Constructing Cuisine
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 at 8:56AM 
Sorry I have been so quiet on this page. On the food front, I have only been thinking about one thing recently: my dissertation. I wrote a short article recently outlining my study, which I share here. Forget picnics, beaches and BBQs, this is what I'll be doing this summer...
The aim of my study is to investigate the context(s) in which having a national cuisine becomes significant. I will be looking at when, why and for whom it becomes important to talk about a national cuisine in Britain and Australia.
Like most aspects of culture that are the focus of anthropological studies, cuisines are never static, but constantly being made and remade. Nevertheless, it seems that at a particular moment, or moments, having a national cuisine becomes an important part of the ‘cultural capital’ of a nation. My research so far suggests that in Australia and Britain this becomes especially important in the 1980s and gains momentum in the 1990s. This is not to suggest that either country is lacking a rich culinary history, but rather that “the globally held view that every nation must have its own cuisine” (Cusack, 2000: 208) is actually quite a recent phenomenon.
Australia, Britain, commercialisation, globalisation, media, national identity, tourism in Cuisine