Food Television and Otherness in the Age of Globalization

Food Television and Otherness in the Age of Globalization examines how food television represents cultural difference in an age of globalization and multiculturalism. Casey Ryan Kelly analyzes popular food television programs to illustrate how representations of food normalize global economic, political, and cultural inequalities.

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Food Television and Otherness in the Age of Globalization examines the growing popularity of food and travel television and its implications for how we understand the relationship between food, place, and identity. Attending to programs such as Bizarre Foods, Bizarre Foods America, The Pioneer Woman, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, Man vs. Food, and No Reservations, Casey Ryan Kelly critically examines the emerging rhetoric of culinary television, attending to how American audiences are invited to understand the cultural and economic significance of global foodways. This book shows how food television exoticizes foreign cultures, erases global poverty, and contributes to myths of American exceptionalism. It takes television seriously as a site for the reproduction of cultural and economic mythology where representations of food and consumption become the commonsense of cultural difference and economic success.