Food Heritage
Sustenance and Society - Food Politics and Cultural Identity in Grazia Deledda’s Narratives: Exploring the Intersection of Tradition, Power, and Identity in Deledda’s Depictions of Italian Life
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Simonetta Milli Konewko
Grazia Deledda’s literary works offer a profound examination of the intersection between food politics, cultural identity, and societal structures in Sardinia. By incorporating food into her narratives, Deledda highlights its role in shaping both individual and collective identities, using it as a lens to explore tradition, social hierarchy, and political power. Through depictions of communal meals, feasts, and food scarcity, she critiques the socio-political conditions of her time, revealing how food distribution and consumption are tied to power dynamics. Her narratives not only reinforce cultural heritage but also expose societal inequalities, making food a tool for both preservation and critique. Moreover, Deledda engages with the tension between traditional food practices and modern regulatory frameworks, emphasizing the impact of agricultural policies on local communities. This study demonstrates how Deledda’s work contributes to current conversations about food sovereignty and the socio-political effects of food policies. By examining these themes, her narratives offer valuable insight into how food reflects broader cultural and political struggles, urging readers to reconsider food’s enduring role in shaping societal realities and identity.
Featured Pasta Imperfect: Historical Revisions and Contemporary Anxieties at Bologna's Patron Saint Feast
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sahar Tavakoli
In early October of 2019, a menu alteration at Bologna’s Feast of the Patron Saint provoked outrage among Italy’s political and media classes. Interpreted by some as an attempt to rewrite national history and by others as evidence of a city-wide conversion to Islam, the controversy stemmed from a municipal decision to commission the manufacture of tortellini – a stuffed pasta typical of the city – filled with chicken rather than the more conventional pork. Critics of this decision collectively pointed to a single source as proof that the substitution violated tradition: a 16th-century recipe by the papal chef Bartolomeo Scappi, which many claimed served as the blueprint for all subsequent tortellini. A closer look at Scappi’s text, however, complicates such assertions – first, because Scappi does not use any pork in his recipe, and second, because he does use chicken. In this presentation, I examine how, in the context of food and communal identity, the past is mobilised to shape the future, drawing on empirical research conducted in Bologna between 2022 and 2023. Using the notion of hauntology and the conceptual and methodological framework of Science and Technology Studies, I explore how food heritage is constructed, maintained, and instrumentalised in the present – that is, how the past is made in the contemporary, both to make sense of who we have been and to shape who we wish to become.
Discover Puerto Rico’s Curated Appetites: Gastro-Gaze, Digital Colonialism, and the Invisibilization of Crisis in Puerto Rico
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mónica E. Lugo Vélez
This study examines how Discover Puerto Rico's Instagram archive produces and circulates artificial cultural memories that promote an official gastronomic authenticity, stability, and national pride narrative. Through analyzing visual representations of food and culinary experiences, this research shows how these images cater to global gastro-tourism demands while making invisible the harsh realities of food insecurity, structural inequality, and displacement that affect communities outside the metropolitan area and main tourist destinations. Drawing on Urry and Larsen's concept of the "tourist gaze" and MacCannell's theories of constructed authenticity, this paper analyzes how tourism sells experiences and implants cultural memories, shaping perceptions that both visitors and Puerto Ricans have of their gastronomy. The digital archive works like a machine for symbolic erasure, deliberately leaving out signs of crisis—food lines, empty supermarkets after natural disasters, dependence on imported food, and grassroots agricultural projects—from the official visual story. The analysis demonstrates how this curated gastro-aesthetic functions beyond tourism promotion, contributing to urban space reconfiguration by transforming neighborhoods and local practices into aesthetic resources ready for consumption by external audiences, particularly investors and crypto-colonizers. While Discover Puerto Rico's social media projects images of full markets and stylized dishes celebrating local authenticity, nearly 40% of Puerto Rican households experience food insecurity. This dissonance between representation and reality reveals how the state apparatus not only sells the country but aestheticizes and simplifies it to meet global market demands, reinforcing an official discourse that deflects attention from structural inequalities while legitimizing a colonized food crisis.
