CULINARY TOURISM WITH ANTHONY BOURDAIN: CULTURAL
COLONIALISM, MASCULINITY AND THE EXOTIC "OTHER"
By
Amy L. Fagan-Cannon
B.S. University of Maine, 2003
A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
(in Communication)
The Graduate School
The University of Maine
August, 2009
Advisory Committee:
Nathan Stormer, Associate Professor of Communication & Journalism, Advisor
Laura Lindenfeld, Assistant Professor of Communication and Journalism and the
Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center
Eric E. Peterson, Professor of Communication & Journalism
CULINARY TOURISM WITH ANTHONY BOURDAIN: CULTURAL
COLONIALISM, MASCULINITY AND THE EXOTIC "OTHER"
By Amy L. Fagan-Cannon
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Nathan Stormer
An Abstract of the Thesis Presented
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts
(in Communication)
August, 2009
In the following thesis, I examine how chef Anthony Bourdain's popular
television program, A Cook's Tour (2001), constructs a mediated touristic gazing
experience that encourages a hegemonic and privileged Western worldview. I draw upon
Bourdain's 2001 written text of the same name to provide secondary evidence when
appropriate. Through an ideological criticism of the television program, I demonstrate
the ways in which A Cook's Tour presents and normalizes a neo-colonialist discourse
between the Western tourist and the Other, and the subsequent positioning of the Other as
an appetizing spectacle. As Lindenfeld (2007) states, these representations of food and
eating offer a vicarious experience of food culture and thus comprise part of the rhetorical
landscape of US tourism. Viewers have the illusion of experiencing ethnicity without
ever coming into contact with actual, potentially fear-invoking racialized bodies.
This is an interpretive study of the hegemonic discourses of identity and
Otherness as constituted through Bourdain's "Western gaze." The interpretation is
grounded in the context of a neo-colonialist history. Popular texts dramatize and
legitimate the colonialist power dynamics of the West and the Rest. Douglas Keller
(2003) explains that media stories [like A Cook's Tour] "provide the symbols, myths and
resources through which we constitute a common culture and through the appropriation
of which we insert ourselves into this culture. Media spectacles demonstrate who has the
power and who is powerless, who is allowed to exercise force and violence and who is
not" (p. 9).
Developing a critical understanding of how texts position readers/viewers must
always extend to helping students understand the social and cultural contexts of viewers
and texts: that is, how others might react to, construct and/or resist textual meanings.
Media studies are about language and literacy as much as it is about social and cultural
studies (Buckingham, 1993).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to thank the many people who made this thesis (finally!) possible. It is
difficult to overstate my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Prof. Nathan Stormer, and Prof.
Laura Lindenfeld. This thesis would not have been possible without their kind support,
unwavering encouragement, and remarkable patience. Thank you so very much, Nate
and Laura! I would like to show my gratitude to some my favorite former professors and
teachers who inspired and challenged me. Prof. Kristen Langellier gave me the
confidence and support to begin my Master's program. Prof. Eric Peterson, thank you for
serving on my committee and for your support. I am also grateful to Mrs. Debbie Davis
and Mr. David Dean from Foxcroft Academy. Thank you for always supporting my
academic endeavors and me over the years. I am indebted to many of my friends and
colleagues for their support. To my Ringle & Kemp buds: Thank you for all the "dog
talk," dinners, gardening adventures, and most of a l l . . . love. I am lucky to be a Bud.
To JF-P: Thank you for all that you have taught me about myself. I am a better person
because of you. To TLT: Thank you for everything. You have taught me so very much. I
will always be grateful to you. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. To
my husband, Nicholas, thank you for your patience and encouragement. To my parents,
Blaire and Michael Fagan, thank you for always supporting me and reminding me to have
a sense of humor. To my grandfather, James Monroe, thank you for encouraging me to
travel the world. To Jayne & Ben, thank you for believing in me. To my "little" brothers
and sisters; Chris, Colleen, Mikey, James & Anna: I am so proud to be your big sister. I
dedicate this thesis to you.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
iii
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION
1
2.
6
3.
4.
THEORY & METHOD
Theory
7
Interpellation
7
The Gaze and Culinary Tourism
11
Cultural Taste and Class
14
Method
22
FOOD MEDIA LITERATURE REVIEW
25
Food Studies and Food TV
25
Cinema Verite: Capturing the Other on Screen
33
Cultural Tourism as a Form of Colonialism: Consuming the Other
36
ANALYSIS
45
A Recipe for Identity
45
When Tony Gets Hungry Things Die
50
It's Perfect. It's Just Like the Movies
53
Hierarchies of Taste: Organizing difference through Mise-en-scene
55
5. CONCLUSION
62
REFERENCES
67
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
78
iv
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Eating is biting, gnawing, masticating, ingesting, consuming, appropriating, devouring,
absorbing, digesting, and assimilating. At least that is what a certain kind of eating is, a
certain time, place, and quality of eating: the royal dining, which traveling to other
cultures achieves, the eating of the dominant class.
(Scapp & Seitz, 1998, p. 125)
From the early anthropological writings of Joseph Conrad to the contemporary
documentaries from the National Geographic Society, it is clear that the Western media
have had a prominent role in shaping our understandings of non-Western cultures as well
as portraying the power discrepancies within our exploratory relationship with the Other
(Lindenfeld, 2007). Reality-based television programs, first-person travelogues,
cookbooks, adventure and culinary magazines, and other products of popular food and
tourism culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities; our sense of
self-determination and ability; our sense of cultural sophistication; our sense of
communal responsibility; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality and
national power; and the distinction between "us" and "them." As Lindenfeld (2007)
states, these representations of food and eating offer a vicarious experience of food
culture and thus comprise part of the rhetorical landscape of US tourism. Viewers have
the illusion of experiencing ethnicity without ever coming into contact with actual,
potentially fear-invoking racialized bodies.
From television to daily newspapers to travel, lifestyle, and other specialized
magazines, the visibility of chefs and their specialized cuisines in the mass media
highlights the importance of consumption in representations of society and place. To a
great extent the stardom of chefs is related to an explosive expansion of "lifestyle" media
(such as The Food Network, The Travel Channel, and Home & Garden Television) that
disseminate, evaluate and compare experiences of cultural consumption. The pursuit of
the new, the exciting, and the interesting through these mediated channels allows us to
contain the challenge of the exotic (by not actually having to face our uncertainties about
sanitation used in Other's facilities) while at the same time indulging in it. These media
images and literary works are organizers and transmitters of knowledge for various social
and economic purposes. Visual texts help shape our view of the world and our deepest
values: what we consider positive or negative and good or bad.
In the following thesis, I examine how Anthony Bourdain's popular television
program, A Cook's Tour (2001), constructs a mediated touristic gazing experience that
encourages a hegemonic and privileged Western world view (Lindenfeld, 2007). I will
draw upon Bourdain's 2001 written text of the same name to provide secondary evidence
when appropriate. Through an ideological criticism of the television program, I will
demonstrate the ways in which A Cook's Tour presents and normalizes a neo-colonialist
discourse between the Western tourist and Other, and the subsequent positioning of the
Other as an appetizing spectacle. I will use Stuart Hall's conception of interpellation to
frame my argument.
In Dines & Humez's volume Gender, Race & Class in Media (2003), Douglas
Kellner writes,
2
Media stories [like ,4 Cook's Tour] provide the symbols, myths and resources
through which we constitute a common culture and through the appropriation of
which we insert ourselves into this culture. Media spectacles demonstrate who
has the power and who is powerless, who is allowed to exercise force and
violence and who is not. (p. 9)
The study of the discourses of hegemonic influence, identity, and Otherness as
seen through the mechanism of Bourdain's "Western gaze" is an interpretive task, but
one that attempts to ground interpretation in a context of a neo-colonialist history.
Popular texts dramatize and legitimate the colonialist power dynamics of the West and
the Rest. For one to successfully interpret my reading of A Cook's Tour, one would have
to have an understanding of both the historical and the contemporary colonialist
relationships associated with Western cultural exploration as well as the social, political,
and economic hierarchies that frame such relationships. Kellner (2002) describes this as
cultural pedagogy:
The media are a profound and often misperceived source of cultural pedagogy: they
contribute to educating us how to behave and what to think, feel, believe, fear, and
desire—and what not to. The media are forms of pedagogy which teach us how to be
men and women. They show us how to dress, look and consume; how to react to
members of different social groups; how to be popular and successful and how to
avoid failure; and how to conform to the dominant system of norms, values,
practices, and institutions, (pp. 9-10)
My research questions are based on core analytic questions of media studies: How
are society, cultures, and persons portrayed in,4 Cook's Tour! What attitudes and values
3
do Anthony Bourdain's actions and the images captured on screen promote? What
technical, symbolic, and semiotic features are used to generate meanings? How does
what we see and read influence our opinions of others, our worldviews, our social
relations and behaviors? Developing a critical understanding of how texts position
readers/viewers must always extend to helping students understand the social and cultural
contexts of viewers and texts: that is, how others might react to, construct, and/or resist
textual meanings. Media studies are as much about language and literacy as it is about
social and cultural studies (Buckingham, 1993).
To look more closely at the way the discourses of neo-colonialism and
exploration operate within A Cook's Tour, in chapters two and three, I explicate the
theoretical frameworks that I will use to ground my argument including literature on
interpellation and the tourist gaze. I present my methodological approach and explain
how I selected the episodes in question. I also explain how the methodological approach
best answers my research questions. Furthermore, I offer a brief discussion of the
relevant literature in food studies and food media, a concise history of the cultural
documentary (also known as the "ethnographic" approach to filmmaking), a concise
explanation of culinary tourism and colonialism, and finally brief discussion of cultural
taste and class. Next, in chapter four, I conduct a close-textual analysis of the material. I
draw from Bourdain's written text as secondary evidence to further illustrate how A
Cook's Tour reaffirms Western hegemonic meaning structures and cultural "truths."
While A Cook's Tour contributes to the paradigm of Western privilege by reconstructing
neo-colonialist relationships between Bourdain and both the locals and locales he and his
crew visit; it also constructs a meaning of food tourism based on the emotional and
4
psychological highs and lows associated with his quest for, consumption of, and
subsequent disposal and dismissal of cultural experiences. Finally, in chapter five, I
conclude with a discussion of the limitations of this study and a consideration of future
possibilities for further study.
5
Chapter 2
THEORY & METHOD
In order to draw parallels between culinary tourism, neocolonialist attitudes, and
A Cook's Tour, I draw on the techniques of cultural and sociocultural critics and take "the
notion of text further and assume that many kinds of human activities or even natural
events can be turned into texts" (Vande Berg et al., 2004, p. 397). In doing so I assume
that "viewers can learn social roles and rules—can be socialized—through watching the
actions (and the results of the actions) of people in newscasts and characters in
entertainment programs" (p. 399). As a result, I accept the premise that "televisual texts,
along with so many other texts in your experience, naturalize the power of social,
economic, educational, religious, and political institutions" (p. 397). An inspection of
mediated discourse of foodways and Others not only works to examine how society
constructs social identities, but also how those identities situate individuals within
established hierarchy (Lindenfeld, 2007). Keeping in line with the goals of sociocultural
critique I follow Vande Berg et al.'s (2004) assertion:
[Television is a social institution and set of practices that both reflects and shapes
the ideological context within which viewers make sense of their world. That is,
sociocultural analyses of television texts regard television as the context within
which viewers see affirmed and discontinued particular views of social,
occupational, and sexual roles; social class; deviance and conformity; and race
and ethnicity, (p. 399)
In this chapter I provide a theoretical context for my overall analysis by
examining how Food TV programs have/continue to influence social ideals regarding
6
visual representations of Others. I follow this with a discussion of A Cook's Tour use of
cinema verite. Because "many reality formats maintain noticeable connections to the
documentary tradition" (Murray & Ouellette, 2004, p. 5) there is a possibility for viewers
to accept the information provided by ,4 Cook's Tour as factual depiction of other
cultures, rather than as a piece of entertainment that needs to be questioned.
Theory
Food media are a prominent mode for visualization of other cultures via their
foodways whereby imperialist and neocolonialist hierarchies establish themselves
through the straightforward and unproblematic ingestion of food—or images of food and
foodways (Lindenfeld, 2007). Within postcolonial studies, great emphasis is placed on
the gaze being an extension of modes of power. In this context as in A Cook's Tour, the
gaze functions as a mobilizing agent for cultural colonialism and pedagogy. To
understand the function of the gaze, I understand the gaze as a form of interpellation. As
Kaplan (1997) stated, "the gaze contributes to any subject's interpellation" (p. xix). I
examine Stuart Hall's conceptualization of interpellation, then point out how this concept
is based on Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatuses, and finally I develop
this concept relative to culinary tourism and taste.
Interpellation
Stuart Hall understands interpellation as a mechanism that recruits or hails
individuals to a certain belief. According to Hall & Hobson (1992),
7
The struggle in ideology takes place precisely through the articulation/
disarticulation of interpellations: how are ideologies transformed? The answer is:
through the class struggle which is carried out through the production of subjects
and the articulation/disarticulation of discourses, (p. 156)
Like other cultural mechanisms, A Cook's Tour exerts power through ideology.
Designed and accepted as practices with another purpose—to entertain and enlighten its
viewing audience, the program serves not only the stated objective but also an unstated
one—that of interpellating people into seeing the world a certain way and of accepting
certain identities as their own within that world. Hegemony refers to the winning of
popular consent through everyday life, including media representations of the world like
in A Cook's Tour. According to Hall (2003),
Unlike the fixed grip over society implied by 'domination,' 'hegemony' is won in
the to-and-fro of negotiation between competing social, political and ideological
forces through which power is contested, shifted or reformed. Representation is a
key site in such struggle, since the power of definition is a major source of
hegemony, (p. 348)
Hall has noted that Althusserian conceptualization of interpellation does not allow
for multiple, simultaneous hails, and does not allow for oppositional ideologies through
its process. Almost as entirely systematic as Althusserian ideological theory, Hall's
framework presents what some have said is a more audience-controlled theory, where
ideology is not so much "imposed from above," but is more or less negotiated by the
individual receiver (Hall, 1998). According to Gray (2005), Althusser believed that
ideologies exist in apparatuses and their practices. These apparatuses and their
8
accompanying practices, termed "Ideological State Apparatuses" or "ISAs," are
institutions such as religion, patriarchy, marriage, educational systems, and the mass
media. According to Jarre (2007),
Through the use of the mass media, individuals do not realize their subjection;
rather, they believe they are participating in ritual practices (such as voting in
national elections for presidents, or on American Idol for singers) in order to be a
person who acts according to their ideas. Rather than some sort of static idea set
that the dominant proscribes for the subjected to think and believe, ideology is a
very dynamic process that is constantly reproducing and reconstituting in actual
practice.
Ideologies work through symbolic codes, which represent and explain cultural
phenomena. Barthes (1972) labels this symbolic representation as mythic, not in the
traditional sense of being false (as in fairy tales), but in the sense of having the
appearance of being "natural" or "commonsense," so that it is not questioned. In so
doing, ideologies are able to disguise or suppress the structures of dominance and
exploitation that exists in society. Hall (2003) states,
Ideologies are not simply imposed by governments, business interests or the
media as their agents—although this possibility always remains an institutional
option through mechanisms of direct control such as censorship. Rather, media
forms and representations constitute major sites for conflict and negotiation, a
central goal of which is the definition of what is to be taken as 'real' and the
struggle to name and win support for certain kinds of cultural value and identity
over others, (p. 348).
9
Modern writers have adapted and developed the Marxist concept of ideology so
that belief systems or worldviews are thought to be ideological. Although some ideas
and beliefs seem more "natural" or "truthful," there is no absolute truth with which to
measure the accuracy of representations. What interests those who analyze media is
identifying whose ideological perspective is being privileged. While Marxists have
emphasized social class differences, others have increasingly pointed to gender and racial
inequalities. What is agreed is that popular culture, especially media products like A
Cook's Tour, are the sites of a constant struggle over the production of meaning. The
media's role may be seen as circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies; or (less
frequently), undermining and challenging such ideologies.
I understand attitudes to be individual embodiments of culture-wide ideologies.
Heldke (2003) puts it best when she notes that the dominant ideology lives inside us and
also controls society outside of our bodies. Often the term "ideology" is seen as referring
simply to a system of ideas and beliefs. However, it is closely tied to the concept of
power and the definition given by Anthony Giddens (1997) is probably the easiest to
understand. Giddens defines ideology as "shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify
the interests of dominant groups" (p. 583). Ideological criticism, therefore, is based on
the assumption that cultural artefacts—including television programs about foodways
like A Cook's Tour—are produced in specific historical contexts by and for specific
groups; it aims to understand the nature of culture as a form of social expression.
"Because of this social and historical specificity, artefacts express and promote values,
beliefs, and ideas that are pertinent to the contexts in which they are produced,
distributed, and received" (White, 1987, p. 136). Ideology presents itself as natural or it
10
serves to naturalize a given system of representation. The point of ideological criticism,
the author argues, is to understand how a particular system of representation offers us a
way of knowing or experiencing the world.
A critical aspect of interpellation for texts such as Bourdain's is the relation of
interpellation to the Other. Edward Said argues the construction of identity in every age
and in every society involves establishing opposites and "Others." Said's Orientalism
(1978) founded the basis for understanding the discourse of the Other and colonial power.
Since the 17th Century, Western literature and academic studies about "the Orient" were
founded upon an imagination of the East, constructing it as "the Other." This discourse
implied the colonizer's power over the colonized; "the Orient" in fact represented certain
characteristics (such as backwardness) repudiated by the West, but paradoxically also
became a mysterious, striking, and seductive object of desire for Western audiences.
The Gaze and Culinary Tourism
In analyzing visual culture, the concept of the gaze describes how the viewer
gazes upon the people presented and represented in photographs or on screen. 'The gaze'
is a technical term which was originally used in film theory in the 1970s but which is
now more broadly used by media theorists to refer to the "Other" depicted in visual texts.
A group of scholars including John Berger (1972), Luce Irigaray (1985), Laura
Mulvey (1989), and others have argued for a recognition of the alterity of the gaze—a
look which places the spectator in a position of power, or subjectivity, and the spectacle
in position of powerlessness, constituted as an object, as the Other. These scholars define
the former as masculine and the latter, feminine, within Western culture's dominant
11
patriarchal system of representation. Scholars recognize there are a multiplicity of gazes
and various forms of gazing. Within postcolonial studies, for example, the gaze is
recognized as an instrument of power; within feminist studies, the gaze is mobilized as a
sexualizing force that privileges male domination; in tourist studies, the gaze functions as
a lens for various spectacles; and finally, the mediated gaze is used as a tool by capitalists
for the consumption of goods and services. A Cook's Tour is a complicated example that
fits in several categories of the gaze.
The value of gazing on other's foodways is a function of sight's primacy as a
sense and its relation to knowing. Once considered the 'noblest' of the senses, sight
historically enjoyed an advantaged position as the most discerning and dependable of the
five senses (Jutte & Lynn, 2005). Although at times more metaphorical than literal, the
visual contribution to knowledge has been credited with far more importance than that of
any other sense. Fyfe and Law (1988), for example, claim that "depiction, picturing and
seeing are ubiquitous features of the process by which most human beings come to know
the world as it really is for them" (p. 2), and Berger (1972) suggests that this is because
"seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak" (p. 7).
The increasing importance of the visual to contemporary Western societies is part of a
wider analysis of the shift from premodernity to modernity, and from modernity to
postmodernity (Rose, 2001, p. 7). Jenks (1995) argues that 'looking, seeing, and
knowing have become perilously intertwined' so that 'the modern world is very much a
"seen" phenomenon' (p. 14), so much so that modern forms of knowledge depend on a
scopic regime that equates seeing with knowledge. Jenks continues,
12
We daily experience and perpetuate the conflation of the 'seen' with the 'known'
in conversation through the commonplace linguistic appendage of 'do you see?'
or 'see what I mean?' to utterances that seem to require confirmation, or, when
seeking opinion, by inquiring after people's 'views.' (p. 3)
The value of the gaze as knowing has been folded into what Guy Debord (1983)
calls the "society of the spectacle." He describes a media and consumer society,
organized around the production and consumption of images, commodities, and staged
events. For Debord, spectacle unifies and explains a great diversity of apparent
phenomenon. For Kellner (2003), media spectacle involves those media and artefacts
that visualize contemporary society's basic values and acculturates individuals into its
way of life. Experience and everyday life are thus, for Kellner, shaped and mediated by
the spectacles of media culture and consumer society.
The concept of the spectacle therefore involves a distinction between passivity
and activity and consumption and production . . . the spectacular society spreads
its wares mainly through the cultural mechanism of leisure and consumption,
services and entertainment, ruled by the dictates of advertising and a
commercialized media culture, (p. 3)
Kellner sees this shift to a society of the spectacle as involving a commodification of
knowledge about previously non-colonized sectors of social life and the extension of
bureaucratic control to the realms of leisure, desire and everyday life. The tourist gaze is
a specific form of spectacle through which the Other is consumed as observational,
cinematic knowledge.
13
In The Tourist Gaze, John Urry (2005) considers the development and historical
transformation of the tourist gaze. Urry's "gaze" is distinctive from "everyday looking"
in that it attends to difference. It notices contrast and distinctiveness; it shifts objects and
actions out of the common and mundane world, enabling or encouraging viewers to
recognize their power as symbols, entertainment, and art (p. 21). Urry states,
The tourist gaze is directed to features of everyday landscape and townscapes
which separate them off from everyday experience. Such aspects are viewed
because they are taken to be in some sense out of the ordinary... all over the
world the unsung armies of semioticians, the tourists, are fanning out in search of
signs of Frenchness, typical Italian behavior, exemplary Oriental scenes, (p. 3)
Cultural Taste and Class
As part of the spectacle of consumption, the touristic search for distinctive
cultural experiences is a mechanism of taste. Taste, in the non-biological understanding
can refer to an appreciation for aesthetic quality. Taste begins to be used in a
metaphorical sense to refer to certain degrees of cultural competence and intelligence,
closely related to the concept of discrimination; it can set distinctions between tasteful
and tasteless or embodying good taste or bad taste, thus providing categories for social
division and producing cultural hierarchy. In the latter sense, taste enables the spectacle
of consumption to interpellate viewers into neocolonial hierarchies through acquisition of
knowledge of Others' foodways.
According to Mara Miele and Jonathan Murdoch (2004), cuisines have developed
in differing ways according to food availability and cultural aspiration. But in general,
14
they have spread beyond courtly circles to society at large cuisines become both a
'standard of aspiration' and the 'norm for every bourgeois family. The authors explain
that within the growing bourgeois strata of European societies a taste for diversity and
distinction began to dislodge the consumption of simple staples. Taste and discernment
have therefore become increasingly evident in food consumption practices (Montanari,
1994). Miele and Mudoch (2004) argue that the contemporary generation of abundance
has given a new lease of life to cuisine distinctions as more and more consumers seek to
exercise discerning choices in order to separate themselves from the "mass."
Furthermore, the authors state,
Local foods, organic foods, exotic foods, traditional foods—all have become
popular with more discerning middle-class, postmodern consumers (the fastest
growing segment of the market)... The aestheticisation [sic] of food is not a
recent process. For as long as humans have produced and prepared food, an
aesthetic component has been evident, (pp. 157-158)
Although A Cook's Tour is an audio-visual experience, it makes taste as a sense a
part of taste as judgment. The culinary tourists' world, like other realms of creative arts,
has a distinct hierarchy of what qualifies good taste from bad. Jessup (1960) was of the
belief that mere examination and subsequent criticism of a work of art is not enough; we
need to take into consideration the experience of an art. According to Jessup, there are
thus two clearly distinguishable tasks of criticism to be performed, two spheres of
criticism to be defined and analyzed. The one aims to explicate to "sharpen the image"
the other aims to evaluate. The sphere to which my discussion is directed is the latter;
that of which value-directed acts and expressions of taste and judgment are the defining
15
characteristics. Taste is the final referent and sanction of judgment. Taste is also subject
to judgment, that it, the taste itself can be judged good or bad.
This may appear to be contradictory, but it is not. The seeming circularity lies in
an ambiguity of the phrase "judgment of taste." The phrase can mean either a judgment
in which expression of taste respecting a work of art is the essential content (to evaluate a
work of art) or a judgment in which the nature and quality of a particular taste is the
object of reference and appraisal. Both are value judgments but not of the same kind of
thing. The first is an aesthetic judgment; the second is a judgment of aesthetic judgment.
This distinction is key. Jessup (1960) writes,
Good taste, it has often been said is rooted in but not guaranteed by native sensory
equipment—good eyes, ears, an alert mind, and an astute palate. Good taste is not
innate or ready-made. Good taste is educated and informed as well as
experienced and cultivated. Good taste is broad; it is a various taste, (p.56)
In "Can taste illumine class? Cultural knowledge and forms of inequality,"
Veenstra (2005) examines the relationship between taste and class in accordance with
Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1984) and
Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (1998). According to Veenstra (2005),
Bourdieu argued that cultural tastes are socially constructed phenomena, not natural
indicators of the "good," and that the social space containing or framing these tastes
essentially functions to manifest social inequality (p.248). Within the social space,
according to Bourdieu, dominant groups are able to delimit the nature of tastes and utilize
knowledge of and familiarity with these cultural forms to maintain and reinforce
boundaries between them and "lesser" groups. "The groups thus manifested within the
16
social space—dominant and cultured, subordinate and uncultured or poorly culture—
were thought by Bourdieu to be predictive of social classes" (p.249).
Bourdieu's social class framework, in contrast with most neo-Marxist class
schemes, incorporates explicit consideration of multiple non-economic criteria for
stratification, such that economic power is not the only or even the most relevant form of
capital for identifying class groupings (Laberge and Kay, 2002). For Bourdieu, every
form of power in social life (including educational and social capital) is relevant to the
discussion. Veenstra (2005) writes,
Cultural capital encompassed three distinct dimensions: (i) those personal
educational experiences and credentials that facilitate the accumulation of certain
cultural tastes (educational capital), (ii) social background, whereby cultural tastes
are passed down through socialization from parents' own educational experiences,
and (iii) cultural tastes and dispositions themselves, (p.249)
Accordingly, "high-brow" tastes purportedly allow members of the dominant group to
sneer at and chide those who do not belong to it as well as to secure and maintain their
own exclusive membership. "Low-brow" tastes on the other hand, are such that can be
utilized by the less privileged, as Veenstra says, "to scoff at the elites in their own gesture
of strength or solidarity" (p.250). This identification of a variety of high- and low-brow
tastes further facilitated the identification of classes.
However conceptualized, classes are not social groups unless they know
themselves as such. Bourdieu focused explicitly on the importance of shared cultural and
dispositions and practices for the formation or expression of group/class consciousness
and identity. His framework suggests that cultural tastes and practices reflect and
17
influence relations of power and consciousness of common identity and interest in
groups. As a result, his framework implies that cultural tastes might be used to locate and
identify classes as readily as classes themselves might be used to classify cultural tastes
and practices. Bourdieu (1984) writes, "Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier"
(p. 6).
Research has identified the growing presence of a cultural omnivorism, the
indiscriminate accumulation by some people of cultural tastes of all kinds (Sintas and
Alvarez, 2002; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Warde et al., 1999; Thrane, 2001). As such,
Holt (1998) argues that mass culture is more relevant than high culture for identifying
classes in the United States. By sampling a cuisine none of your friends has tasted, you
accumulate a bit of sophistication that you can bank, and invest later in a social situation
to raise your stature. Food adventurers score "culture points" for their culinary
endeavors. "[They] gain status—albeit a somewhat countercultural status—for knowing
what galangal is. And the status we acquire is increasingly less countercultural because
ethnic foods are 'hot'; eating ethnic foods, the culinary and travel magazines tell us, is a
very popular thing to do" (Heldke, 2003, p. xxiii). To increase one's cultural capital and
social position, one would have to talk about exotic ingredients and show familiarity with
freshness and techniques. Cultural competence has to be embodied, in taste and labor.
That is much more stringent than just buying it. The point now is to be able to replicate
the authentic at home or, at the very least, be able to talk about it.
A Cook's Tour may be analyzed, then, in terms of the how it constitutes a tourist
gaze and interpellates the viewer into dominant hierarchies through the cultural capital of
taste. A Cook's Tour, several key forms of the gaze can be identified. The most obvious
18
typology is based on who is doing the looking, of which the following are the most
commonly cited: the spectator's gaze: the gaze of the viewer (Bourdain and,
consequently myself as critic) at an image of a person (or animal, or object) in the text;
the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another (or at an animal or an
object) within the world of the text (typically depicted in filmic and televisual media by a
subjective 'point-of-view shot'); the direct address to the viewer: the gaze of a person
depicted in the text looking 'out of the frame' as if at the viewer sitting at home; the look
of the camera—the way that the camera itself appears to frame the people (or animals or
objects) depicted; and the gaze of the film-maker or photographer. In addition to the
major forms of gaze listed above, Chandler (1998) notes several other types of gaze
which are less often discussed: the averted gaze—a depicted person's noticeable
avoidance of the gaze of another, or of the camera lens or artist (and thus of the
viewer)—this may involve looking up, looking down or looking away; and Lutz &
Collins' (1994) editorial gaze—'the whole institutional process by which some portion of
the photographer's gaze is chosen for use and emphasis'. According to Albers & James
(1988),
To photograph is in some way to appropriate the object being photographed. It is
A power/knowledge relationship. To have visual knowledge of an object is in
part to have power, even if only momentarily, over it. Photography tames the
object of the gaze, the most striking examples being of exotic cultures. In the US
the railway companies did much to create 'Indian' attractions to be photographed,
carefully selecting those tribes with a particularly 'picturesque and ancient'
appearance, (p. 151, as quoted in Urry, 2005, p. 127)
19
As foundational concept in media studies, no matter what the form of the gaze,
one commonality remains. The relationship between a gazer and the gazed at is
inherently power-laden and always involves an assessment of the latter by the former.
Regardless of the direction of the gaze, be it intended towards an elderly Vietnamese
woman kneeling in a field or a panoramic picture of the Italian countryside, the gazer is
(often subconsciously) instantly formulating an opinion of what he or she sees. Even
perhaps without realizing it, a judgment is being made about the subject in question. The
gazer assumes a position of power and is organized by institutions that exercise
supremacy over the Other in a particular way. "The visual sense enables people to take
possession of objects and environments, often at a distance . . . it facilitates the world of
the 'other' to be controlled from afar, combining detachment and mastery" (Urry, 2005,
p. 146). According to Hall (2003), "how the West classifies, categorizes and represents
other cultures is emerging as a topic of some debate" (p. 153). By exploring the link
between knowledge of other cultures and the imperial nations, Hall considers
representation in light of the politics of exhibiting.
The shot/reverse shot construction in film and television illustrated how the gaze
gives individuals a particular ideological perspective on events—a perspective that seems
natural. This pattern of cutting back and forth between two characters in close-up (or
medium shot) is frequently used for dialog sequences and is considered the "natural" way
to represent conversation. However, it is in fact highly artificial construction that in no
way duplicates two characters, the visual space is fragmented and the angle of vision is
offered to the viewer is not the perspective a character in the scene would share. In this
sense it is a perspective created for the viewer outside the fiction (White, 1987, pp. 141-
20
142). "A mass art form such as television provides a crucial and fruitful arena for
ideological analysis precisely because it represents the intersection of economicindustrial interests, a system of texts, and a leisure-entertainment industry" (p. 142).
Ideological, shot/reverse shot techniques can legitimize differential power between and,
as such, distort the real inequities that exist between people.
Research on the link between consumption of the foodways of Others and identity
has been minimal, but Phillips (2003) considers identity construction and development in
terms of food choices, the importance of food and food preparation in defining one's
identity within the family and food as a reflection of national and ethnic identity. The
social meaning of the word identity has undergone changes over time. People may
describe themselves predominantly in terms of their occupations: doctor, teacher, bank
teller, or politician. Or they may describe themselves by their gender, age or marital
status. Phillips argues that although many people would probably still define themselves
in the former terms, what they do for a living is no longer as important to individuals. In
particular, she says that in a world where many change jobs every ten years or so, those
people with the money and time to define themselves in other terms, such as leisure
pursuits. Elliott (1997) believes that we are in the era of the "empty self in which
alienation and loss of a common community predominates. He offers a solution to this
that requires a construction of the self through consumption habits, particularly of those
things glorified in the mass media. An interesting area of consumption that has received
little attention in this area is food and food choices:
Some obvious examples of identity expression through food are vegetarians,
vegans, eaters of organic produce, dieters and equally, those who do not take up
21
any of these identity variations. Group identity may also be expressed through
food, for example as a family eating together, sharing of food and acceptance of
communion. (Phillips, 2003, p. 15)
Method
This project is a discourse analysis case study of how U.S. media, through food
TV, works to support current ideological frameworks regarding Western dominance and
the exoticism of Otherness. I screened all of the episodes from season one and season
two of the program and selected the ones in which the themes of interest were most
prominent. In order to link A Cook's Tour to the neocolonialist consumption of other
cultures via their foodways, I use close-textual analysis to parse the text in order to enact
a rhetorical and ideological critique of the television program. As Vande Berg et al.
(2004) explain, "the quintessential mission of rhetorical study is to come to grips with
what signs do to those who consume them and how that doing gets done" (p. 141).
To properly examine the text, I study some of the codes of televisual
communication and mise-en-scene. As outlined in Vande Berg et al (2004), televised
texts are "constructed out of sequences of signs arrayed in codes and capable of being
experienced or interpreted in common ways by members of a society" (p.72). My
analysis of A Cook's Tour requires an examination of both the verbal and visual codes.
With regards to the visual codes of mise-en-scene, I focus most intensely on the framing,
point-of-view and montage. Framing considers how meaning is derived from the way
people or objects are centered or marginalized in key shots. Verbal codes include
attitudinal language; specifically, what words are used to express positive or negative
22
judgments and valuative language; which looks at how values—sociological,
psychological, moral are encoded in the dialogue. I also take note of the grammatical
orientation of the verbal communication in terms of who asks questions, who gives
orders, who asserts something as fact, and how the character(s) use different kinds of
grammar as signs of class, education, or status. Narrative orientation is also an important
verbal code to consider. Narrative orientation examines what stories are told and how
those stories emphasize particular thoughts or actions. In order to advance my argument,
narrative analysis is of great importance while, as Gronbeck (2004) explains,
Narratives are particularly powerful at suturing past, present, and future into
coherent, conceptual wholes; pictures yes, let us see the stories, and in the age of
mechanically and electronically reproduced still and moving images, seeing is
believing, comprehending, remembering, the evidence for claims. Even further,
however, visual symbolizations permit us to emphasize, individually and
collectively, the spatial environments within which we (should) act, and in
showing us acting in those environments, to reinforce our conceptions of who we
are as persona and as people, (p.214)
To conduct this critique, I examine the texts presented to viewers of A Cook's
Tour and how those messages work to support/reestablish/reiterate current U.S. power
relations. First I examine the social context in which A Cook's Tour was created through
a historical consideration of travel and food television in the United States during the
1990s and 2000s. As an ideological criticism, this project examines the affects of this
confusion and how it may work to reaffirm current ideologies. I expand the critique to
include a discursive ideological critique of A Cook's Tour in order to focus on the show's
23
potential "social and political goals" (Hart & Daughton, 2005, p.309). According to
Vande Berg et al. (2004), "Ideological criticism has as its goal the identification and
critique of media institutions, texts, and discursive practices that promote or sustain forms
of oppression and domination" (p. 298). As such, ideological criticism focuses on the
ways in which media institutions and texts serve the particular interests of the dominant
economic and social classes. It views criticism as a means to stimulate material changes
in human conditions and societies. Furthermore, ideological criticism does not regard
media texts as innocent sources of pleasurable entertainment. Rather, it views them as
products of reflections of the ideas and interests of the powerful few.
In this project, discourse analysis is exceptionally useful as the goal is to "make
sense of the relationship between texts and the social world" (Fiske (1994) p. 3 as quoted
in Vande Berg et al., 2004, p. 302). I consider the various divergences between the visual
imagery on the screen and the protagonist's moments of self-reflexivity and question
whether or not "the roles, values, actions, images, and words I this text maintain, critique/
deconstruct, or reconstruct dominant cultural discourses on this topic" (Vande Berg et al.,
2004, p. 303). Furthermore, I employ discourse analysis because it is "a tool that
television critics can use to discover the ways in which television texts neutralize or
reproduce struggles over ideological meanings, and to relate the ideological conflicts in
television texts to those in our social experience" (p. 303). Finally, as discussed earlier,
this project focuses on selected, representative episodes of A Cook's Tour, rather than the
series in its entirety, to illustrate the program's potential persuasive power.
24
Chapter 3
FOOD MEDIA LITERATURE REVIEW
Food Studies & Food TV
Despite its immense cultural and social importance, food has only recently started
to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. The last ten to fifteen years have seen a
significant increase in the number of journals, books, and panels at conferences devoted
to this topic. At the forefront of food studies is the Association for the Study of Food and
Society (ASFS). The Association is a multidisciplinary international organization
dedicated to exploring the complex relationships among food, culture, and society. Its
members, who approach the study of food from numerous disciplines in the humanities,
social sciences, and sciences, as well as in the world of food beyond the academy, draw
on a wide range of theoretical and practical approaches and seek to promote discussions
about food that transgress traditional boundaries (as quoted on the ASFS website).
The available literature in food studies and in food media is substantial and
growing. The contributing authors of Curtin & Heldke's (1992) edited volume, Cooking,
Eating, Thinking, demonstrate that there is a wealth of food-related research ranging from
concerns about world hunger and food politics to ethical discussions of genetic
engineering and the philosophical ideal of "foodmaking as a thoughtful practice" (Curtin
& Heldke, 1992, p. 203). Since Curtin & Heldke's volume was published, issues of
religion and its relationship to food and culinary customs have been examined through
Paul Fieldhouse's "Food in the Baha'i Faith" (2002) and "Religious influences on food"
(1998), among others. This topic can also be seen in the work of Kocturk and Laudan.
25
Kocturk (2004) was concerned with the consequences immigrating to a new land has on
the food habits of Islamic women in both Islamic and non-Islamic cultures. Laudan's
(1996) text, The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage, succinctly
illustrates her interest in around Hawaiian cultural history, including religious culture.
Within this literature, the transformation of identity through food is of particular
interest. Askegaard (1991) investigated food consumption amongst Greenlanders living
in Denmark. Food is often an important element in national identity, for example pasta in
Italy, cheese in France, and sausage in Germany (Roberts & Micken, 1996). Traditional
Greenlandic food is often seasonal. However, the food itself is not as important as the
context in which it is eaten. Greenlanders have a great respect for nature and
consumption within nature is deemed very important (Philips, 2003, p. 16). Food and
cuisine may not seem to be an obvious marker of identity—not as obvious as clothing, or
annual celebrations and festivals—but food clearly plays an important role in
demarcating cultural identity. Launay's (2003) work addressed the subject of food within
travel narratives of early European explorers. The author addressed the relationship of
exotic and strange food to the culturally held assumptions held by the traveler.
[The] narratives of travel to distant places can tell us at least as much about the
people who wrote them as about the far flung lands they describe. However
open-minded and observant the traveler, his attitudes were bound to be
conditioned by the culture of the time and place from which he came.
Descriptions of food are particularly appropriate barometers of such attitudes . . .
of course, food—what can and cannot be eaten, how it is prepared, with whom it
is shared—is among the most symbolically charged phenomena in virtually every
26
culture. Reactions to food, be they of delight or of horror, are manifestations of
cultural dispositions that are not always consciously articulated, as opposed, for
example to reactions to sexuality or to religion. (Launay, 2003, pp. 27-28)
A culture's food has deep and significant connections to its customs and practices
that are central to the identity of a culture. Given these connections, it is possible for the
haphazard borrowing of foods engaged in by food colonizers to constitute a form of
injury to another culture. It is important to realize that like other cultural artifacts, food is
never just food; rather, it is a form of income that can be added to the cultural capital
bank account of an individual. "We are what we eat" is true not only in a physical sense
but also in a cultural sense, albeit metaphorically.
Because of foodways' deep connection to place, scholars have argued that
culinary traditions are a significant factor in cultural interaction and identity. Ken
Albala's texts Opening Up North America (2005) and Food in Early Modern Europe
(2003), along with Jochnowitz's (2004) "Flavors of memory: Jewish food as culinary
tourism in Poland," and Heldke's (2005) article "But is it authentic? Culinary travel and
the search for the 'genuine article,'" have focused on cuisine as a catalyst for regional and
international travel as well as the history and role of culinary traditions in society.
"Inventing baby food: Gerber and the discourse of infancy in the United States" (2001)
and "Reading food riots: Scarcity, abundance, and national identity" (2001) by Amy
Bentley, examine issues relating to certain food discourses in the United States.
An important part of the relation of food and identity is gender, which scholars
are beginning to investigate. The January-June 2005 issue of Food & Foodways (edited
by Bruegel & Counihan) was dedicated to discussing the relationship between food and
27
gender identity, specifically masculinities. The significance of this relationship is
demonstrated through the work of Holden (2005) and Sobal (2005). According to
Krishnendu Ray (2007) in "Domesticating cuisine: Food on American television,"
Gastronomy has emerged as a cultural field worthy of some attention in the
United States. That is one reason why we are buying all those cookbooks we
never cook from, watching so much food TV, reading nonfiction about food, and
devouring restaurant reviews for places we will never visit. And that is why we
are studying food in the academy. We are beginning to do what the French have
done for about two hundred years—that is, not only talk about food but talk about
talking about food. (p. 56)
There is growing recognition of the importance of TV as a mediating technology
for cultural interaction around food. According to Ray, TV has allowed the sensual
experiences of cooking and travel to be born as a public image, different from a written
text. Today both domestic cooking and international cuisine have come out of the
confinements of the cookbooks stacked in our kitchen and into our living rooms. Thus,
everything is cuisine because cuisine happens when cooking leaves the kitchen. In the
past that could happen only through the print media with its burdens of literacy, now it
can happen through the moving image, which does not require the stringency of literacy,
and hence is potentially much more democratic. According to Ray, television is perfectly
suited to culinary travel both in terms of production codes and social codes: cooking is
mostly about the body doing things that are unarticulated; and cooking has been the
social responsibility of the subaltern in terms of class, race, gender and ethnicity, who
have higher ratios of illiteracy. All the literate, sequential, lineal cookbooks and aural
28
recipes on radio could not compete with the instantaneously embodied image on our
television sets (p 54).
The past twenty-five years in the United States have seen enormous investments
in the food media business. By the end of the twentieth century two-thirds of American
households received cable television, most with the food channel (Sutel, 2001).
According to a report prepared for the Food Safety and Inspection Service and USDA
(2004),
By 2004 the Food Network entertained an average of 550,000 households during
prime-time each day, a 16 percent increase above last year and a 33 percent
increase above the network's prime-time audience in 2002. Its overall ratings put
it well ahead of El, ESPN2, Cartoon Network and TV Land among 18- to 49-yearold viewers. In the last three years, Food Network has expanded its reach from 54
million to 84 million households, enough for the 10-year-old network to be
considered a universally available channel. It delivers more than 800 hours of
original food programming a year. (p. 9)
According to Brown (2004), "Food Network's advertising revenue has soared from $150
million in 2002 to an estimated $225 million in 2004," (p. Fl). Brown continues,
Anyone who grew up watching Julia Child knows that public television was the
birthplace of food TV. Now public television stations across the country
broadcast more than 71 cooking shows. That's a 69 percent increase from the 42
shows they offered three years ago. There are as much as 11.5 hours of chopping,
dicing and baking. Food is the most popular genre of programming on American
Public Television. American Public Television shows such as America's Test
29
Kitchen and Lidia Bastianich's Lidia 's Italian-American Kitchen are viewed on
average by about twice the audience of Food Network's top programs. But you
can also tune into Style Network for a dose of Nigella Lawson's sultry sensuality
or Bravo for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, on which the "Fab Five" never fail
to prepare something splendid. Food entertainment has even made it to network
TV: NBC spent millions of dollars trying to turn Chef Rocco DiSpirito into a
prime-time star with The Restaurant, (p. Fl)
Through their onscreen heroes, American consumers are able to rediscover the
elemental delights of fresh, varied cooked-to-order dishes. Ferguson & Zukin (1998)
state, "if the basic fodder of human existence has long served as a marker of social
identity and social status, consumption of foodstuffs has acquired in recent years an
exceptional presence in American society" (p.92). To a great extent, this promotion of
food is connected to eating outside the home or even beyond one's culture. Academics
have taken a great deal of interest in the rise in popularity. Ferguson & Zukin add, "even
in France, where classical high-status Western cuisine developed, restaurants are
attracting scholarly interest because of a new social, economic, and ideological
significance" (p.92). No longer is the product of these varying gastronomic restaurants
limited to ingestibles, high-visibility establishments are also producing a new wave of
chefs who are no longer considered 'craft workers' or even 'artists,' in a time-honored
production system, but now they are media stars. According to Ferguson and Zukin
(1998), this 'creative dimension' is so exacerbated today that we have entered a period of
chefs of whom are identified as 'show business stars' or 'haute-couture designers.' More
now than ever, viewers are not only presented with delectable and tantalizing images of
30
cuisines, but also with the often outrageous personality of the resident chef. According to
Ray (2007),
Leo Lowenthal concluded that American culture had traveled from celebrating
heroes of production to heroes of consumption, such as movie stars and other
celebrities, profiled not for their work but for their personality quirks and their
hobbies. Today, we are going back not to the drones of mass production but to
the stylists of luxury handcrafted items and designer commodities, on the one
hand, and to clearly masculine workers like policemen and firefighters, on the
other, especially after September 11, 2001. Television cooking often brings the
two together, (p. 55)
There are several factors that contribute to the celebrity status of chefs in both
Europe and the United States. The protagonist with "pizzazz" and the one with
"personality" are two different modes of presentation of self—one with gravity and
distance, and the other with charm and poise, both with an inflated projection of the self,
the first as the leader and second as the celebrity, the former as containment of the self,
the latter as an expression of it (Ray, 2007). Pauline Adema (2000) argues, the turning
point in Food TV came, when in June 1996 Erica Gruen, the then new CEO of the cable
Food Network, "eliminated the talking-head-behind-the-stove model and replaced it with
chefs who could entertain while cooking . . . shifting the network's emphasis from people
who like to cook to people who love to eat by making shows personality driven" (p.l 16).
The point is no longer replication in a domestic kitchen, but the dramatic presentation,
from the out of the ordinary ingredients and fare of Iron Chef to the hearty refrains of
"Bam!" and "kicking it up a notch" of Emeril Live. "Cooking shows have been
31
notoriously bland offerings during the past few years, but the brash New Orleans chef
Emeril Lagasse has arrived to bring on the spice. Spirited and prone to free-association,
he is a kind of Frank Sinatra of cooking show hosts, a kitchen-bound swinger" (Ray,
2007, p.59). Thomas Matthews (1999) of Wine Spectator was right on the mark when he
noted that Emeril was "less of a professor in a classroom than a preacher in a gospel
tabernacle" (p.42). There are two kinds of exceptions to this theater of domesticity in
terms of the performative platform. As mentioned before in shows such as Emeril Live
and Iron Chef'the stadium set design, the props, the lighting, the attire and the audience,
evoke a kind of theater. This is cooking as unabashed performance.
From Julia Child to Rachel Ray to Jaime Oliver to Bobby Flay and Bourdain, new
masters of the culture of personality emerged in the realm of food television. Julia's
mistakes, in fact her handling of and attitude towards those mistakes—the fish fillet that
slipped out of her hands, the souffle that fell flat— defined her. She wasn't haughty; she
was accessible, liked. She was liked because she wasn't perfect. Housewives viewing at
home could relate to her and felt inspired by her. Bourdain's popularity stems from his
reckless bad-boy image. Quoted on the popular online blog "A Hunger Artist," Bob Del
Grosso (2007) notes, on the other hand, that the somber, private, Thomas Keller (who is
featured in A Cook's Tour) of French Laundry and Per Se, "is the anti-TV chef. He is a
chefs chef. His theater is no theater at all. That is character, at a time of so much flash
and personality" (p. 7).
32
Cinema Verite: Capturing the Other on Screen
Mediated texts are always and simultaneously artifacts and commodities that are
both created and manufactured; television simultaneously presents a vision for
interpretation and an ideology for consumption to a viewership that is a public
celebrating meaning (including identity) and an audience produced for sale in the
marketplace (Ray, 2005). A Cook's Tour, which is fundamentally a search for different
experiences and flavors, is no different. What is special about Bourdain's program,
however, is that is operates within the conventions of ethnographic film and in particular
of cinema verite.
Ethnographic films attempt to convey the fascinating complexity of human
experiences and cultures from around the world. This exciting medium is used in
anthropology, human geography, and many social sciences, to offer a glimpse of what
lies beyond our individual perspective of the world. Many films fall into this category,
including some mainstream commercial productions as well as low-budget
documentaries. These films can be an effective way to broaden awareness of cultural
differences, including issues within our own culture, and to highlight issues of cultural
conflict and change.
According to Kevin Taylor Anderson (2003), filmmakers such as Edward Curtis
and Robert Flaherty operated within a framework of ethnological studies. Their films
tended to emphasize exoticism over actual ethnographic content (p. 76). In "Teaching
Colonial History through Film," Alison Murray (2002) argues that films have the
potential to be viewed as a source for colonial history.
33
During World War I, the efforts of the Section Cinematographique de l'Armee in
filming the frontline, as well as the well-publicized film mission to Indochina,
drew the attention of a mass audience to the colonies through the tremendous
emotional impact of the moving image. The years 1919-1945 witnessed an
explosion in the numbers of films produced in the colonies, (p. 42)
These films were mainly anthropological documentaries containing various forms of
colonial propaganda. The genre of ethnographic documentary, or "real life"
programming, claims to present cultural truths.
One must remember, however, that when a filmmaker situates him or herself
within the film and the filmmaking process, this situating is still directed by the
filmmaker. Anderson (2003) notes,
Bridging the distance between filmmaker and subject has adopted various forms
in ethnographic filmmaking, but each of these retains some vestige of the
colonizing practice of appropriating the Other . . . [and that] combining film with
anthropology need not doubly debilitating for developing a visual means of
studying culture, (p. 77)
Films like Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea (1952) attempted to capture the
patterns of daily life (such as child rearing and familial traditions) as sequences of visual
ethnographic data that anthropologists would later analyze. The colonial settings were
sometimes used merely as an exotic decor and portrayed the empire as a world where the
Western white man's dreams, scientific experiments, and fantasies could be realized.
After the Second World War, films about the colonies became rare because
"triumphant proclamations of colonial power were no longer in vogue and the wars of
34
decolonization were banned from the screen" (Murray, 2002, p. 43). A wave of films
that depicted the brutality of the colonialism and criticized colonial history and neocolonialism has be prevalent in the French cinema since the time of decolonization such
as Francis Girod's denunciation of neo-colonialism in Africa, L 'etat sauvage (1978).
Murray (2002) states, "these sources attest to the active role that film has played both in
shaping and in reflecting the cultural history of French colonialism in the twentieth
century" (p. 43).
Cinema verite or "observational cinema" aims to capture real events and
situations as they occur without major directorial, editorial, or technical control. It first
came into vogue around 1960 with the advent of lightweight cameras and sound
equipment. The United States school of cinema verite, called 'direct cinema,' used the
camera as a passive observer of events. Anderson explains that recent approaches to
ethnographic filmmaking are not without their problems but yet appreciating the
anthropological worth of a wide range of films (experimental, performative, feature)
would benefit not only those anthropologists who produce films, but also those who
analyze visual culture. Anderson (2003) writes,
Observational cinema was the result not only of technological advances in sync
sound recording and handheld cameras, but of an intellectual agenda as well.. .
The observational filmmaker followed subjects through all aspects of their lives,
shooting hundreds of house of film and letting events unfold before the camera ..
. The distance maintained in Observational Cinema privileges the revelatory over
the illustrative, placing substance before theory. In this sense, the approach is
35
self-denying, as if the camera were a window and the subjects were merely
passing by, unaware of anthropologist, filmmaker, or audience, (p. 76)
This form of filmmaking does not allow for subject participation in the recording of their
culture. In this way cinema verite tells only half of the story—that of the filmmakers. A
Cook's Tour is, in a sense, a televisual "vision of wonder," a time for cultural "show and
tell" on an international stage.
Cultural Tourism as a Form of Colonialism: Consuming the Other
"Historically, there have been many reasons to travel—to seek fortune in faraway
lands, to seek religious experience in a pilgrimage, to seek the personal and national
enhancement, of colonial conquest, or to seek escape, in exile, from persecution"
(Redfoot, 1984, p.291). I, along with Lisa Heldke (2003) and Lucy Long (2004), argue
that satisfying one's culinary appetite is another of these motivations for travel. By
stepping out of the reality of the familiar and the everyday, culinary travelers like
Bourdain have provided rich symbols of the heroic confrontation with the unknown and
the mysterious. Eating food from other regions of the world at a local restaurant is no
substitute for the actual travel experience because the distinction between place and taste
remains critical. Scapp & Seitz (1998) call for a multidimensional analysis of food that
strives not for a reductive overview but for a complex understanding of the experience.
The purpose of their text is to offer a number of diverse outlooks on some of the
prominent practices and issues associated with the domain of eating in contemporary
culture.
36
Rojek & Urry (2004) recognizes that myth and fantasy play an unusually large
role in the social construction of all travel and tourist sights and practices. There are
several reasons for this. In the first place, travel sights are usually physically distant from
our ordinary locale. The remoteness of the location requires abandoning our everyday
life routines and social places and physically entering new areas. The physical movement
to new places and situations obviously invokes the unfamiliar, which is exhilarating
(Rojek & Urry, 2004, p.53). Bourdain's journey in search of "the perfect (often exotic
and unusual) meal" positions his viewers as culinary tourists or "food adventurers."
I understand culinary tourism as an exploratory relationship with the edible world.
Where food is the focus of travel, as in gastronomic tourism, itineraries are organized
around cooking schools, wineries, restaurants, and food festivals. Food TV, epicurean
magazines and guidebooks, which have long celebrated the gastronomic opportunities
afforded to the mobile eater, orient the reader or viewer to particular foods, dishes, and
cuisines, their pleasures, histories, and their locales. According to Long (2004),
authenticity is the "hallmark of touristic experience, culinary included . . . while we tend
to speak not only of the authenticity of a dish or a restaurant, but also of an authentic
experience, authentic experience makes the question of authenticity—and debating that
question—constitutive of such experience" (p. xii). The issue of authenticity is not
necessarily the focus of debate, but rather, the question of authenticity that is essential to
culinary tourism. Culinary tourists want to eat 'what the natives eat' (as long as it is
recognizable and isn't still crawling or breathing), they don't want to go to a cheap
substitute geared towards the everyday tourist. They want to know that they are eating
the real deal. Culinary tourism creates opportunities to find, test, and push cultural
37
thresholds. Newness arises from unpredictability, and culinary tourism, to the degree that
it constitutes a break with one's daily routine and even with the predictability of the
tourism industry, affords innumerable occasions for new experiences. Long is not alone
in this assertion. This issue of authenticity has been a recurrent theme in almost all
research on food and tourism. Although this concept is of great significance to the field
and of interest to me as a researcher, I will not explore it in my project because it raises
too many additional issues to properly address. Instead limit my analysis to the
construction of the visual relationship between viewer and viewed.
It is impossible to think of Western adventuring without considering gender.
Although both men and women engage in food adventuring, begin a food adventurer
often has a decidedly manly caste to it: the literature tends to describe a willingness to try
new foods as bravery. Bravery is especially required if one were to eat unusual animals.
Food adventuring is frequently described as a quest and the food adventurer as an
explorer; indeed the rhetoric of the activity is often the rhetoric of conquest. To be a food
adventurer is to be masculine in certain ways, even when one is a woman. Examining the
role that gender plays in culinary tourism and more specifically, in the perpetuation of the
hegemonic practice of cultural colonization.
Not all researchers see culinary adventurism as problematic. Lucy Long (1998)
conceptualizes culinary tourism as, "the intentional, exploratory participation in the
foodways of an Other, participation including the consumption—or preparation for
consumption—of a food item, cuisine, meal system, or eating style considered as
belonging to a culinary system not one's own" (p. 181). Long also be quoted as saying
"culinary tourism is shock treatment, it brings 'life' into view through the surprises
38
afforded by the unexpected and the unplanned" (p. xiii). I concur with a number of
scholars in the field who dismiss many of Long's contributions and arguments because
they see her work as built on a foundation of a "one-dimensional, celebratory definition
[that] assumes that culinary tourism provides a 'learning experience' for the tourist
without considering the complex (neo)colonialist hierarchical frameworks that construct
tourist experiences" (Lindenfeld, 2007, p.9). Long (1998) subscribes to a narrow view of
culinary tourism that fails to address the underlying issues of power and socioeconomic
inequalities that are fundamental in any discussion of tourism.
The ideology of colonization that pervades and controls a particular society also
lives inside us as a colonializing attitude (Heldke, 2003, p.6). Thinking of attitudes in
this way connects the macroscopic level to the microscopic; it links large scale political
and economic systems to individuals' actions and beliefs. Such links are vital because,
without them, we are left to understand systems like colonialism either as large scale
systems of oppression only (an understanding that obscures the ways in which individuals
perpetuate those systems) or as individual acts entirely (an account that hides the
powerful institutions linking individual's actions, and that makes it look as though
individual action alone can transform the world). Anneli Rufus (2006) illustrates the neocolonial relationship of the individual to the global in terms of food:
Colonialism isn't dead. Colonialism is alive and well every time you travel from
the First World to the Third and come home bearing photographs of sharks and
storms and slums, of scorpions fried for snacks, sunflowers bigger than your head,
stalled buses whose aisles are slick with spit, and then you tell your friends and
co-workers, "Oh man, it was so great, you gotta go." (p.l)
39
Anita Pleumarom (2006) also notes that this touristic relationship is an extension of
modern power arrangements:
Third World tourism is a form of neo-colonialism. Indeed, looking at the way the
corporate tourism industry has been re-shaping the geography of the world, there
are good reasons to suggest that tourism from affluent to less developed countries
can be compared to the imperialist expansion of the 19th century. But while the
old colonial powers overran foreign countries with force, today's conquerors use
'neoliberal' logic and more subtle strategies of appropriation, subjugation and
exploitation, (p.l)
Colonizers regard a colonized culture not as a culture in the full sense, but as a
source of materials to be extracted and used to enhance their own cultures. (It is of
particular interest to note that the colonized cultures often have adhered to their own food
practices as one important symbolic way to resist colonial incursion.) Land, labor, and
resources may be in the possession of the colonized, but if they are able to prepare
familiar foods, dress in familiar ways, and practice traditional art forms, then people still
control their own cultural life on at least some levels. Food represents one important way
to sustain that life, both literally and figuratively. Indeed, given the importance of
cultural practices to cultural identity, it is easy to see why cultures emerging from
colonialism may work vigorously to reinstate all such cultural practices that have been
forbidden or deemed by the colonizer (Heldke, 2003, p. 10).
According to Adrian Fielder's (1999) in "The politics of reading the 'Postnational': Hybridity and neocolonial critique in Djibril Diop Mambety's Hyene" there
seems to be little doubt that the recent emergence of postcolonial literary and cultural
40
studies has affected profound epistemological shifts in the theoretical frameworks and
modes of analysis informing intellectual production. According to Fielder, it also seems
fairly clear that these shifts reflect some species of an anti-colonialist ethical imperative
committed to deconstructing the cultural, linguistic, and racial categories which enabled
the formulation and subsequent propagation of imperialist ideologies during European
colonial expansion. However, Fielder argues, it remains a matter of some debate whether
or not the discursive strategies resulting from such shifts have succeeded in articulating
productive critical perspectives on the ways in which grossly imbalanced relations of
power—inherited from the colonial period—continue to circumvent the social, political,
and economic conditions prevailing in many formerly colonized spaces. This lack of
consensus is inscribed, for example, in the debate over the use of the term "postcolonial"
itself, insofar as it falsely posits a teleological movement somehow "beyond" or "after"
any problematics of colonial domination—and therefore fails to describe a global system
which might be more accurately qualified (according to some observers) as "neocolonial."
Aime Cesaire (1972), in his Discourse on Colonialism, writes that "I admit that it
is a good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other; that it is an
excellent thing to blend different worlds; that whatever it's won particular civilizations,
exchange is oxygen .. ." (p. 10). He goes on, however, to say: "But than I ask the
following question; has colonization really placed civilizations in contact? Or, if you
prefer, of all the ways of establishing contact, was it the best? I answer no " (p. 11).
Cesaire was writing from the position of the colonized. He rejects not only cultural food
colonialism but also staying at home, for neither of these options places cultures in
41
contact with each other in ways he believes are desirable, bell hooks (1998), like Cesaire,
argues that even the interests of oppressed and marginalized people are not best served by
isolationism—even their own isolationism. For hooks, it is an open question whether or
not pleasure of food adventuring can be turned from supporting and maintaining systems
of hierarchy, to an activity that actually challenges and resists such systems.
In the case of Bourdain, his cultural capital is now the viewer's cultural capital
because it has been seen and ingested. In her article entitled, "Visiting the Mexican
American family: Tortilla Soup as culinary tourism, " Lindenfeld (2007) states,
"hegemonic U.S. culture exotifies and commercializes ethnic food culture, just as it
positions ethnic identities as objects of consumption. Supermarket aisles are loaded with
'ethnic foods,' 'specialty foods,' and 'gourmet foreign food'" (p. 305). Further, Root
(1996) considers the exotification and consumption of ethnic "others" a form of cultural
cannibalism. Root writes, "that which is different is consumed, its aesthetic forms taken
up and used to construct a dream of the outside and sometimes of escape from the
Western nightmare" (1996, p. 30). In their book Unthinking Eurocentrism:
Multiculturalism and the Media, Shohat and Stam (2000) argue, "an awareness of the
intellectually debilitating effects of the Eurocentric legacy is indispensable for
comprehending not only contemporary media representations but even contemporary
subjectivities" (p. 1). This is useful in examining why viewers and readers of Bourdain's
adventures do not think twice about his ability to travel to the corners of the globe, or the
way in which he casually samples and then promptly disposes of. This text succinctly
spotlights the normalized assumptions of Western power and privilege as performed by
Bourdain's gaze.
42
Cultural criticism is often used to uncover cultural tenets and to show the sources
of intercultural conflict. Bourdain's text can be read as a shining example of American
bravado. Del Grasso (2007) put it best, "Anthony Bourdain [embodies] the world of
machismo, locker-room minded, substance-abused, foul-mouth cooks that steal anything
they can and screw every available waitress in the dry storage area" flj 4). Following in
the tradition of cultural materialism, this kind of work assumes that popular culture is part
of the historical process. Popular culture is part of the way people live their everyday
lives and form beliefs about the world around them. The corporate domination of mass
culture in a class-stratified society has as its ultimate consequence the control of
consciousness often through the channels of the mass media. Media owners and
producers not only control the creation of mass culture in order to accumulate wealth and
power, it also, by dominating the belief systems of the working and middle classes,
reproduces its position of rule. Spigel and Mann (1992) sees one challenge for film and
television studies is to find ways to synthesize social history with the more culturallybased questions of spectator interpretation.
Like Heldke (2003), I believe that it can; culinary exchanges might contribute to
the dissolution of relations and attitude of colonialist domination. The challenge is
changing colonial patterns of cultural interactions by developing ways of approaching
facets of other cultures that foster a respect for one's own traditions without advocating
isolationism, and that cultivate an openness to other traditions without objectifying them
or treating them as resources from which to support ones' own lifestyle. According to
Heldke:
43
This challenge is both deeply theoretical and deeply practical, calling upon food
adventurers both to challenge and transform the unspoken assumptions upon
which our lives are constructed, and to do so through the everyday acts of cooking
and eating. We need to find useful, anti-colonialist ways to decide what to have
for dinner, (p. 168)
This research has offered great insights into one of the most commonplace
activities—eating and watching other people eat—and the various consequences
and intersections with almost all other aspects of our lives. In this sense,
experiencing foodways may be one of the fullest ways of perceiving Otherness.
Sightseeing is only a partial engagement with Otherness, whereas culinary
tourism, utilizing the sense of taste, smell, touch, and vision, offers a deeper, more
integrated level of experience. It engages one's physical being, not simply as an
observer, but as a participant as well. The discourses concerning the religious
influences on cuisine, world hunger and sustenance, and issues of authenticity—
prove to be of great significance in the field of food studies. For the sake of
brevity I have centered my analysis on a manageable set of concepts. In the
words of Leeds-Hurwitz (1993), "food's most significant social function is to
serve as an indicator of various sorts of social identity, from class to age or
gender. Being concrete, foods serve to objectify relationships between individuals
and groups," (p. 90). The scope of my study focuses on, among other things, this
mediated representation of the relationship between "good" food and the creation
of cultural identity (and the subsequent hierarchies of such differences in identity)
through Bourdain's Western gaze.
44
Chapter 4
ANALYSIS
In this chapter, I examine A Cook's Tour promotes and glamorizes a colonizing
attitude through culinary adventure. I begin by examining the cinematographic codes and
Bourdain's narrative from the opening montage of the episode that was taped in his New
York City restaurant, followed by his trips to Morocco "Desert Feast" and Cambodia
"Wild Delicacies." Further, I examine how exploratory and exploitative eating is at the
core of Bourdain's food adventuring. I will also discuss how Bourdain models his
experience as a culinary colonialist after fictional characters from his favorite movies and
television shows.
A Recipe for Identity
Culinary colonialism—like any other kind of colonialism—assumes many forms,
depending upon the interests, assumptions, and aims of those participating in it. For
example, some of us are moved by an impulse to homogenize an ethnic cuisine in order
to make it taste more appealing to the American palate. An impulse, according to Heldke
(2003), that may prompt the entrepreneurs among us to package that cuisine into massmarketable restaurant franchises (Chi Chi's or Taco Bell) or seasoning packets (A Taste
of Thai). In contrast, others may see themselves as protecting a cuisine from such profit
motives and preserving it in its original state much like a nature preserve. These two
impulses tend to work at odds with each other to produce different consequences.
Colonizing is not a unified set of activities with a single goal, but a many layered activity
with varying—sometimes competing, sometimes supporting—goals. In her book, Heldke
45
advances her notion of the "food adventurer"—those people like Bourdain for whom
eating is an expedition into the unknown, a pursuit of the strange. Heldke explains: "The
group of food adventurers . . . is connected in myriad ways to other groups whose
members' activities also support and reinforce colonizing kinds of relations . . . [They]
score culture points for knowing what galganal is" (p. xxiii).
To understand how A Cook's Tour works to (re)establish dominant ideologies and
a colonizing view of Others, consider the opening montage of the television program.
The first seconds of A Cook's Tour features Anthony Bourdain boisterously proclaiming,
"welcome to my world!" In this very utterance Bourdain, a self-assured and ambitious
man is metaphorically crowned the all-mighty king of a world, a man of power,
exceptional taste, and sophistication. Bourdain is depicted in his role as executive chef of
Les Halles, instructing, directing and reprimanding his kitchen staff. He is poised as the
swift and astute conductor controlling the flow of the musicians in his orchestra. The
scene ends with Bourdain swaggering out of the front door of the restaurant—trademark
cigarette in hand—into the dark and bustling, New York City night. Next a multitude of
images depict Bourdain hiking up sand dunes, trolling down the dark waters of the
Mekong Delta, shooting semi-automatic weapons in the former Khmer Rouge region,
taking refuge from the cold in Russia, chancing death be eating a potentially lethal dish of
Japanese fish and snacking on dried grasshoppers and fetal duck eggs. It is during this
opening montage that we start to see the degree to which cooking (and eating!) defines
his identity.
Bourdain's importance is construed through cinematographic codes. For
example, Bourdain is almost always at the center of the frame and is only missing from
46
view when the camera jumps to a close-up of a sizzling dish or culinary technique that his
dialogue makes reference to. There is no emphasis on the space beyond Bourdain. The
screen frame works to really solidify the privileged position that Bourdain holds. It is
interesting to note that throughout the opening montage, we are shown visual images of
other noises taking place and yet his voice is the only thing that can be heard. It is
visually apparent that the Berbers are singing and playing musical instruments and that
the rowdy crowd of Japanese men and women are enjoying themselves and cheering.
But we do not hear their joy and laughter. All except Bourdain are silenced.
The majority of the camera shots can be categorized as medium or American
shots, with a few close-ups scattered about. The camera favors Bourdain and his point of
view. Bourdain is shot both when he is still as well as in motion and either from slightly
below (creating an upward glance for the viewer) or from about the same level. The
camera used both pan and tilt in different shots during the scene. The pan shot is used to
show the relationship between Bourdain and his kitchen staff. A couple of shots of
particular interest included one where (although Bourdain is still in the foreground and
the obvious focus of the camera) after panning from across the room we are introduced
(albeit rather haphazardly) to two Hispanic employees. Their relative size in comparison
to Bourdain is miniscule, maybe 1/8 his size. It appears as if they are hard at work. Both
appear to be focused on the task they are performing.
Another shot that depicts the dynamics between Bourdain and his faceless
employees is when Bourdain is in the middle of the busy/cluttered kitchen, sleeves rolled
up, arms raised, holding an order ticket. He appears to be giving out orders to his staff.
Two individuals can be seen in the background, although not in entirety, an arm here,
47
waist there, both obscured by Bourdain in these shots. Like other shots, the frame
accentuates Bourdain's size (with only a small amount of space visible at the top, a sliver
of ceiling) and obscures the identity of the rest. As a viewer we understand the collective
signs that signify Bourdain as the "important person." The codes used in A Cook's Tour,
demonstrate the central focus of the production, which is that of Bourdain's sensory
reactions to his environments. Bourdain's dialogue is further illustrative of his position
of power as a mobile Western white male,
As a cook, tastes and smells are my memories. Now I'm in search of new ones.
So I'm leaving New York City and hope to have a few epiphanies around the
world. And I'm willing to go to some lengths to do that. I am looking for
extremes of emotion and experience. I'll try anything, I'll risk everything, and
I've got nothing to lose.
His audacious and even dangerous food choices strengthen his tough-guy persona of
fearlessness that is a strange mix of Clint Eastwood and the Galloping Gourmet. Heldke
(2003) asserts that being a food adventurer often has a decidedly manly caste to it; we
tend to describe a willingness to try new foods as courageousness.
Bravery is especially required if one is to eat unusual animals, the targets of much
food adventuring. Furthermore, food adventuring is frequently described as a
quest and the food adventurer as an explorer; indeed the rhetoric of the activity is
often the rhetoric of conquest. To be a food adventurer is to be masculine in
certain ways, even when one is a woman, (p. xxiii)
At the same time he burnishes his masculine credentials, Bourdain through his
discerning relationship to food adds to his air of sophistication and sense of heightened
48
culinary standards. He frequently reminds the audience that he is treated quite regally on
his travels because he is Tony Bourdain—New York chef and television star; he is served
the best vodka upon his visit to Russia, offered the finest and most expensive Japanese
Fugu and invited into the most prestigious cooking school in San Sebastian. Like
Heldke's (2003) critique of chef Keith Floyd in Exotic Appetites, Bourdain is humored
and cajoled by his crew—and by staff members on location—who do everything in their
power to make sure that everyone he encounters will also do his bidding (p. 94).
Bourdain's privilege is also deeply colonialist, as his first evening in Morocco displayed.
It was quite perplexing for Bourdain,
I don't want to eat in my hotel. I've come all this way and I don't want to sit
down in a room full of tourists eating tourist food. I just don't want to do it. So,
daredevil that I am I say 'we'll go to the market' . . . I tell Abdul that I want to do
this and he rolls his eyes up to the heavens—not very encouraging . .. okay, let's
see if we can find anything edible . . .
Bourdain walks through a small market passing wooden benches with haphazardly
strewn chunks of raw meat, baskets of yellow-hued fruits and tall stacks of flat breads.
The camera slowly pans over the still-bloodied meat but quickens as it captures local
women grazing from one stall to another filling their baskets. Bourdain seems agitated
by the lack of variety, especially of prepared foods. Minutes go by and Bourdain starts to
complain, "No food, huh? No soup, no kabobs, I should have listened to Abdul [sigh].
Didn't smell so good in their either, smelled like somethin 'freakin' died [thick Mafioso
accent]. My search for authentic Moroccan food is not going well." Moments later,
49
Bourdain steps into small store, orders two Snickers of which he snidely calls a 'local
specialty,' as well as two pancake shaped patties. After eating the patties he says:
That's not bad, what was it that I just ate, by the way? Wait, we'll see how I feel
tomorrow and I'll have a better idea . .. like that episode of the Odd Couple in
which a mysterious food was either really old meat or really young cheese . . .
Ideology, as we know, is perpetuated by subjects and by articulations in a dynamic,
highly irresistible process. According to Davis (2004), Althusser's notion of
interpellation "supposes that the subject resides in expectation of the ideological call: that
the call is then recognized by the subject; that the ideological call has a specific effect on
the subject; and that all potential subjects exist in a similar state of equilibrium, ready for
the call" (p. 48). Stuart Hall (2001) has noted that Althusserian ideological theory does
not allow for multiple, simultaneous hails, and does not allow for oppositional ideologies
through its process. Viewers of A Cook's Tour easily answer the ideological call by
recognizing and enjoying his cultural references, laughing at his jokes and grimacing
along with him as he makes unusual food choices. By doing all of this, viewers feel a
natural connection to Bourdain and align themselves and their culinary tastes with his
own. His judgment of what tastes comforting (a Snickers candy bar) and what tastes
worrisome becomes their own.
When Tony Gets Hungry, Things Die
Heldke (2003), detailed two elements that play an important role in the attitudes
of many contemporary Euroamerican food adventurers like Bourdain and other cultural
colonizers: their often obsessive interest in and appetite for the new, the obscure, and the
50
exotic; and their treatment of dominated cultures not as genuine cultures, but as mere
resources for raw materials that serve their own interests. These two elements are linked
together by a third element that plays a supporting role: the adventurer's intense desire
for authentic experiences of and with the Other. For Bourdain, his adventuring is
cemented in the relationship between taste and exploration. His experiences with
cuisines are the 'raw materials' he employs to exercise and redefine his tasteful gaze and
identity. When a novelty, like a delicacy, is valued for its ability to net the colonizer with
cultural capital, it turns out that that person achieves status because they display
familiarity with a cuisine that others haven't discovered or are just now discovering.
It is, paradoxically, Bourdain's familiarity with that which others find novel, his
ability to treat it as passe, that gives Bourdain this status. Of his Saharan expectations:
I'm looking for Nomadic desert dwelling food. They do, as I understand it, dig a
big whole, fill it in with hot coals, roll a big animal in there and let it roast away.
It is supposed to be fantastic. I'm looking to stand in one place, look around 360
degrees and see lots of sand. And I'm looking to be as far away from everything I
know as I've ever been.
Like Bourdain, as a society, we "want what we want, when we want it!" instant
gratification at its worst. And when we are denied the object or experience of our desire,
a knee-jerk reaction undoubtedly ensues as it did with Bourdain in Morocco:
No lamb? What do you mean I can't have my whole lamb . . . They can sell you a
leg of lamb, lamb shoulder. A constant refrain in my life (sigh). If you come
Monday you could have gotten that whole lamb. Listen, I'm not throwing chunks
51
of lamb into an oven. I want a whole lamb, cooked in a clay oven like I saw in
the movie, and I want the testicles . . .
The apparent dismay in his voice appropriately illustrates his exaggerated
nonverbal gestures and lends to the sense of heightened irritation conveyed through the
use of quick, medium shots of veiled women, pans of long, dimly-lit and dusty alleys
framed by tall, menacing walls. The lack of structure in this scene produced feelings of
unsettledness and impatience
I say, "Abdul do what you have to do, I want a whole lamb. Period." I want the
whole roasted thing like I read about in some book somewhere. I want to do the
Lawrence of Arabia thing. Maybe this is unreasonable of me, but I did not come
all the way to the Moroccan desert to eat couscous and sit there like the other
[tourist] rousts. I want a lamb! I want a whole lamb! "I must have this Abdul,
please. Hook me up," I say.
In observing the negotiations between Abdul and a small crowd of local men, Bourdain's
posture shifts from one of impatience and concern—one of his hands was positioned at
his hip as the other hand pinches and flicks his cigarette to the ground with a long, hard
exhale—to raw satisfaction. While watching the slaughtering of "his" much sought after
lamb, he addresses the camera with a wide smile on his face and says with a smirk and a
shrug, "when Tony gets hungry, things die."
Food adventurers like Bourdain often demand taste experiences, as a part of their
mandate to accumulate cultural capital. According to Heldke (2003), "there is a class
hierarchy—a kind of snobbery, if you will—manifested in the degrees of exoticism that
one is willing to experience or enjoy. And it is a hierarchy rooted not particularly in
52
money, but in cultural capital" (p. 20). Viewers watch Tony (and see ourselves) acting
on the colonial imperative to know Others through their food. Heldke (2003) continues,
There is prestige to be gained from being the one willing to eat the most exotic
thing. The less familiar, the less domesticated, the greater the adventure value of
a m e a l . . . In short, we objectify the Other, in order that we may use them and
their possessions (literal and figurative) to enhance our own lives—economically,
culturally and socially. For in the end, it is about us. The Other is interesting and
important insofar as he or she serves to illuminate me, to render my life in the
world more authentic [and interesting], (pp. 21-48).
It's Perfect. It's Just like the Movies
In Berger's Ways of Seeing (1972), the author argues that images of social
differences work not simply by what they show by also by the kind of seeing that they
invite. Berger uses the expression "ways of seeing" to refer to the fact that "we never
look just at one thing: we are always looking at the relation between things and
ourselves" (p. 9); hence, our construction of the Other is the result of recognizing what
they are—ox how and what they eat—and how and what we do not eat. The hundreds of
local people that Bourdain meets while swaggering about are represented as docile,
hushed, and for the most part, vacant bodies.
The use of long shots and quick jump cuts limit the expression of the local
people's depth and individuality—close-up shots of facial expressions or mannerisms
were rare. Bourdain's interest was in the content of their kitchen cabinets and little more.
The few times he seemed to take interest in the lives of the locals proved to be motivated
53
by various production "needs," a shot that will make the scene "more authentic," material
for "good TV." Perhaps the camera zooms in on a group of barefoot children playing in a
dirty stream in Vietnam, or a troupe of women in traditional Japanese geisha attire,
maybe toward an old woman crouching in a Cambodian field. Perhaps a series of closeup shots of a toothless old man preparing a meal with his bare hands (hands that are
visually unsanitary by Western standards), or of the many swinging carcasses hanging
from the stalls in a local market. All of this is fodder for the "ewww!" or "yeowza!"
effect—all 'used' and orchestrated by Bourdain and his crew to 'create' an authentically
exotic locale.
It is this visual authenticity as culinary capital that translates his mouth experience
into a shared visual experience. The visuality modifies the value of the food by
accentuating its worth as in the ambience of a restaurant. Regardless of their social
position and identities within their own society, the local people are represented in
variations of the same theme—insignificant, faceless props that stir the stews.
Bourdain's performance is an exemplary depiction of the aloof and myopic cultural
tourist who delights in the chance to experience the "real" Vietnam or "exoticness" of
Thailand that he had seen in movies and read about in books.
I wanted Col. Walter E. Kurtz, Lord Jim, Lawrence of Arabia, Kim Philby, the
Consul, Fowler, Tony Po, Christopher Walken . . . I wanted to find—no, I wanted
to be—one of those debauched heroes and villains out of Graham Greene, Joseph
Conrad, Francis Coppola and Michael Cimino . . . I wanted to see the world—and
I wanted the world to be just like the movies.
54
Bourdain's experiences of living out these mass media scripts paired with the sensuality
of exotic cuisines were measured against his cinematic and literary fantasies. This is the
transubstantiation of gustatory pleasures into visual pleasure, a conversion of capital.
Difference can thus come to be another tool in the colonizer's tool kit, "but so long as
'difference' remains conceived of as the difference of an 'authentic Other' from me-theWesterner, any such tolerance, respect, or fascination is at best temporary, at most
provisional" (Heldke, pp. 57-58). Of his trip to the Sahara,
You know, those pictures weren't too far off. I see nothing but sand, 360 degrees.
This is a pretty major score . . . If your sitting out in the Sahara eating lunch and
having some cool Berber-dudes cooking you bread, you know you're doing
something pretty extraordinary... I would say that I wished you [his audience]
could taste this, but I want to be the only person that I know who has eaten this.
Too good to share . . . I came a long way for my whole-roasted lamb. If next
week I am hit by a truck, one of the things that would give me some comfort is
that I saw the sunset over the Sahara and I ate my whole-roasted lamb. It's just
perfect. It's just like the movies. Life, finally lives up to its advertising.
Hierarchies of Taste: Organizing difference through Mise-en-scene
Bourdain uses his training at the prestigious Cooking Institute of America, the
classic French culinary techniques and his twenty odd years of working with some of the
most accomplished American chefs as his baseline to which the rest of the world's
cuisines are compared. The precise standards of which Bourdain regards as being of
"good taste" are not explicitly illustrated in the television show. It is only through a
55
survey of his many judgments that we are able to get a glimpse of his values—the
authenticity of his experiences (which are ironically based on the imaginary and
superficial), considering himself (as well as being considered by others) as having 'good
taste, and a genuine love of exploratory eating.
In A Cook's Tour, meaning is produced through Bourdain's critical gaze, the
mise-en-scene and cinema verite as well as the use of Bourdain's post-production, selfreflective and oft-ethnocentric narration. Analyzing the elements of mise-en-scene from
A Cook's Tour gives greater insight into how his palate is made into a visual exhibition.
Eating food from other regions of the world at a local restaurant is no substitute for the
authenticity of actually being there. The cinematic component of Bourdain's taste is not
about good food—it is about the visuality of a good food experience. Cinema verite aims
for an extreme naturalism by using non-professional actors, non-intrusive filming
techniques by way of hand-held cameras and stresses the vitality of filming at genuine
locations (rather than say contrived sound stages in Hollywood).
Bourdain's foray in Cambodia is an excellent example of a fusion of the two
devices. The natural lighting used throughout the show reinforces the organic feel that
the techniques of naturalism that cinema verite advances. The entire series was filmed
using handheld cameras and techniques reminiscent of home videos (some bumpy
moments, very little variety in the type of focus or shot distance). Bourdain is centered in
the frame as the camera moves along a vertical axis, much like someone might 'look-upand-down' another. Dressed in jeans and a black "Ramones" sleeveless tee-shirt—
bronzed and etched triceps exposed. On his feet a pair of scuffed cowboy boots—the
epitome of the mystique of the urban cowboy. Oddly enough, he wears a pair of small
56
ultra-reflective Lennon-like sunglasses. Bourdain's choice of hippie sunglasses is quite
distracting in that it is considerable a contradiction from his otherwise 'tough guy' attire.
Alas, he is not without his favorite accessory—a cigarette is behind his ear and at the
ready.
The camera parallels Bourdain as he passes through the crowded market, straining
his neck to the side so that his head won't drag on the blue and white striped tarpaulin
two inches from his head. He is, after all "on his hunt for the King of all Asian fruits the
elusive, terrifying, melon-like Durian" and will not be dissuaded by the ceiling clearance.
The edibles (and non-edibles for that matter) are shot using shallow focus and extreme
close ups and are framed in a way that the space beyond the frame is not important. The
desired effect is dramatic—a pyramid of thumb-size grasshoppers, a bubbling soup of
assorted shades of brown of alarmingly unnatural colored, often indistinguishable foods,
such as baskets of fluorescent capsules and jelly-like tubules (think huge glop of hot pink
fish eggs and a sausage-like products the color of orange M&M's), a steaming vat of
tripe, an overhead shot hangs over a laundry basket filled to the brim with a peanut butter
colored substance, all imaginable animal parts and concoctions. As the camera flirts with
these extreme close-ups of culinary wonders, jump-cuts to Bourdain are spliced in the
mix which functions as an anchoring point. The food is at this point metaphor for women
and Bourdain as the consumptive male. These are equivalent to reverse shots that give us
the point view toward the striking cornucopia. The camera may dance with other images
but it always returns to Bourdain to see his reaction—be it of pleasure and delight or of
disgust and disbelief.
57
The transitions in this scene are indicative of all of the entire series—a coarse
jump-cut to a close up of Bourdain (usually from the chest up).
Okay, I'm gonna need to see some identification of this product before I put any
of it in my mouth this early in the morning I think. And even identification might
not do it for me . .. The food in this place is really challenging my intestinal
fortitude. My culinary bravado is starting to shrivel... I think I'm going to lay
off that, it looks radioactive.
This technique is instrumental in that sharp, often sporadic, breaks in the flow is a way of
bringing the audience's attention back to Bourdain, the real star of the show. A
significantly greater amount of time (approximately 70/30 percent) is filled with shots of
Bourdain than of the actual food or food ways. He seems to be in almost every frame.
"Wild Delicacies" differs from other episodes in that it presented a rather lengthy
montage of images of Cambodia and its people—sans Bourdain. Picture a collection of
images including: a long shot of barefoot young man atop an elephant as it meanders
through a busy city street; two intricately adorned young women performing an elegant
dance, an older woman walking across a field of tall grass with two buckets of w a t e r one hanging from each shoulder—the last an image that for a Western audience signifies
the arduous labor needed to sustain a life void of technological advancement. A close-up
of a small red sign of skull and crossbones with the words "DANGER! LANDMINE!,"
written in large English block letters across the top. A moment later a wild monkey is
grabbing the camera lens and peering deep inside, followed by an image that epitomizes
urban poverty—congested buildings leaning precariously with lines of tattered laundry
strung throughout, throngs of people maneuvering between the motorbikes and donkeys.
58
The lighting in this shot is diluted by a visible cloud of smog. The montage ends with an
image of a heavily armored tank interned in field of lush green grass—the rust colored
gun barrel still raised and pointed.
Bourdain epitomizes the food adventurer when he explains his choice for the
"Wild Delicacies" location:
I picked Cambodia as a place to go because I knew nothing about it. And because
it was the last place on earth that I guess I really wanted to go. Maybe I'd see the
"killing fields" this is all I really knew about Cambodia. I guess the first thing
that struck me was, gee! It looks just like the movie—familiar, frightening and a
little intimidating. At first it is a little depressing—you really wonder what people
see in it. But the country grows on you.
Again, the measure of an accurate cultural experience is from a movie. It is Bourdain's
perceived ability to discriminate between the two that permits and encourages his
mobility. The Other's authenticity turns out to be a quaint souvenir and a reminder of
who he is how "far he has come." Bourdain's motives for travel are the result of a
mixture of his own cultural boredom, curiosity, and ultimately of his ability, he travels he
says, "because he can." This is reminiscent of the ideal of the boundless and affluent
Westerner who has unquestioned, universal license to all that the world offers—no matter
what the price. This is a subject position that most (if not all) middle-class American
viewers have been socialized to regard as simply "the way things are" when it comes to
all forms of exploration. The relationship between Bourdain and the Other's he
encounters is fundamentally problematic because it is based on a colonialist ethic of
Western prerogative and colonial subservience. The text underscores and perpetuates
59
contemporary social assumptions of Western superiority and (often blatant) disregard for
the autonomous value of an individual's identity and a respect for their way of life,
something Bourdain fails to do in Morocco. Upon meeting his guides in the Sahara he
says offhandedly, "meet the blue dudes. They are called Berbers. These are the folks
that will be leading me out on camelback to show me how they make 'Berber bread' and
roast whole lamb."
According to Heldke (2003), there is nothing a food adventurer loves better than a
good story—preferably one we ourselves tell about the amazing, otherworldly, delicious,
weird, utterly unfamiliar food we just had. Lacking any recent dining adventures of our
own, we'll settle for a story from another food adventurer—preferably an adventurer with
more cachet than we have (like Bourdain), so we can add a few tidbits to our stock of
esoteric ethic food knowledge and cultural capital. According to Heldke (2003),
Food is a handy, readily available place to look for evidence of Otherness. If it is
not part of my experience—if I don't eat that food, if I don't cook in that style, if I
don't order the courses in my meals thus—then it must be an authentic part of
their cuisine. My unfamiliarly becomes the standard by which I define the true
identity of the Other. And once I have defined the Other as radically Other, I
have made them into the kind of being I can treat radically differently form the
way I would treat any being like myself: "These people eat weird food/eat in an
odd manner/use astonishing spices/don't seem at all interested in our food. They
are definitely not like us" (p. 49)
As viewers and vicarious food adventurers, we join Bourdain as he recognizes and
highlights the exotic aspects of the cultures he samples. It is at this moment of
60
recognition that viewers of A Cook's Tour are naturally interpellated into the position of
neocolonial culinary adventurers.
61
Chapter 5:
CONCLUSION
According to Toby Miller (2007), "food offers distinctions in social life that
shampoo and software do not," (p. 112). Miller continues,
Food is materially and symbolically crucial to life and its government. A key site
of subjectivity in every society, food is an index of power. It was the basis of the
earliest class systems, symbolized by consumption, and religious, organized
around harvesting. The three types of citizenship can be mapped by food: the
political by food policy; the economic by food resources; and the cultural by food
symbolism, (p. 112)
The growing popularity of reality based programming dedicated to the subjugation and
visual consumption of Other cultures via their foodways serve as a powerful tool for
presenting the dichotomy between the West and the Rest. According to Miller (2007),
"The impact of the United States on food around the world is always political. The U.S.
Commerce Department prepared a report in 1961, arguing for the development of new
restaurants in the Asia Pacific region as a means of attracting Yanqui tourists and
discouraging Maoism and Marxism-Leninism" (p. 126). Miller continues,
The Food Network viewer is addressed as a potentially knowledgeable consumer
of neoclassical fables. This consumption is as conspicuous as its enabling labor
and underlying environmental and equity impacts are inconspicuous. The overall
package represents niche cultural citizenship under the sign of commodity capital.
The consumer is sovereign. The fetishization of the consumer's work through an
62
active-audience media address renders the work invisible and makes the consumer
easily oppressed, (p. 135)
Food tourist media is an active site for producing and cultivating neocolonial taste
and desire for the Other. A Cook's Tour (2001) is one discursive force among many,
strategically working to support current ideological beliefs regarding western identity and
our relationship with Others. A Cook's Tour educates the viewers how to explore the
world in a culinary sense and helps articulate the utility value of the other for the
Westerner's self-development as a cultured and sophisticated being. Wilson et. al (2003)
argued "the media have their greatest effect when they reinforce and channel existing
attitudes and opinions consistent with the psychological makeup of individuals and the
social structure of the groups with which they identify, not when they try to change
opinions" (p.47).
When undertaking this project my goal was to examine the messages represented
in A Cook's Tour and to consider its discursive power. Furthermore, I aimed to begin a
discussion of how our visual consumption of Others supports/reflects/reestablishes
current hegemonic U.S. race/ethnic/socio-economic hierarchies. As audience members
we are not encouraged to imagine ourselves in his position of privilege; rather, our host
invites us to adopt a role something like a sous chef—at his side, sharing in his culinary
vision. My reading highlights the negative idiosyncratic meanings assigned to culinary
tourism as well as the ways in which Bourdain's identity is constructed through his
relationship to food. A Cook's Tour challenges this popular cultural view and brings to
light the need for a Western paradigm shift. There is a plausible range of interpretive
63
possibilities and readings of the television show; my hope is that this thesis will lend to
other studies of these discourses and the meanings they reproduce
In conducting this critique, I found that Bourdain's tasteful gaze is the link
though which his identity as a discerning American culinary tourist is constructed.
Finally, I conclude that through^4 Cook's Tour works to reestablish the hierarchies of
power regarding nationality, race, and socio-economic status by presenting images of
Others as backward, dirty, and uncivilized. According to Lindenfeld (2007), "the
material culture of food maintains these differences encouraging the consumption of
'otherness' without promoting understanding of the ways in which US culture configures
ethnicity and race" (p. 314). Similarly to the culinary tourist gaze in Lindenfeld's
Tortilla Soup, the gaze in A Cook's Tour places the television program in the position of
mediated cultural servitude, perpetuating inequitable economic relationships through the
entertainment industry and food culture alike.
The visual consumption of the Other through the gaze is mobilized and valorized
through the use of the cinematographic codes of cinema verite and mise-en-scene. The
fast pace and use of extreme—almost graphic—close ups creates an absurd—almost
comedic feature to the images of the Cambodian food. On the other hand, slowly
zooming in and holding a shot for a few moments creates a feeling of calm and even
elegance—as was done with the images of Fugu sushi in Japan. These techniques
facilitated a gaze which glorified and celebrated some foods as works of art, while
dismissing, even mocking, others (and their producers) as crude spectacles. According to
Henry & Tator (2002),
64
The discourse of the marginalized is seen as a threat to the propaganda efforts of
the elite. It is for this reason that we must engage in critical discourse analysis—
to make the voice of the marginalized legitimate and heard and to take the voice
of those in power into question to reveal hidden agendas and motives that serve
self-interests, maintain superiority, and ensure others' subjugation, (p.6)
A text is interpreted and acted upon by readers or listeners depending on their
rules, norms, and mental models of socially acceptable behavior. Oppression, repression,
and marginalization go unchallenged if the text is not critically analyzed to reveal power
relations and dominance. Additionally, future production-centered scholarship
considering what scenes/clips/conversations are omitted or included will allow for a more
thorough interrogation of producer/writer/director intentions. A production-centered
analysis will generate a discussion of how the food and travel TV industries work to
influence production choices and therefore allow for a better understanding of how
current culinary tourism rhetoric is incorporated into such shows. Further research on
these issues is important in communication and critical cultural studies scholarship
because of the increasing prevalence of mediated texts dedicated to exploring regions of
the world.
While I chose to limit the scope of this project to a discursive/ideological
consideration of A Cook's Tour in order to illustrate/explicate the power of mediated
texts, there are many other analytical opportunities to pursue. For example an audiencecentered approach will further illuminate how viewers of food & travel TV programs
actually consume such texts. Given the growing popularity of programs like A Cook's
Tour, it is important to consider the persuasive power of these texts in more depth and to
65
analyze the ways in which viewers' attitudes and beliefs are influenced by them. Future
scholarship addressing these issues, in conjunction with close-textual analysis, will
provide us with a better understanding of the social implications of representing culinary
tourism through reality TV. Food TV programs such as A Cook's Tour invite spectators
to consume exotic food visually without having to confront the politicized issues of race,
ethnicity, and nationality. To quote Lindenfeld (2007): "if the consumption of food is
'always conditioned by meaning,' then representations of food offer tremendous
opportunities to unpack these meanings" (p. 315).
66
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BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Amy L. Fagan-Cannon was born on September 1, 1980 in Sanford, Maine. She
was raised in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine and graduated with honors from Foxcroft Academy
in 1999. She attended the University of Maine and graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor's
degree in Communication. She entered into the Communication & Journalism graduate
program at The University of Maine in the fall of 2004 and completed all of the required
coursework (with the exception of this thesis) in May, 2006. In June of 2006, Amy was
hired by Puritan Medical Products Company, LLC of Guilford, Maine, as the Executive
Administrative Assistant to the Exec. VP of Global Sales & Marketing. In January 2009,
Amy started her career in education as an Education Technician for MSAD#68 in DoverFoxcroft.
After receiving her degree in Communication, Amy will be entering into K-8
Cohort of the Masters of Teaching program at The University of Maine. Amy is a
candidate for the Master of Arts degree in Communication from The University of Maine
in August, 2009.
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