Legitimising amateur celebrity chefs’ advice and the discursive transformation of the Slovene national culinary identity

Abstract

This article seeks to discuss the legitimation strategies of the two Slovene amateur celebrity chefs Luka Novaks and Valentina Smej Novak and the consequent call for a discursive transformation of the Slovene culinary identity. Using as a tool Van Leeuwen’s legitimation strategies, it seeks to understand the discursive construction of the chefs’ authority, that is, how do they legitimise their call for a change in Slovene eating habits, focusing on the introductory texts found in their cookbooks. Second, it concludes that by doing this, they have not only constructed themselves as the new authorities in Slovene cooking but also advocated the new middle-class taste as the only acceptable taste in Slovenia, that is, the contemporary Slovene national cuisine. Their call for transformation, however, seems contradictory, as they, on the one hand, draw on tradition and expert authority and, on the other hand, refute this in order to be able to position themselves as equal to these authorities.

Romanticised chefs and the psychopolitics of gastroporn

“…The contemporary obsession with culinary culture and, more particularly, the prominence of the now ubiquitous figure of the celebrity chef has been the subject of much critical academic attention, primarily from a perspective that focusses on the promotion and emergence of lifestyle television hosts – in our case TV Chefs – as ‘experts’ who offer guidance and lifestyle suggestions to members of the public, whilst at the same time examining the particular strategies through which this kind of ‘expertise’ is constructed (e.g. Chaney, 2002; Davies, 2003; Smith, 2010, Tominc, 2014). In a similar fashion, chefs are also of interest as emerging figures of authority which reflect, as Tominc (2014) observes through recourse to Giddens (1990), broader shifts in patterns of authority in Western societies during the transition from modernity to late modernity.…”

“…Chaney, 2002; Davies, 2003; Smith, 2010, Tominc, 2014). In a similar fashion, chefs are also of interest as emerging figures of authority which reflect, as Tominc (2014) observes through recourse to Giddens (1990), broader shifts in patterns of authority in Western societies during the transition from modernity to late modernity. Generally speaking, chefs, both as figures of authority and experts, are discussed in terms of their importance for shaping and expressing the tastes, desires and fantasies of the middle classes, alongside acting as gatekeepers to high social status and symbolic ascension through their promotion of the consumption of particular food and food-related commodities (e.g.…”

“…Generally speaking, chefs, both as figures of authority and experts, are discussed in terms of their importance for shaping and expressing the tastes, desires and fantasies of the middle classes, alongside acting as gatekeepers to high social status and symbolic ascension through their promotion of the consumption of particular food and food-related commodities (e.g. De Solier, 2013; Hollows, 2003; Ketchum, 2005; Lang and Heasman, 2004; Tominc, 2014). Within this sociological paradigm of work, authority and expertise are invariably understood as central components of what Bourdieu’s (1984) calls ‘cultural intermediaries’: these are key figures in the media consumption process (e.g.…”

“…It is the possession of this specific form of culinary capital that forms the basis of the legitimacy of chefs as arbiters of culinary taste (see Bell, 2002 cited in Ashley, Hollow, Jones, & Taylor, 2004; De Solier, 2013; Naccarato and Lebesco, 2012). Through their role as a cultural intermediary, the celebrity chef is seen as performing a number of functions, some of which are even contradictory; these range from shaping the audience’s culinary tastes and disseminating a new consumerist culinary culture, to democratizing food knowledge and providing people with the opportunity and means through which to acquire culinary capital themselves (Bell, 2002 cited in Ashley et al., 2004; Tominc, 2014). Inherent to most approaches within cultural and food studies is an interest in the association of the figure of the celebrity chef with the business sector, with scholars probing into the marketing process by which celebrity chefs become or are consciously created as profit making ‘brands’ (e.g.…”

“…Even though this sociological ‘paradigm’ does capture important elements of the cultural figure in question, as well as showing sensitivity to the myriad ways in which TV cooking programmes and cookbooks reflect, register and mark certain transitional political demands (e.g. Brownlie, Hewer and Horne, 2005; Helstosky, 2010; Hollows, 2003; Mennell, 1996; Tominc, 2014), it nevertheless still fails to adequately capture and account for the psychopolitical specificity of the figure of the celebrity chef. To a certain extent, the reason for this neglect is the insufficient attention afforded to both the privileged symbolic function of food itself and its status as a ‘magical’ element that links the psychological with the social world in a number of linear and hodgepodge ways.…”