Culinary Capital

In Culinary Capital, Peter Naccarato and Kathleen LeBesco extend Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital as described in Distinction (Bourdieu 1984). Following Bourdieu’s focus on the imposition of arbitrary upper class tastes (not simply tastes in food but also art and music) as the standard by which distinction is conferred, Naccarato and LeBesco assert that food and foodways are important markers of social status and that the assignment of a high or low value is a dynamic rather than static process. The study of the creation and flow of “culinary capital”— which we may think of as a form of status that accrues to individuals who conform to their culture’s food and food-related norms and expectations—allows us to “understand how and why certain foods and food-related practices connote, and by extension, confer status and power on those who know about and enjoy them” (p. 3). The book contributes to food studies by demonstrating the use of this theory by exploring a variety of food “sites” (both virtual and physical, all of relatively recent origin) and the ways in which they can confer users and customers with culinary capital. In exploring the “Contradictions of New Trends in Food Procurement” (Chapter 2), Naccarato and LeBesco lay down a pattern that they use in each subsequent chapter: a brief introduction to the site, historical contextualization, relevant criticism and then an analysis with an eye to evaluating the extent to which this site encourages the acquisition of culinary capital either through adhering to privileged foodways encouraged by middle class ideology, or through resistance to the same. This strategy is useful both because of the relative lack of attention given heretofore to these sites—in the first chapter—meal assembly centers and egrocers. While these services are seemingly a boon to the harried professional (usually female, as the authors point out) who wants to provide a healthy, home-cooked meal, there is a Faustian bargain: the culinary capital acquired by providing this meal (despite working full-time) comes at the price of the acceptance of dominant ideologies. Despite decades of women’s liberation, the patronization of meal prep kitchens like Dinner by Design and e-grocers like FreshDirect by middle class women reinforces the unspoken expectation that they continue to do “second-shift” duty as (unpaid) cooks. The authors also point out that while having domestic servants may be uncouth in middle class America, both e-grocers and meal assembly kitchens allow the middle class to call on the services of the invisible Other. While the chapter does discuss the same mechanisms at work in lesbian,