Food Media: Celebrity Chefs and the Politics of Everyday Interference - Tapa dura

The chef has became a famous face, often emblazoned on television in different guises, often a prolific author of cookbooks and increasingly a "celebrity" in his own right... This book takes a look at the development (for better or for worse) of the chef as a public celebrity... The author has carefully and cleverly mixed up many opinions, explanations and a lot of engaging information into a fairly broad, interesting read with the skill and dexterity of a master chef. Whilst this is an academically-biased book with a lot of footnotes, bibliographical references and a detailed index, it still manages to be relatively accessible to the general reader who wants a good, thought provoking read as well. * Yum.fi *

There have been famous chefs for centuries. But it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the modern celebrity chef business really began to flourish, thanks largely to advances in media such as television which allowed ever-greater numbers of people to tune in.

Food Media charts the growth of this enormous entertainment industry, and also how, under the threat of the obesity "epidemic," some of its stars have taken on new authority as social activists, while others continue to provide delicious distractions from a world of potentially unsafe food. The narrative that joins these chapters moves from private to public consumption, and from celebrating food fantasies to fueling anxieties about food realities, with the questionable role of interference in people's everyday food choices gaining ground along the way.

Covering celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray, and popular trends like foodies, food porn and fetishism, Food Media describes how the intersections between celebrity culture and food media have come to influence how many people think about feeding themselves and their families - and how often that task is complicated when it need not be.