The centrality of food to the human experience always places it at the crux of global crises, whether catastrophic climate change, the collapse of biodiversity in our shared ecosystem, the threat of pandemics, or the poverty and suffering associated with resource scarcity. The continual reality of these challenges has prompted professionals throughout the food industry to seek innovative solutions, as chefs and restaurateurs adjust to customer demands and political imperatives for socially responsible civic action. Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability explores how chefs around the world approach culinary sustainability in highly unstable times while working in myriad professional domains. Building on empirical data collected from a wide range of cultural, historical, political, and economic settings, the contributors to this collection provide a sophisticated and engaging examination of how chefs in diverse culinary contexts tackle the increasingly urgent societal and environmental need for a more secure food future.
Carole Counihan is professor emerita of anthropology at Millersville University and editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal Food and Foodways. She is the author of Italian Food Activism in Urban Sardinia, A Tortilla Is Like Life, and Around the Tuscan Table. Susanne HOjlund is an anthropologist working on taste and food culture, chef education, and children's perceptions of taste. She is head of the Food Culture Studies (FOCUS) center at Aarhus University. She is coeditor of several books including Making Taste Public and Sugar and Modernity in Latin America.
Foreword - David Sutton Preface and Acknowledgements - Carole Counihan and Susanne HOjlund Introduction: Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability Susanne HOjlund and Carole Counihan I. Culinary Sustainability and Taste 1. Chefs Creating Tasty and Sustainable School Food in the United States Rachel E. Black 2. Restaurant Sustainability as a Form of Cultural Awareness: A Colombian Experience Ana MarIa Ulloa and Laura GarzOn 3. Strategies in Vegan Food Experience Design: The Case of Bellies Restaurant in Stavanger, Norway Jonatan Leer 4. Umamification as a Culinary Means for Sustainable Eating at Home and at Restaurants Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs StyrbAEk II. Culinary Sustainability and Kitchen Practices 5. Expanding "Ethical" Cooking: Parisian Chefs' Everyday Approaches to Culinary Sustainability RaUl Matta 6. "Vegan Cookery for Me Is . . .": Israeli Vegan Chefs Negotiating Veganism and Sustainability Liora Gvion 7. Sustainability as Craft: Introducing the Green Transition at Danish Culinary Schools Susanne HOjlund and Nanna Hammer Bech 8. Research Chefs in the United States and Scalable Opportunities for Sustainable Food Solutions Jonathan M. Deutsch III. Culinary Sustainability and Social Relations 9. Sustainability through Social Commitments: Farm to Chef in the Era of COVID-19 Sarra Talib and Amy Trubek 10. Sustainability, Race, and Culture in New Orleans Restaurants in the Wake of the Pandemic David Beriss and Lauren Darnell 11. "To Sustain the People": Native Chefs and the Food Sovereignty Movement Elizabeth Hoover IV. Culinary Sustainability and Diversity, Equity, and Activism 12. Black Chefs and Just Sustainability: Affirming Systems of Food and Racial Justice Marilisa Navarro 13. A Cooks' Alliance: Building Food Awareness and Cultural Sustainability in Kenya Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco and Dauro Mattia Zocchi 14. From New York's Silverbird to Santa Fe's Corn Dance CafE: Sustaining Indigenous Restaurants L. Sasha Gora 15. Interrupting Food Waste through Sustainable Cuisine in Ecuador Santiago Rosero and Joan Gross
"With the acceleration of the ecological crisis, Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability is the first book to show from an anthropological perspective how cooks and chefs can and do play an essential role in the co-evolution of sustainable food systems and eaters." - Claude Fischler, emeritus director of research, French National Centre for Scientific Research "Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability highlights the role that chefs and restaurants can play in fostering more sustainable food systems. By offering a fresh look at what sustainability means in different contexts, the contributors show that hospitality, an industry that is often discounted as elitist and commodified, holds instead great potential for positive change and innovation." - Fabio Parasecoli, professor of food studies, New York University "In this fascinating volume, a rich set of ethnographies addresses crucial issues such as climate change crises, social justice, and ecology through the practices of food professionals who are experiencing sustainability in their kitchens, on their plates, and in their provisioning networks." - Valeria Siniscalchi, author of Slow Food, Politics and Economy of a Global Movement "Chefs, Restaurants, and Culinary Sustainability-impressive in both scope and depth- redefines sustainability in ways that should capture the attention not only of food scholars but restauranteurs and diners alike." - Ken Albala, Tully Knoles Endowed Professor of History, University of the Pacific
