| Description |
In this essay, I examine how contemporary cultural politics around family and gender are reflected in representations of food, specifically in two different styles of cheese: industrially produced and handcrafted, artisanal cheeses. The growing rift between handcrafted, artisan cheese and industrially, mass-produced cheese is expressive of cultural and societal tensions in the U.S. -especially as relevant to the family. These different methods reflect commensurately different ideologies and values, which are further reflected in how they represent themselves; moreover those different ideologies mirror, respectively, broader cultural issues. By looking at these representations, I hope to elucidate such cultural tensions, specifically around conceptions of "family," to which representations of food are often directed today. I demonstrate that the narratives conveyed through cheese producers' media campaigns have relevance in identifying and assessing the nature of these ideological differences as well as how they relate to different ideologies of food production and consumption. I contend that representations of the industrial cheese company portray highly rigid and traditional ideas of family and family roles contrasted by the hand-crafted, artisan cheese campaign analyzed, which exemplifies a dialogue on production and agency, wherein the production and participation in food making both defines and constitutes family. |
