Celebrity Chefs Food Media And The Politics Of Eating

Working across food studies and media studies, Joanne Hollows examines the impact of celebrity chefs on how we think about food and how we cook, shop and eat. Hollows explores how celebrity chefs emerged in both restaurant and media industries, making chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay into global stars. She also shows how blogs and YouTube enabled the emergence of new types of branded food personalities such as Deliciously Ella and BOSH! As well as providing a valuable introduction to existing research on celebrity chefs, Hollows uses case studies to analyse how celebrity chefs shape food practices and wider social, political and cultural trends. Hollows explores their impact on ideas about veganism, healthy eating and the Covid-19 pandemic and how their advice is bound up with class, gender and race. She also demonstrates how celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nadiya Hussain and Jack Monroe have become food activists and campaigners who intervene in contemporary debates about the environment, food poverty and nation.

There have been famous chefs for centuries. But it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the modern celebrity chef business really began to flourish, thanks largely to advances in media such as television which allowed ever-greater numbers of people to tune in. Food Media charts the growth of this enormous entertainment industry, and also how, under the threat of the obesity "epidemic," some of its stars have taken on new authority as social activists, while others continue to provide delicious distractions from a world of potentially unsafe food. The narrative that joins these chapters moves from private to public consumption, and from celebrating food fantasies to fueling anxieties about food realities, with the questionable role of interference in people's everyday food choices gaining ground along the way. Covering celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray, and popular trends like foodies, food porn and fetishism, Food Media describes how the intersections between celebrity culture and food media have come to influence how many people think about feeding themselves and their families - and how often that task is complicated when it need not be.

Working across food studies and media studies, Joanne Hollows examines the impact of celebrity chefs on how we think about food and how we cook, shop and eat. Hollows explores how celebrity chefs emerged in both restaurant and media industries, making chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay into global stars. She also shows how blogs and YouTube enabled the emergence of new types of branded food personalities such as Deliciously Ella and BOSH! As well as providing a valuable introduction to existing research on celebrity chefs, Hollows uses case studies to analyse how celebrity chefs shape food practices and wider social, political and cultural trends. Hollows explores their impact on ideas about veganism, healthy eating and the Covid-19 pandemic and how their advice is bound up with class, gender and race. She also demonstrates how celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nadiya Hussain and Jack Monroe have become food activists and campaigners who intervene in contemporary debates about the environment, food poverty and nation.

This volume is the first to combine textual analysis of food media texts with interviews with media production staff, reality TV contestants, celebrity chefs, and food producers and retailers across the artisan-conventional spectrum. Intensified media interest in food has seen food politics become a dominant feature of popular media—from television and social media to cookbooks and advertising. This is often thought to be driven by consumers and by new ethics of consumption, but Media and Food Industries reveals how contemporary food politics is also being shaped by political and economic imperatives within the media and food industries. It explores the behind-the-scenes production dynamics of contemporary food media to assess the roles of—and relationships between—media and food industries in shaping new concerns and meanings with respect to food.

Media interest in food has intensified in recent years, leading to a contemporary food landscape where ‘alternative’ food practices are increasingly visible. Concerns that were once exclusively the domain of activist movements motivated by environmental, animal rights, health and anti-corporate agendas are now central to primetime television cooking shows, mobile apps and social media. This book is the first to explore the impact of popular media and culture on contemporary food politics. Through examination of a range of media and cultural texts, including news, digital media, advertising and food labelling, it brings together leading and emerging scholars in food studies, media and communications, sociology, law, policy studies, business, and geography. The book explores the practices of alternative food movements, the marketing techniques of conventional and alternative food producers, and the relationships between food industries, media, and the public. Covering topics ranging from agtech start-ups and social justice projects, to new ways of mediating food waste, celebrity, and ‘ethical’ foods, Alternative Food Politics reveals the importance of media as a driver of food system transformation. This is a pivotal time for media and food industries, and this book is essential reading for scholars and students seeking to better understand the futures, possibilities and limits of food politics today.

This volume explores our cultural celebration of food, blending lobster festivals, politicians' roadside eats, reality show "chef showdowns," and gravity-defying cakes into a deeper exploration of why people find so much joy in eating. In 1961, Julia Child introduced the American public to an entirely new, joy-infused approach to cooking and eating food. In doing so, she set in motion a food renaissance that is still in full bloom today. Over the last six decades, food has become an increasingly more diverse, prominent, and joyful point of cultural interest. The Joy of Eating discusses in detail the current golden age of food in contemporary American popular culture. Entries explore the proliferation of food-themed television shows, documentaries, and networks; the booming popularity of celebrity chefs; unusual, exotic, decadent, creative, and even mundane food trends; and cultural celebrations of food, such as in festivals and music. The volume provides depth and academic gravity by tying each entry into broader themes and larger contexts (in relation to a food-themed reality show, for example, discussing the show's popularity in direct relation to a significant economic event), providing a brief history behind popular foods and types of cuisines and tracing the evolution of our understanding of diet and nutrition, among other explications.

Interrogating the intersections of food, journalism, and politics, this book offers a critical examination of food media and journalism, and its political potential against the backdrop of contemporary social challenges. Contributors analyze current and historic examples such as #BlackLivesMatter, COVID-19, climate change, Brexit, food sovereignty, and identity politics, highlighting how food media and journalism reach beyond the commercial imperatives of lifestyle journalism to negotiate nationalism, globalization, and social inequalities. The volume challenges the idea that food media/journalism are trivial and apolitical by drawing attention to the complex ways that storytelling about food has engaged political discourses in the past, and the innovative ways it is doing so today. Bringing together international scholars from a variety of disciplines, the book will be of great interest to scholars and students of journalism, communication, media studies, food studies, sociology, and anthropology.

Social media platforms have quickly become integral to most people’s lives, both privately and professionally. This is the first book to illuminate the trend of relying on social media in the food world. Engaging in social media is fun, but it is also rapidly becoming the platform for self-promotion and branding. This entertaining narrative offers an historical account of the major changes brought about by the Internet and also explores the polarities that underlie the challenges of adaptation, including exclusivity versus democracy, professionalism versus amateurism, and business versus pleasure. Loaded with insight into the current scene, it discusses controversies such as celebrity chefs’ tweeting wars, ethics and the accusations of plagiarizing of recipes, and etiquette concerning the practice of photographing a meal to blog about it. Food and Social Media will appeal to anyone with an interest in food and media as well as those who enjoy using any of the social media formats, including blogs, Yelp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and more, to participate in a digital food community.