Gallegos examines Campbell and Bourdieu’s respective theories of taste at the beginning of her article. Bourdieu discussed taste regarding social hierarchy and class division – Gallegos utilizes Coveney (1996, p.50), who argued that cuisine is about “positioning people in accordance with their class expectations and their collective consciousness”. Campbell saw taste as a reflection of the psychological; hedonism defines modern consumption, created by longings for pleasures via daydreaming. Therefore, cookbooks can construct a balance between binaries that define the self, and serve as a way of testing the tensions between this. Gallegos goes on to examine Australian history. She labels the evolution of multiculturalism and taste into four
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This has been achieved for Australians through multiculturalism, which offers a space where people can develop understanding of what they think as the ‘other’, and test tensions between it.
Taste in this context is a socio-cultural concept that argues that distinctions between people can be achieved by what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste. Gallegos contends that to have ‘good’ taste is to be a ‘good’ global citizen.
Their significance lies not in the reproducibility of their recipes; rather, their significance is their emergence as the vehicles and tools used to maintain the communication between the web of flows that is ‘culture’.
(Gallegos, 2005, p.99)
In this sense, taste is way of constructing one’s identity as it is a culturally significant concept that ties them to their nationality. Raymond Williams suggested three definitions of ‘culture’, one being “a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, or a group” (Storey, 2012, p.1-2). Through cookbooks, the taste of the ‘other’ is displayed, providing people who do not have much cultural capital with access to what it means to be multicultural. This has developed gradually towards hybridity and inclusivity in a contemporary society, creating a new way of life that is marked as Australian culture. To be Australian, as Gallegos claims, no longer means to have one specific set of cultural values: it is to be actively engaged in late modernity as a global
This has been achieved for Australians through multiculturalism, which offers a space where people can develop understanding of what they think as the ‘other’, and test tensions between it.
Taste in this context is a socio-cultural concept that argues that distinctions between people can be achieved by what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste. Gallegos contends that to have ‘good’ taste is to be a ‘good’ global citizen.
Their significance lies not in the reproducibility of their recipes; rather, their significance is their emergence as the vehicles and tools used to maintain the communication between the web of flows that is ‘culture’.
(Gallegos, 2005, p.99)
In this sense, taste is way of constructing one’s identity as it is a culturally significant concept that ties them to their nationality. Raymond Williams suggested three definitions of ‘culture’, one being “a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, or a group” (Storey, 2012, p.1-2). Through cookbooks, the taste of the ‘other’ is displayed, providing people who do not have much cultural capital with access to what it means to be multicultural. This has developed gradually towards hybridity and inclusivity in a contemporary society, creating a new way of life that is marked as Australian culture. To be Australian, as Gallegos claims, no longer means to have one specific set of cultural values: it is to be actively engaged in late modernity as a global