In recent years, Peru has transformed from a war-torn country to a global high-end culinary destination. Connecting chefs, state agencies, global capital, and Indigenous producers, this “gastronomic revolution” makes powerful claims: food unites Peruvians, dissolves racial antagonisms, and fuels development. Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race critically evaluates these claims and tracks the emergence of Peruvian gastropolitics, a biopolitical and aesthetic set of practices that reinscribe dominant racial and gendered orders. Through critical readings of high-end menus and ethnographic analysis of culinary festivals, guinea pig production, and national-branding campaigns, this work explores the intersections of race, species, and capital to reveal links between gastronomy and violence in Peru.
María Elena García is Professor in the Comparative History of Ideas Department at the University of Washington.
List of IllustrationsPreface: UnderstoriesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Stories of Resurgence and ColonialityPart One: Structures of AccumulationInterlude: Hauntings1 • Gastropolitics and the NationInterlude: Eating the Nation2 • Cooking Ecosystems: The Beautiful Coloniality of Virgilio MartínezInterlude: "Gastronomy Is a Display Case"3 • Staging Difference: The Gastropolitics of Inclusion and RecognitionPart Two: Narratives from the EdgeInterlude: "Apega Needs Us to Look Pretty"4 • Gastropolitics Otherwise: Stories in and of the VernacularInterlude: Of Humor and Violence5 • Guinea Pig Matters: Figuring Race, Sex, and NationInterlude: Chemical Castration 6 • Death of a Guinea PigEpilogue. Huacas Rising NotesReferencesIndex
"The book presents a stunning and innovative analysis of the politics of Peru’s recent gastronomic boom. . . .[it] is at the forefront of scholarly discussions on the topic and deserves a wide readership among anthropologists and food studies scholars working on food, race, and nationalism in a range of geographic settings."
