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ABSTRACT
In this paper, we situate New Orleans’ post-Katrina “restaurant renaissance” within a context of historical and contemporary racial and gender inequities. This context provides a space for critical consideration of the celebratory narratives popularly attached to the city’s most prominent chefs and their roles in “rebuilding” New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Our critique focuses on the practice of chef “celanthropy” (celebrity philanthropy) and the contradictions often underlying that practice. While we situate this critique in New Orleans, our analysis is more broadly applicable to what Lily Kelting has described as the “New Southern Food Movement.” This movement relies on contradictory tropes of pastoral utopian pasts and harmonious multicultural futures that elide white male hegemony within the food industry, and southern food’s grounding in colonialism and enslavement.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In 2020, because of the crisis wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the James Beard Foundation suspended its awards to restaurants and chefs. See full announcement and explanation here: https://www.jamesbeard.org/blog/why-were-not-announcing-the-remaining-2020-award-winners.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jeanne Firth
Jeanne Firth recently completed a PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the Department of Geography and the Environment. Her doctoral research is “Feeding the City After the Flood: Foodscape Philanthropy in Post-Katrina New Orleans.”
Catarina Passidomo
Catarina Passidomo is the Southern Foodways Alliance Associate Professor of Southern Studies and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi. Her research interests lie at the intersection of food systems, race, place-making, and power in the U.S. and Global South.