Legitimising amateur celebrity chefs' advice and the discursive transformation of the Slovene national culinary identity
Citation
Tominc, A. (2014) Legitimising amateur celebrity chefs' advice and the discursive transformation of the Slovene national culinary identity. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 17 (3), pp. 316-337.
Abstract
This article seeks to discuss the legitimation strategies of the two Slovene amateur
celebrity chefs Luka Novaks and Valentina Smej Novak and the consequent call
for a discursive transformation of the Slovene culinary identity. Using as a tool
Van Leeuwen's legitimation strategies, it seeks to understand the discursive
construction of the chefs' authority, that is, how do they legitimise their call
for a change in Slovene eating habits, focusing on the introductory texts found
in their cookbooks. Second, it concludes that by doing this, they have not only
constructed themselves as the new authorities in Slovene cooking but also
advocated the new middle-class taste as the only acceptable taste in Slovenia,
that is, the contemporary Slovene national cuisine. Their call for transformation,
however, seems contradictory, as they, on the one hand, draw on tradition and
expert authority and, on the other hand, refute this in order to be able to position
themselves as equal to these authorities.