TV cookery shows hosted by celebrity chefs. Meal prep kitchens. Online grocers and restaurant review sites. Competitive eating contests, carnivals and fairs, and junk food websites and blogs. What do all of them have in common? According to authors Kathleen LeBesco and Peter Naccarato, they each serve as productive sites for understanding the role of culinary capital in shaping individual and group identities in contemporary culture. Beyond providing sustenance, food and food practices play an important social role, offering status to individuals who conform to their culture's culinary norms and expectations while also providing a means of resisting them. Culinary Capital analyzes this phenomenon in action across the landscape of contemporary culture. The authors examine how each of the sites listed above promises viewers and consumers status through the acquisition of culinary capital and, as they do so, intersect with a range of cultural values and ideologies, particularly those of gender and economic class.

This book introduces the notion of culinary capital to investigate socialisation and school mealtime experiences in an academy school based in the UK. Drawing on interviews collated from children, teachers and staff within the school, the text sheds light on food insecurity in society and schools as being major issue in educational policy. The book examines schools as a microcosm for society with school food space being the playground for socialisation. It shows how forms of culinary capital can be extended in the school dining hall where social space is negotiated with notions of inclusion and exclusion during mealtime. The book uses gender, class and race to understand the school dining hall as a space where culinary capital can be exchanged and learnt. Thorough research accompanied by ethnographic visuals, field notes and observations, it also explores the sensory impact of school gardens. As such the book will be of interest to students, teachers, school leaders, educators and policy makers in the fields of Education, Sociology, Social Policy and Food Studies.

I simply want to live in the place with the best food in the world. This dream led Eric Dregni to Italy, first to Milan and eventually to a small, fog-covered town to the north: Modena, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar, Ferrari, and Luciano Pavarotti. Never Trust a Thin Cook is a classic American abroad tale, brimming with adventures both expected and unexpected, awkward social moments, and most important, very good food. Parmesan thieves. Tortellini based on the shape of Venus's navel. Infiltrating the secret world of the balsamic vinegar elite. Life in Modena is a long way from the Leaning Tower of Pizza (the south Minneapolis pizzeria where Eric and his girlfriend and fellow traveler Katy first met), and while some Italians are impressed that "Minnesota" sounds like "minestrone," they are soon learning what it means to live in a country where the word "safe" doesn't actually exist-only "less dangerous." Thankfully, another meal is always waiting, and Dregni revels in uncorking the secrets of Italian cuisine, such as how to guzzle espresso "corrected" with grappa and learning that mold really does make a good salami great. What begins as a gastronomical quest soon becomes a revealing, authentic portrait of how Italians live and a hilarious demonstration of how American and Italian cultures differ. In Never Trust a Thin Cook, Eric Dregni dishes up the sometimes wild experiences of living abroad alongside the simple pleasures of Italian culture in perfect, complementary proportions.

This collection of interdisciplinary essays examines food as it mediates social relationships and self-presentation in a variety of international films and literature. Authors explore the ways that making, eating and thinking about food reveals culture. In doing so the essays highlight how food and foodways become a type of symbolic capital, which influences the larger concern of cultural identity. Essays are organized into three central themes: Culinary Translations of Identity: From Britain to China; Food as Metaphor in Contemporary German Writing; and Love, Feasting and the Symbolic Power of Food in French Writing. Each essay investigates the uses of food as a way to apprehend cultural meaning. The essays presented provide theoretical templates for the study of food in a wide range of international film and literature,

A true melting pot of tastes and cultures, Houston, Texas, boasts over 11,000 restaurants and more award-winning ones than any other city in the nation. Culinary Capital celebrates the diversity and creativity of the chefs in many of those eateries. Written by John DeMers (of the Carrabba's CIAO series), Culinary Capital brings recipes and suggestions from some of Houston's hottest dining establishments to the home kitchen in a way that showcases the definitive dishes of the Bayou City. Hungry for Vietnamese? It's here. Mexican? That, too. Seafood? Of course! Cajun? Laissez les bons temps rouler! (Let the good times roll!) From traditional Beef Wellingtons to boundary-jumping Fusion creations, Culinary Capital takes the home chef step-by-step through seventy-five recipes, punctuated by 160 appetite-tempting photos, while introducing the reader to a variety of exciting restaurants and the epicurean talents of their accomplished chefs. Book jacket.

The Capital Cooking Cookbook features a delectable collection of recipes exploring the culinary riches of our nation's capital. The companion book to the TV series, Capital Cooking with Lauren DeSantis, highlights cooking traditions of regional cuisine from around the country as well as international dishes.

In this book, Margaret Magat explores both the traditional and popular culture contexts of eating balut. Balut-fertilized duck or chicken eggs that have developed into fully formed embryos with feathers and beaks-is a delicacy which elicits passionate responses. Hailed as an aphrodisiac in Filipino culture, balut is often seen and used as an object of revulsion in Western popular culture. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, reality television programs, travel shows, food blogs, and balut-eating contests, Magat examines balut production and consumption, its role in drinking rituals, sex, and also the vampire-like legends behind it. Balut reveals how traditional foods are used in the performance of identity and ethnicity, inspiring a virtual online cottage industry via social media. It also looks at the impact globalization and migration are having on cultural practices and food consumption across the world. The first academic book on balut, this is essential reading for anyone in food studies, folklore studies, anthropology, and Asian American studies.