Food is a powerful cultural signifier 3

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3. Narratives of ethnic foods and national cuisines
Validating that the cultural role of Food A signifier of country, commentators have argued that now nations areas National flag.
Concurrently, studies carried out by Arjun Appadurai, Carol Helstosky, and Sally Howell have also illustrated how cuisines, particularly National cuisines, are discursively produced by national elites as tools of nation-building In turn. As I have addressed previously, ethnic foods and ethnicity just come To being when put against the grain of the non-ethnic other.

Thus, we need to Explore how Australian and Italian national cuisines have been imagined and how They articulate with the kitchen and foods of the ethnic others with whom they share the same national territory. Italian cuisine and foodways are represented as strong signifiers of national culture and national identities. According to the Italian gatekeepers, The kitchen is integral to the narrative of Italian-ness. Yet, Italy did not become a Unified nation-state until the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Finding Identity markers for nation-building proved a tricky task to accomplish In a geographical territory divided by powerful regional and local identities. According To Thelytoky, the job of Pellegrino Artois was critical in his and Meticulously researched and categorized recipes and foods, producing what was Recognized as the 'language' for a national cuisine that merged Italians around the table.
In a state where powerful regional and local allegiances to products and providing the recently formed nation-state using a signifier of national culture. In Italy, as in post-independence India, cookbooks and the language of cuisine were essential tools of nation-building, albeit not the only one. In this Procedure, the participation of Italian diaspora in promoting Italian foodways Cannot go Especially to the USA, led to a staggering total of nine million Italians - One-quarter of the whole Italian population - living outside Italy from the 1920s.

Again, during the years of Mussolini and after WWII, the exodus increased in the diaspora. Commensality was critical in establishing cultural and social bonds amongst Italian Immigrants at the same time as it encouraged and disseminated the Italian-ethnic Food. It became more of a unifier in the diaspora than it was in Italy. Thought of Italian Food was generated in the interior (Italy) as from the
Outside (diaspora). Sometime over the boundaries of this nation-state, local and Regional differences have been upheld as strong identification markers of Locality and regionalism. They became of secondary significance in the diaspora where The motto that migrants needed to thrive in a foreign land was the priority. Abroad, Differences were set aside to make strong links between diasporic Italians. t, Italian foodways connoted Italian-ness and maintained cultural identities. Ethnic- Italian Food was enabled and became enabling.
The impetus to consume the meals which mamma cooked had a dual impact. On the other hand, its unified immigrant communities around the table promising national Helped entrepreneurial immigrants to Create successful businesses and to an increase was given by the diasporic markets Into a weak Italian market by developing new industries like Italian pasta. The role of food as a powerful signifier of national identity might Begin to Clarify the town of Lucca's dismissal of the foodways of the ethnic-other. In Australia, cultural food has different connotations, but inside Lucca's territorial boundaries, ethnic food destabilized the city's sense of Self and jeopardized Italian-ness. Australia has its particularities.

But a stamped the past as a British colony of Australia Coverage of cultural sameness and white supremacy. Early Food was English Food, with Sunday roast and three veggies. Australian Aboriginal native Foods, eating habits, and cooking methods are yet to be incorporated in everyday food. Likewise, the foodways brought by immigrants during The gold-rush of the nineteenth century just became gradually integrated after a Process of 'domestication' and regulation based on the standards and codes Dependent on the hegemonic establishment. The 1950s' Waves of government-sponsored southern European immigrants coming to Australian beaches, found their foodways belittled and often referred to as WOG meals.
But, their presence and visibility contributed to slow changes in Cultural attitudes to ethnic foods, which were being partly introduced by The increasingly powerful advertising industry, actively sponsoring new ingestion Signifiers against which identification procedures were generated. Concurrently, the increasing number of Australians traveling abroad in the 1970s stimulated Growing tolerance and fascination for the culture and eating habits of cultural others. From the 1980s, WOG food became trendy. Greek, stylized, Italian, Asian, and Lebanese foods became acceptable and even desirable. A direct result of changes in Australian society conducive to new the societal Had changed. So had its constitutive intelligentsia accountable for challenging.
The conditions in which national identities were being devised. The new aspirational Middle-class was partially, but importantly, constituted by second-generation Australian-born and increased people, with strong links to the ethnic cultures of They, were outsiders. They were incorporated and educated citizens, empowered by cultural capital. This new creation could practice cultural politics and title cultural signifiers That re-shaped Australian national identities and culture. Culturally sanctioned, These folks could replicate their hybrid culture, legitimize it, affirm it Australian food has been re-defined into something brand new, inclusive of what was Formerly recognized as the ethnic-other—the cultural proficiency in understanding otherness.


Conclusion
This comparative study highlights the way collective identities can be. They can be thought of as essential Immutable and harnessed by convention. Alternately identities can be Conceptualized as contextual, shaky, but lively points of positioning always Becoming something new that can be translated into new kinds of culture. The town of Lucca's institutional powers were aggressively holding on to the Concept of a unified and homogeneous national culture. They forgot that no nation-state Is represented by one ethnicity and that national culture is not merged and Pure.
As Renan observed, 'the leading countries in Europe are nations of essentially mixed blood: Italy is the country where ... Gaul's, Etruscans, Pelagianism, and Greeks, Not to mention many other components, intersect in an indecipherable mixture'. Thus, considering Italian foodways as coherent, unified, and pristine does not Acknowledge the many stories, peoples, places, practices, and recipes that have evolved to make Italian Food what it is today.
 

Food is a powerful cultural signifier 2

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2. Ethnic foods in the global village
Like ethnicity itself, Cultural cuisine only becomes self-conscious—the abstract reality when cultural boundaries crossed.
Ethnic foods called into being in their encounter with the foodways of the other. They defined by difference. They only become recognized as after Being 'disembedded '10 from their locality and re-embedded to a new context Where difference makes them visible. Under globalization conditions, the high permeability of national borders has facilitated and accelerated the Dissemination of individuals, cultures, and foods. As people move, they take with Them their ethnic background and the signifiers that qualify it. Ethnicity does not Exist and of itself. Ethnicity does not exist outside culture -- it is constructed by It and featured inside.

For Instance, The Pasta Channel 2007 Harris Poll, asserted that 'the most popular ethnic food in America is Italian meals. Conversely, in Europe, in 2010, the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) Defined refined foods as those constituted by 'all non-Europeans cuisines. That is, while Italian food was recognized as cultural food in the USA, in the United Kingdom, at least According to the BNF, just non-European foods are cultural. Ironically, in 2001, The foreign secretary Robin Cook at a speech endorsing multicultural Britain Claimed that the Indian based-dish 'Chicken Tikka Masala is now a true British national dish.' Thus, the naming of ethnic foods is purposeful, contextual, Discursive, and made to mark a difference, however, conceived at any given time.

It is Also, a complicated procedure that I seek to research by examining and assessing some of The Probable causes are underpinning the different cultural representations of cultural foods in Australia and Italy. The Australian Case Chicken cacciatore on a Sunday, ravioli on a Monday, noodle Fish cakes on a Tuesday, Mongolian stir fry on a Wednesday. What does this say about the Australian palate?
This is how the Australian food writer Cherry Ripe described the diverse nature Ripe concludes '... we have become some Of the most eclectic eaters in the world.' Ethnic Diversity in Australian foodways Is perceived as a positive aspect of its cuisine and a cultural signifier. Still, ethnic food has also become associated with a specific cohort of people inhabiting the urban and Rich spaces of cosmopolitanism. For them, food has become a signifier Which they can freely appropriate as 'cultural capital 'and that they willingly Incorporate into their processes of cultural identification.
Ethnic food in huge cities has become a signifier of 'culinary, cultural capital.
Expanding on Bourdieu's concept, David Bell used 'culinary, cultural capital' to Describe the purchase of culinary expertise that confers distinction. Taste and Additional Bell asserted that urban Diversity in ethnic restaurants and foods provides these individuals with considerable Consumption choice, which enhances their status and social-cultural differentiation when dining out. Exploring the area of research, Warded et al. argues that.

That this cohort of urban audiences has become proficient practitioners in 'cultural Ominousness.' They developed precise skills for picking, mixing, and matching the Cultural Diversity to suit their particular purposes. As Warded et al. reasoned 'the pursuit of a variety of customer experience is a feature of particular social Group (to) express social differentiation.' Thus, Ripe portrayal of Australian culinary Diversity is a perfect example of 'cultural ominousness.'


Ethnic foods fulfill different purposes for different people. Whereas for the Urban audiences, cultural foods represent culinary, cultural capital, for the ethnic-self, It is a means of life. When marked by the difference of, food becomes cultural traversed boundaries. This aspect reinforces feelings of Solidarity with the ethnic-same, perpetuating the familiarity and comforts of what, for all these reasons, diet accelerates meaning. It strengthens bonds that are social and cultural ties, asserting Shared cultural origins, which are enacted in the community. Food is a tool for cultural survival.
The following analysis of the Italian case study expands further on the subject. It Assesses Italian foodways, once the food of diaspora. It evaluates how this facet Of Italian cuisine might have affected the decisions made by the officials in Lucca, which marginalized the menus of this ethnic-others. The Italian Case Lucca's center-right city council recently stirred much Contention and accusations of racism by prohibiting new ethnic Food restaurants from opening within its stunning historical center.

According to Donation's article, ethnic food was considered as a malaise that Destabilized the notion of Italian cuisine, its culinary roots, and essential customs. Acting as a cultural gatekeeper, Lucca's city council perpetuated the cultural continuity and permanency. Not surprisingly, any occasion Supposed certainties generated anxieties and ambiguity. Yet as the following, The analysis illustrates, Italian culinary traditions and alleged cultural innocence are but a Story aiming at describing nostalgic and imagined representations of integrated and unified foodways. Moreover, despite the city of Lucca's animosity towards Cultural foods, a procedure for culinary integration is simultaneously taking place in Italy.

The 2012 BBC series Two Greedy Italians hosted by the celebrity chefs Antonio Carlucci and Gennaro Contador are a case in point. In this TV series, Carlucci and Contador visited a vegetable farm owned by an Asian female farmer. It showed a range of 'exotic' vegetables -- book-choy and other Asian greens -- cultivated alongside familiar Italian vegetables -- tomatoes and eggplants. On The same app, Carlucci and Contador interviewed a marketplace tour-guide whose function was to take customers on tours to present them to the vast array of products from the market stalls, most of them unknown or unfamiliar to Italian customers and Italian cooking.

Finally, Carlucci and Contador visited a Neighborhood restaurant that specialized in Fusion Food. The female chef cooked for The dish included shitake mushrooms, ginger, Hesitantly, Contador, and Carlucci ate it. Despite Acknowledging that they had enjoyed its tastes, sarcastically, they commented: 'it's ok, but don't call it risotto; call it falsetto' (fusion risotto). 24 On the one hand, they exemplify in the hostility Some sectors of the Italian people towards some of the effects of globalization and Europeanisation, in particular, the presence of ethnic others and their foods in Italian towns. On the other hand, these examples also demonstrate the

Integration and introduction of new products and practices into contemporary Italian foodways are (and have always been) taking place. These cases also highlight the irony within narratives of culinary Italian-ness. Constructed as pristine, unified, and rooted in time and practice, these narratives do not consider that many of the products currently recognized as Italian (tomato and eggplant) aren't native ingredients and were introduced to The Italian foodways by other people.
Moreover, these narratives rarely acknowledge that Italian food in the Western world owes its popularity to the omnipresence of Italian diaspora in Europe, the USA, and Australia. These examples further underscore the inevitability of cultural syncretism. Unlike the essentialist/conservative discourse, Diversity is inescapable and enriching. What would cuisine be, eggplants, or without tomatoes? The thought of pure cultural forms is but an illusion.

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Food is a powerful cultural signifier 1

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Food is a powerful cultural signifier. It can connote inclusiveness, belonging, Attachment, and also be a symbolic expression of societal binding. Grain can Signify exclusiveness, generate feelings and stereotypes of revulsion and disgust, Which demarcate boundaries between the USA and the other. Candy Madeleine illustrates Food can produce good memories as much as Food is nutritional and physiological Requirements as it is cultural, symbolic, and meaningful. Multi-ethnic societies praise Their food diversity and flag it as a marker of inclusiveness. Australian cuisine is supposed to be a representation of cultural and ethnic diversity underpinned by its Culinary variety in foods and tastes. As the food writer Cherry Ripe (1993) asserts, '... we have become some of the most eclectic eaters in the world.'

Ethnic Food

Banning the 'ethnicity variable' in Australian cuisine would be unthinkable. Yet this is not Universally the case. For example, a 2009 article in the New York Times read, 'A The walled city in Tuscany clings to its early menu.' Italian right-wing city council of Lucca and its controversial decision to ban 'ethnic' restaurants from its historic center. Ethnic Food was considered a malaise that destabilized the concept of Italian cuisine, its culinary roots, and Essential customs. The and Exotic food 'other from inside' constituted a threat to Italian-ness. Based on these case studies, this chapter explores the concept of Ethnic Food as a site of struggle where the federal government is challenged, destabilized, and reinvented. It examines how representations of cultural Food are contextual and Evaluates the significance of a national cuisine by asking: does what's on your plate change who you think you are?

Introduction

Food is a site of struggle where the Federal destabilized and contested, re-invented, re-made, and re-mixed. I examine how representations of Ethnic Food are contextual, discursive, and situated in the competing fields. Where By way of contrast, I explore different cultural Enactments of ethnic foodways within two national milieus. In Australia, culinary multiculturalism celebrated with gusto as a significant feature of national Civilization; by contrast, in Italy, ethnic restaurants are jettisoned from inside the walls.
The town of Lucca -- Tuscany, as its right-wing city council promotes Italian-ness and discourages and segregates any culinary representation which perceived as destabilizing and threatening.

Food is a powerful cultural marker. In the home, the taken-for-granted represented by Food. Safety-net that provides 'ontological security.' Food constitutes,
Abroad One of the imaginary bridges which can keep the individual grounded and connected With the memories of familiar faces, customs, practices, tastes, and smells that were These features highlight the significant role of foodways in displaced communities of diaspora. Immigrants in Brazil eat bacalhau to stay emotionally attached to the Motherland, its customs, traditions, and the relevant others in the 'imagined.

Objectives
1-    Shed light on Ethnic Food and risk perception
2-    Shed light on Ethnic foods in the global village
3-    Shed light on Narratives of ethnic foods and national cuisines

1. Ethnic Food and risk perception
At the "risk society," the Rejection or Acceptance of a new food item Depends on the perception of risk associated with it (Beck, 2000). Some studies have found that cultural Food generally perceived positively most likely because it has already been analyzed by additional People in a different part of the world and does not represent a real Novelty. Unlike other entirely new foods like biotechnological Meals (Backstrom, Partial-Backman, & Tutorial, 2003). One of the main problems perceived by consumers about Ethnic dishes linked to the lack of knowledge about the ingredients used, their origin, and the methods of preparation. Studies in America Have noted that those ethnic cuisines Using components that are Understood and also used at the local cuisine receive a higher level of Confidence among customers (Lee, Node, Simona, & Bruhn, 2012).

Descriptions of the ingredients and preparations of ethnic Dishes also seem to be a strategic foresight by restaurateurs and caterers in directing the consumer to the knowledge and pleasure of different foods (Sloan, 2001). In light of this consideration, the analysis of the risk perceptions, Tastes, and new habits of the Italian people are essential Significance in understanding the impact of these different foods on consumer health.

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