Celebrity Chefs, Food Media and the Politics of Eating

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Description

Working across food studies and media studies, Joanne Hollows examines the impact of celebrity chefs on how we think about food and how we cook, shop and eat. Hollows explores how celebrity chefs emerged in both restaurant and media industries, making chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay into global stars. She also shows how blogs and YouTube enabled the emergence of new types of branded food personalities such as Deliciously Ella and BOSH! As well as providing a valuable introduction to existing research on celebrity chefs, Hollows uses case studies to analyse how celebrity chefs shape food practices and wider social, political and cultural trends. Hollows explores their impact on ideas about veganism, healthy eating and the Covid-19 pandemic and how their advice is bound up with class, gender and race. She also demonstrates how celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nadiya Hussain and Jack Monroe have become food activists and campaigners who intervene in contemporary debates about the environment, food poverty and nation.

Reviews

Joanne Hollows demonstrates that celebrity chefs are more than just the branded byproducts of neoliberal capitalism; rather, their prominence and impact speaks to more complex shifts in the relations between civic, digital media and public culture. An overdue account of the contemporary role of celebrity chefs as cultural and political intermediaries, this book is a major contribution to media studies, cultural studies, sociology, food studies and beyond. * Tania Lewis, Professor of Cultural and Media Studies, RMIT University, Australia *
Joanne Hollows insightfully and incisively explores the ideological tensions and cultural significance of celebrity chef representation across media platforms in this eloquent and well-researched volume. * Kathleen LeBesco, Professor of Communication and Media Arts, Marymount Manhattan College, USA *

Author Bio

Joanne Hollows is an independent scholar and researcher based in the UK. She has over 20 years of experience teaching media and cultural studies, most recently as a Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at Nottingham Trent University, UK.