Session 1 Food Media: ALISON VINCENT

I’m not sure you can dismiss sociology so readily eg Warde as a sociologist has a diverse range of writing from the more purely theoretical to the rich detail of ethnography; likewise I’d recommend Sutton for his sophisticated approach to sociological/anthropological writing about food. Certainly Wilk is very readable, I agree.

Hello Jean! I like to steer clear of 'authentic' altogether because I find the concept very confusing. On the basis that nothing is authentic until someone says it is, the exotic/novel becomes authentic, in the Johnston and Baumann sense, once it is legitimated. Hence the foodie appropriation of one new cuisine or ingredient after another, always a search for the next new thing and the more obscure the better. To quote Appadurai the invocation of authenticity 'reflects our yearning, as outsiders, for a set of criteria of genuine in the cuisine we are exploring'. He goes on to say 'authenticity drives us to immense efforts in our pursuit of it, but invariably vanishes just when we think we have it'. So, yes I think you're right that familiarisation with the exotic is about distinction. But there is also this tension between tradition (as in 'authentic' foreign cuisine) and novelty in the sense that we praise those chefs who take 'traditional' cuisines and up date them with new ingredients or techniques. So there is always the trade off between tradition/authentic and novel/exotic. There is clearly more to talk about!

Jacqui I could talk about this forever. One of the reasons why I would like to see more evaluations of the messages in the media is because, to me, the shifts in how things are recommended is endlessly fascinating. With this latest Covid business there has been so much emphasis on comfort food - so back to tradition, as in slow cooking and home baking. And don't get me started on bread - who could have imagined that supermarkets would sell out of yeast? But all of this is also indulgent and, as you point out, in many cases hardly economical. But then our ideas of economical change too - so are we talking economical in terms of money or in terms of time spent? Similarly, like lamb shanks and brisket, what was once traditional (and the taste of necessity) gets transformed into something that's novel (and the taste of luxury). Apropos your own presentation - what would it take to turn offal into the taste of Luxury? One of my favourite letters written by a customer who dined at Stephanie's in the 1980s described the menu an uninspiring, offering a selection of various offal and cheap cuts of meat, unflattering to a restaurant with such a stellar reputation. At that time many high class restaurants offered tripe, brains, liver, sweetbreads and even pig's trotters.

Couldn't agree more. I think there's great potential for comparisons between media, on a number of levels.

I'm also interested in where veganism sits on the Principles of Recommendation as a social construct. One could argue that religious beliefs re food (eg Orthodox Judaism or Seventh-Day Adventism) fitted under Tradition, but veganism? Despite vegans holding so many different viewpoints and understandings, vegan social media is very pervasive (and sometimes militant, considering that vegans are only 1.16% of the Australian population) that it would make a very interesting topic of study.

As far as mainstream magazines go, recipes are often tagged vegan, with the suggestion, I think, that the food is also healthy. I agree re s study of vegan social media - it would be an interesting exercise to see how the various principles of recommendation were defined within a vegan framework.

I hope there will be lots of discussion Catherine. Tune in on the 17th!