Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Food is a modicum that allows individuals to narrate stories to remember the past in the present and to extend such thoughts into the future, which David Sutton calls “prospective memory,” a process that takes place “in the present to remember food events in the future”. This study explores food as a symbol and a rhetorical device of repositories of narratives emanating from television cooking programmes of deceased celebrity chefs. The connection between a chef in a cooking programme and their viewers generates at least two narratives. One rhetoric is communicated by the chef, whose choice of products, techniques and the context used to communicate the knowledge intended to maintain the viewers interest. The viewer also generates a story, that often transcends beyond what appears to be the prime purpose of the television show – simply a cooking programme. It is in this rather complex but extremely interesting multivalent dynamic environment that this study is primarily interested in. Keith Floyd’s legacy still resonates with several of his fans, who religiously followed his programmes and admired his talents and qualities. With the advantage of hindsight, this study explores remembrances of Floyd. Such an analytical paradigm stresses that the integral connection between the celebrity chef and the fans is dynamic and continuously changing; it also underscores the simultaneous practices of preserving and evolving, remembering, recreating, discovering, and inventing those narratives that honour Floyd’s temporal presence by infusing memories with relevance and vitality in the present in an attempt to generate prospective memories.