For practitioners and scholars, culinary tourism is recognized as the voluntary decision to interact with foodways and foodstuffs outside of an individual’s daily places or habits.
The seminal definition for the contemporary field of food studies was articulated by Lucy M. Long, who encapsulated culinary tourism as “the intentional, exploratory participation in the foodways of an other” (Culinary Tourism). Culinary tourists are understood as individuals who actively and willingly seek to construct meaning and value through an aesthetic appreciation of food.
Either through the act of moving themselves from one physical place to another or by incorporating “foreign” or “unusual” food items into a habitual physical place, the agent of culinary tourism—the culinary tourist, popularly conceptualized as a global foodie or food trotter—makes food, drink, or substance preparation and consumption the vehicle for personal value creation, either through a solo experience or within the broader context of a group similarly focused on such aesthetic appreciation.
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Culinary Tourism
José López Ganem and Alicia Kennedy
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Fat Stigma in the United States
Amy Erdman Farrell
Fat stigma has deep roots in US and Western cultures, dating back centuries. Whatever leniency or even valorization given to a fat body for its sign of wealth or healthy fecundity was largely replaced by a colonial abhorrence of fatness linked to processes of racialization, white supremacy, and the legitimization of slavery. Fatness became a powerful signifier of an “uncivilized” body, one unfit for modern life. These ideas continue to resonate in the early 21st century, fueling a $90 billion diet industry, causing discrimination in every institution and organization, and creating untold harm in the lives of fat individuals and communities. Significantly, however, these ideas are not uniform. Not only are there varied perceptions of fatness (the idealization of a fat baby’s body, the enjoyment of fatty foods, the pleasure in the curves and flesh of a lover), there is also an organized and decades-old fat activist and fat studies movement that challenges fat stigma on every layer.
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The UFW, Cesar Chavez, and Struggles for Farmworker Justice
Matt Garcia
In September 1962, the National Farm Workers Association held its first convention in Fresno, California, initiating a multiracial movement that would result in the creation of United Farm Workers (UFW) and the first contracts for farmworkers in the state of California. Led by Cesar Chavez, the union contributed several innovations to the art of social protest, including the most successful consumer boycott in the history of the United States. Chavez welcomed contributions from numerous ethnic and racial groups, men and women, young and old. During the 1970s, Chavez struggled to effectively transform his movement into a functioning labor union and maintain the momentum created by the boycott as the state of California became the first to give farmworkers the right to protected union activity and representational elections under the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Although Chavez and the UFW ultimately failed to establish a permanent, national union, many labor organizers acquired valuable experience within the UFW, and many applied the lessons they learned to movements for farmworker justice elsewhere. The strategies devised by the UFW continue to be used in farmworker struggles all over the nation in the early 21st century, including among organizers too young to have known Chavez or to participate in the UFW.
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Weight-Loss Diets
Evangelia Kindinger and Katharina Vester
Weight-loss dieting refers to purposefully regulating, usually limiting, food intake in order to achieve a specific goal, typically focused on weight management. Weight-loss dieting practices can involve reducing calorie intake, limiting portions, or following a particular eating pattern or regimen—for example, cutting carbohydrates and fats while preferring proteins. Yet dieting is much more than an individual activity. It is influenced by and mirrors a society’s power dynamics and social hierarchies that are also determined by weight and body shape. Looking particularly at the history of this phenomenon in modern industrialized societies like the United States, developments in weight-loss dieting are closely intertwined with gender and citizenship. Weight-loss dieting was a male practice in the 19th century and became a decidedly feminized practice in the 20th century. Furthermore, there have been concerns about the negative effects of weight-loss dieting as voiced by anti-diet nutritionists and the academic field of fat studies. Weight management is expressive of public discourses around health, capitalism, and body politics.
