branded products and local food products in Australia. The impacts of the food origin labeling regulations on Australia’s highly concentrated grocery retail sector and export markets for Australian food products are also discussed.

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“…The social organization of the kitchen then is both hierarchical and requires teamwork and is organized by formal rules, spatial systems, and cultural codes. While most head chefs who command control are white, most of the cooks, prep cooks, and dishwashers are people of color (Jayaraman , ) who must comply with their supervisors’ demands (Johnston, Rodney, and Chong ). Kitchen workers must be flexible with respect to the duration of a shift, be capable of handling being “slammed” by an onslaught of customers and demanding diners, and to improvise when there are problems with food and staffing (Fine ).…”

Section: Workfare Kitchens and The Management Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

Wilcoxson

Moore

2019

Sociological Inquiry

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Welfare‐to‐work training (workfare) programs are designed to technically and affectively prepare marginalized people for jobs that are often routinized and dirty. They are expected to accept personal responsibility for their situation and demonstrate submission to bosses as means of “working off” their “debt” to society. Ethnographic observation at workfare training sites has tended to emphasize the indignities that trainees suffer, with less attention to how workers maintain dignity in the face of these experiences. Using ethnographic observation and interviews in a Chicago workfare kitchen training program, we show that neoliberal kitchen training work encompasses paradoxical expectations for trainee‐workers; they must demonstrate high levels of discretion and creativity required in professional kitchen work and demonstrate submission to charismatic authority as a means of getting kitchen work done and of affective compliance with the goals of the program. To combat the direct efforts of others to produce indignities, trainees developed two dignity strategies that are highly dependent on the structure of kitchen work: operating in a slipstream, and banking confidence that allows them to take liberties normally allowed for chef‐trainers. These findings contribute to sociological understandings of workplace dignity, a privilege that has been especially elusive for the poor under welfare‐to‐work programs.

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Making change in the kitchen? A study of celebrity cookbooks, culinary personas, and inequality

Cited by 56 publications

References 47 publications

‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

Communicative and globalizing impacts of food labels: an Australian study

Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

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