(Post)Colonial Politics of Food Archives - Food, Fatness and Fitness

Originally published on Geschichte der Gegenwart and republished here with their permission. No drink represents the 21st century as fully as coffee – stimulating, omnipresent and “to go”. Yet it was also hailed as the drink of the 18th century – the sober middle-class drink of the Enlightenment – and later as the drink of the industrial revolution. Since the 18th century, worldwide coffee consumption has continually risen, and in the 20th it became, through new developments in production and preparation, like the patenting of the first espresso machine and the spread of the recently invented instant coffee, truly global. Coffee has now penetrated the last formerly non-caffeinated parts of the globe; today more than two billion cups of coffee…

» Read More

Towards the end of the twentieth century the World Health Organization declared “obesity” a global epidemic. From 2001 onwards the term “globesity” came into use. “Globesity” is understood as a globally observable consequence of the spread of new “lifestyles” common in industrialized countries characterized by increased consumption of high-energy, industrially processed foodstuffs and low physical activity. According to this thesis, more and more people in the global North and increasingly also in the global South are “overweight” and suffer from “obesity,” measured by using the BMI. As “obesity” is classified as a risk factor for chronic, non-communicable diseases, “globesity” has been declared a public health crisis that threatens global society due to high healthcare costs and decreasing productivity. More recently,…

» Read More

SLOW FOOD is an organization that was founded in the Italian region Piedmont in 1986 by the left activist and sociologist Carlo Petrini. It has developed from a small cultural association into an international brand that combines entrepreneurial structures with a global vision of ‘better’ food. As this post will argue, its history also highlights the cultural-political contradictions of Italy’s bourgeois left. An important event that is frequently mentioned as the symbolic founding act of SLOW FOOD is the so-called “Battle of the Piazza di Spagna” on March 20, 1986, when people were rallying against the opening of Italy’s first McDonald’s restaurant at the Piazza di Spagna, the most prestigious address in Rome. Next to Petrini, protestors included Italian high…

» Read More

Just as the field of food history has achieved prominence in recent years it is true to say the same of popular interest in Native foods. Around the country, Native heirloom crops frequently show up at farmers’ markets. Interested consumers can even purchase produce in the form of a monthly TSA (“Tribally Supported Agriculture”) share. Gardeners across the world can order seeds to grow Ute squash or Cherokee “Trail of Tears” pole beans to plant in their backyards. In southern Arizona, O’odham farmers are raising tepary beans, sixty-day corn, and harvesting ciollim buds, all of which you can purchase online. Almost any grocer in the United States, from the grungiest co-op to the swankiest supermarket, stocks their shelves with ancient…

» Read More

The heated debate on the European “Nutella divide” that hit the news in 2017 only corroborated long-established East European beliefs: After the fall of the Socialist regimes, people did not get the much longed-for western quality products. Instead, substandard goods were shipped eastwards: Adidas trainers that would not sell, Swiss knives with dull blades, expired foods with new sell-by dates. Finally there was official proof that in the East, Nutella was less creamy (smooth), Coca Cola tasted flatter and fish fingers held less fish. The offended Visegrad states complained that they were abused as European dumping ground. The manufacturers first attributed this to adjusting recipes to regional taste preferences, and also – after some probing – to lower spending power.…

» Read More

Food, Fatness and Fitness

Critical Perspectives

Category (Post)Colonial Politics of Food:

The Colour of Coffee: Racism, Gender and Coffee Consumption in 19th Century Algeria

„Globesity“: On an Objectionable Narrative of Global Health

SLOW FOOD: The Becoming of a Bourgeois Utopia

Native Foods and the Colonial Gaze

Nutella Divide, Chicken Angst, and Ice-Cream Nostalgia: Fending Off Impurity in Post-Soviet Food Discourse