Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

After his untimely death, it is necessary to explore the late Anthony Bourdain’s legacy in subverting the traditional role of “celebrity chef.” In a society of spectacle where image dominates culture and where the commodification of food and chefs has become an everyday television diet, I argue that Bourdain transgressed the ‘empty image’ role of the celebrity chef as a commodity by using his fame and access to media as a “détournement” (Debord 1956). Bourdain’s subversion of the celebrity chef role was in his radical foregrounding of the role of Latino/a workers in kitchens around the US In highlighting the important roles Latinos/as, and in particular Mexican cooks performed in the US’s restaurant industry, Bourdain’s legacy lies in how he reimagined the process of global people flows and the underlying global processes that contribute to the gentrification of the food industry. The commodification of national foods allow us to explain issues resulting from globalization and people’s flows. In this paper, I will discuss the work of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s in foregrounding the role of Latino/a workers in kitchens around the U.S.A. Bourdain transgressed the ‘empty image’ role of the celebrity chef as a commodity by using his fame and access to media, becoming a détournement (Debord 1956) using some of his TV shows to discuss the important roles Latino/a, in particular, Mexican, cooks performed in the U.S. A.’s restaurant industry.