From the Plate to Gastro-Politics

This book provides an interdisciplinary examination of Peruvian cuisine's shift from a culinary to a political object and the making of Peru as a food nation on the global stage. It focuses on the contexts, processes and protagonists that have endowed the country's cuisine with new meaning, new coherence and prominence, and with the ability to communicate what was important for Peruvians after decades of political violence and economic decline. This work unfolds central processes of the culinary project ranging from the emergence of gastronomy, to the refiguring of indigenous people as producers, to the use of cultural identity as an authenticating force. From the Plate to Gastro-Politics offers a critical reading of what has been called a gastronomic revolution, highlighting the ways in which claims to national unity and social reconciliation smooth over ongoing inequalities.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of food studies, cultural anthropology, heritage studies and Latin American studies.

Informed by works on cultural anthropology, the sociology of culture, and food and heritage studies Analyses the rise and fall of Peruvian gastro-politics from an interdisciplinary perspective Offers a critical reading of Peru's gastronomic revolution

Autorentext

Raúl Matta is research associate at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (UMR 208 PALOC), France. His research sits at the intersection of the anthropology of food, heritage and cultural studies, and the environmental humanities.

Inhalt

Part I From the Plate .- 1 Setting the Table: From Culinary Enchantment to Gastro-Political Agendas.- 2 On the Formation of Peruvian Gastronomy.- 3 The Professional Chef and the Establishment of Gastronomic Conventions.- 4 Cooking up a Global Cuisine.- Part II to Gastro-Politics.- 5 Gastro-Politics: Unveiling the Neoliberal Taste.- 6 Food as Heritage: Peruvian Foodways' Road to UNESCO.- 7 Grassroots Gastro-Politics.- 8 Final Considerations and 'Reality Check'.-