Devouring the nation

Gastronomy and the settler-colonial sublime in Peru

Bibliographic Data

ID19002589
AuthorsMaría Elena García (0000-0003-4794-524X, University of Washington, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume17
Issue1
Pages99-126
Publication date2020-12-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-2222 • E-ISSN: 1744-2230
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17442222.2020.1854293
OpenAlexW3106572339
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited31

This article explores chef Virgilio Martínez’s culinary exploration of Peruvian biodiversity and his claims of ‘discovering,’ selecting, classifying, and transforming local, ‘unknown,’ Indigenous ingredients and knowledge into high-end global cuisine. Taking Martínez seriously as an artist and cultural agent, I suggest that his work can be understood as a form of what I call the settler-colonial sublime, art that conceals and obscures the erasure and appropriation of specific Indigenous peoples and practices. As with all hegemonic projects, there is room for counter-narratives, and I consider the possibility for the emergence of other-than-colonial relations. Nevertheless, reading Martínez’s culinary artistry alongside the provocative performance art of Elizabeth Lino in Cerro de Pasco helps reveal how the skill and artistry of Peruvian chefs like Martínez work in tandem with a ‘gastropolitical complex’ of political, cultural, and economic forces to obscure ongoing entanglements with coloniality

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Epistemology · Ethnology · Gastronomy · Hegemony · Indigenous · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sublime · Taste · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy

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