Eating (With) the Other: Race in American Food Television

• In Event: 3563 - Gender and Race in Media Production and Use

Abstract

While many scholars have turned our attention to the phenomenon of food-TV, we have not engaged with its representations of racial identity. This paper highlights the necessity of doing so through a comparative examination of shows hosted by Marcus Samuelsson, a Black, Ethiopian, Norwegian immigrant and Anthony Bourdain, a white (secular) Jewish American. Both belong to the genre we call popular food anthropology, in which a guide takes viewers through the cuisines of various communities. And both attempt to intervene in popular debates about the cultural politics of race by presenting marginalized groups in positive lights. Bourdain appreciates the cultures and cuisines of his hosts but presents an “outsider ethnography,” while Samuelsson draws on his own immigrant experience to offer an insider perspective. However, both shows reassert the supremacy of the white, American gaze by presuming this audience and by glossing over larger social, political and economic inequalities. In this way, the shows are akin to bell hooks’ notion of Eating the Other, where she writes that “ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture [while] subverting racist domination, inviting and enabling critical resistance, is an unrealized political possibility.”

Authors

• Rafi Grosglik, University of California, Davis

• Alison Hope Alkon, University of the Pacific