Academic literature on the topic 'Culinary culture, blog, culinary blog'

Abstract. Since becoming a "pop culture" for the millennial generation in sharing information and knowledge, social media has been able to open opportunities for culinary industry players, especially restaurant owners and food bloggers, to collaborate using social media to achieve mutually beneficial goals. Food bloggers uniquely connect restaurants and consumers through culinary product reviews, categorised as knowledge sharing. However, the difference in the motivation behind the knowledge sharing process raises questions about the practice of knowledge sharing that is carried out because of monetary motivation and non-monetary motivation. Following that question, this study aims to understand the motivation behind knowledge sharing activity and sustainability carried out by food bloggers as knowledge contributors. Using the phenomenological approach and method, this research was conducted by arranging interviews with notable food blog account owners on Instagram to explore their experiences as a food blogger. The phenomenological analysis is used to reveal the essence of their experience related to motivation to become a food blogger that encourages them to share their knowledge on social media. The study conducted found that the shift from non-professionals to non-professional food bloggers was due to the trend of reviewing food and requests for cooperation from other Instagram users. On the go, no food blogger has purely monetary or non-monetary motivations. Both motivations emerge and have their respective impacts. Monetary motivation allows food bloggers to experience knowledge-sharing process and behaviour adjustments due to cooperation with restaurant owners. In contrast, non-monetary motivation enables food bloggers to carry out knowledge sharing processes and behaviours independently. Keywords: Knowledge sharing quality, monetary motivation, non-monetary motivation, food blogger, social media

This article attempts to analyze synesthesia in the culinary idiomatic discourse presented in Alexei Oniegin’s blog “Culinary Notes”. In the language employed in the blog synesthesia constitutes one of the author’s creative efforts, which involve the selection of appropriate language means, aiming to give it characteristics of difference, unconventionality and originality.

AbstrakDesa Uwemanje merupakan desa berpotensi di lereng pegunungan Gawalise yang memiliki topografi berbukit dimana sebagian besar lahan memiliki tingkat kemiringan lereng lebih dari 40%, sehingga praktek pertanian di desa ini sangat rawan terhadap erosi dan degradasi lahan lainnya. Komoditas utama terpenting di desa ini adalah Hasil Hutan Bukan Kayu seperti tegakan pinus, kemiri dan bambu yang merupakan hasil reboisasi pada lahan kritis yang berada di desa ini. Program pengembangan desa mitra tahun kedua ini adalah pembinaan tiga mitra yaitu kelompok tani, ibu-ibu PKK dan Pemuda Sadar Wisata dalam pengembangan dan promosi ekowisata. Permasalahan yang diatasi melalui program ini yaitu rendahnya pengetahuan dan keterampilan masyarakat sasaran serta tidak tersedianya bibit tanaman yang dibutuhkan oleh masyarakat setempat. Metode-metode pendekatan yang ditawarkan dalam bentuk pendidikan dan pelatihan bagi mitra melalui penyuluhan dan pendampingan/pelatihan yang berupa bimbingan teknis dan pembinaan kelompok tani dalam budidaya dan pembibitan tanaman, pemanfaatan limbah buah pinus sebagai souvenir, pembuatan kuliner berbahan baku lokal, pembuatan blog desa ekowisata serta pengadaan sarana penunjang ekowisata. Hasil dari PPDM yaitu tersedianya ±3000 bibit tanaman, lokasi persemaian bagi kelompok tani, produk kuliner berbahan baku lokal serta souvenir yang berbahan baku limbah pinus, Blog desa serta obyek ekowisata yang akan terus dikembangkan dimasa depan.Kata Kunci: Hasil Hutan Bukan Kayu, Ekowisata, Konservasi, Souvenir, Pendapatan.AbstractThe village of Uwemanje is a village potentially on the slopes of the Gawalise mountain range which has a hilly topography where most of the land has a slope of more than 40%, so agricultural practices in this village are very prone to erosion and other land degradation. The most important main commodity in this village is Non-Timber Forest Products such as stands of pine, candlenut and bamboo which are the result of reforestation on critical land in this village. The second year of the partner village development program is fostering three partners namely farmer group, PKK group and Pemuda Sadar Wisata group in the development and promotion of ecotourism. The problem that was overcome in the second year was the lack of knowledge and skills of the target community and the unavailability of plant seedlings needed by the local community. Approach methods offered in the form of education and training for partners through counseling and training in the form of technical guidance and coaching of farmer groups in crop cultivation and nurseries, utilization of pine waste as souvenirs, making local-based culinary, ecotourism village blogging and procurement of ecotourism supporting facilities. The results of PPDM program are the availability of ± 3000 plant seedlings, nursery locations for farmer groups, local-based culinary products as well as souvenirs made from pine waste and, Blog/Website of ecotourism villages and ecotourism objects to be developed.Keywords: Non-Timber Forest Products, Ecotourism, Conservation, Souvenir, Income.

Purpose This research sheds light on behavioral change by demonstrating the transformative power of a brand on the process of eating behavioral change. The selected brand is Three Times a Day (a culinary blog whose mission is to encourage a healthier diet). This study aims to identify food-related behavioral changes as a result of consumers’ relationship with this brand and identify antecedents to such changes. Design/methodology/approach A netnography of the brand online community and 14 individual in-depth interviews were conducted. Findings Netnography results identify four categories of behavioral changes emerging from the relationship with the brand (e.g. choosing healthier/more varied foods, developing an interest in cooking and adopting a healthier lifestyle). Analysis of the individual interviews substantiate the role of brand attachment as a driver of positive change and identify three antecedents: brand-self connection (through past, actual and ideal self), brand exposure and satisfaction of individual needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness). Research limitations/implications Results enrich the literature on behavioral change and highlight the positive role of a brand in the context of improving eating habits. Findings extend the understanding of the consequences of attachment beyond its influence at the attitudinal level by focusing on concrete consumer behavior. Social implications It is recognized that despite good intentions, individuals keep making poor food choices. This important issue is associated with several diseases and increasing social costs. This research explores how to influence consumers in adopting better eating habits. Originality/value This study is one of the first to examine the power of a food-related brand to enhance positive eating practices and improve diet.

The main goal of research is studying the regional specifics of traditional food of the ethnic groups inhabiting the Right-Bank Polissia and identifying prospects for the use of gastronomic brands in tourism. Substantiation of opportunities and ways to use the gastronomic brand of the territory in the development of hotel and restaurant business have been investigated. The theoretical significance lies in the development of the gastronomic brand of the Right-Bank Polissia - the national Ukrainian cuisine - due to tourist gastronomic tourism and brand promotion as the significance of the destination. The purpose of gastronomic tours - is to get acquainted with the peculiarities of the cuisine of a country. It is important to learn the features of the local recipe, which for centuries has absorbed the traditions and customs of the locals, their culture of cooking. The methodological basis of the research is scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists and practitioners on the organization and development of tourism, regional economy, event management, event marketing, strategic planning, organization of gastronomic tourism, evaluation of economic efficiency of gastronomic tourism and in particular gastronomic activities. This paper uses such forms of research as surveys and questionnaires, special marketing research, study of financial and commercial reporting of restaurants. Information of sales agents, data from fairs, exhibitions and workshops, culinary blogs, own expeditionary research. Results. According to the results of the research, gastronomic events and branded dishes of the Right-Bank Polissia have been analyzed and new directions of gastronomic tourism development have been outlined. Namely, the gastronomic brand is an objective necessity, technology and using them at different levels: from the state level to the enterprise level, one can not only survive in today's complex market conditions, but also strengthen his competitiveness in the world market. Gastronomic branding of the territory with its correct understanding becomes a very effective tool for updating the historical and cultural heritage, and branding of territories in their relationship and with a comprehensive and differentiated approach can lead to a new impetus to their development and unity of nations and the world. Scientific novelty. Elements of scientific novelty are concentrated in specification of possibilities and ways of gastronomic tourism development, in particular development of a Polissia kitchen brand using gastronomic brand of the territory. The definition of "gastronomic brand" of the Right-Bank Polissia was introduced. Practical significance. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility and feasibility of using the proposed methodological approaches and practical recommendations in the formation of strategies for promoting the gastronomic brand at the regional level.

It has been shown that phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K) participates in oocyte maturation by regulating the activity of important reactions related to the resumption of meiosis and energy metabolism. Changes in the enzyme activity caused by in vitro conditions may impair important events of oocyte maturation and consequently the production of blastocysts. The study aimed to verify the effect of the addition of wortmannin (a specific inhibitor of PI3K) to the in vitro maturation medium on nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of bovine oocyte, as well as on the production of blastocysts. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were matured in vitro in medium supplemented with FCS and 0 (control) or 20 nM of wortmannin and then fertilized and cultured in vitro in the absence of inhibitor. Twenty-two hours after in vitro maturation the determination of PI3K activity of oocytes by Western blot was performed using anti-PI3K subunit P85 antibody/peroxidase. The activity quantification was performed by densitometry of the bands using the Gel Perfect software (Bozzo and Retamal 1991 Arch. Biol. Med. Exp. 63, 510). To check the effect of treatment on energy metabolism, glucose and glycogen concentration of oocytes was quantified by Glucox 500 test (Doles Reagentes e Equipamentos Para Laboratórios Ltd., Goiânia, Brazil). The oocyte viability determination was performed by double labelling with propidium iodide and calcein AM. To determine the nuclear maturation, the oocytes were stained with 2% acetic orcein, being considered matured those with chromosomes in metaphase plate. To assess the meiotic spindle organisation, the oocytes were labelled with anti-α tubulin-FITC and propidium iodide. The distribution of actin filaments and mitochondria was determined by rhodamine-phalloidin labelling. The distribution of cortical granules was observed by labelling the oocytes with Lens culinaris–fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). The cleavage and blastocyst rates were determined at 48 and 168 h post-fertilization, respectively, both calculated on the number of oocytes placed to mature. The treatment means were compared by t-test (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA, 2003). Wortmannin produced a reduction around 40% of PI3K activity; however, the levels of glucose and glycogen were not altered. No changes were found in the viability of in vitro matured oocytes or in nuclear maturation rate (P ≥ 0.05). Treatment did not promote any change in the organisation of meiotic spindle, distribution of actin filaments, and positioning of mitochondria. However, oocytes treated with wortmannin showed a significant increase (P ≤ 0.05) in the migration of cortical granules compared with controls (87.4% ± 11.4 and 72.8 ± 11.8%, respectively). The cleavage rate was not influenced by treatment, but the blastocyst rate was higher when oocytes were matured in presence of wortmannin (34.2 ± 6.4% v. 20.0 ± 5.0%, respectively; P ≤ 0.05). The results indicate that partial inhibition of PI3K activity in bovine oocytes treated with wortmannin during in vitro maturation did not affect nuclear maturation, but improved the migration of cortical granules, which seems to have contributed to the increased the blastocyst rate.

Introduction Many destinations promote culinary encounters. Foods and beverages, and especially how these will taste in situ, are being marketed as niche travel motivators and used in destination brand building across the globe. While initial usage of the term culinary tourism focused on experiencing exotic cultures of foreign destinations by sampling unfamiliar food and drinks, the term has expanded to embrace a range of leisure travel experiences where the aim is to locate and taste local specialities as part of a pleasurable, and hopefully notable, culinary encounter (Wolf). Long’s foundational work was central in developing the idea of culinary tourism as an active endeavor, suggesting that via consumption, individuals construct unique experiences. Ignatov and Smith’s literature review-inspired definition confirms the nature of activity as participatory, and adds consuming food production skills—from observing agriculture and local processors to visiting food markets and attending cooking schools—to culinary purchases. Despite importing almost all of its foodstuffs and beverages, including some of its water, Singapore is an acknowledged global leader in culinary tourism. Horng and Tsai note that culinary tourism conceptually implies that a transferal of “local or special knowledge and information that represent local culture and identities” (41) occurs via these experiences. This article adds the act of reading to these participatory activities and suggests that, because food writing forms an important component of Singapore’s suite of culinary tourism offerings, taste contributes to the cultural experience offered to both visitors and locals. While Singapore foodways have attracted significant scholarship (see, for instance, work by Bishop; Duruz; Huat & Rajah; Tarulevicz, Eating), Singapore food writing, like many artefacts of popular culture, has attracted less notice. Yet, this writing is an increasingly visible component of cultural production of, and about, Singapore, and performs a range of functions for locals, tourists and visitors before they arrive. Although many languages are spoken in Singapore, English is the national language (Alsagoff) and this study focuses on food writing in English. Background Tourism comprises a major part of Singapore’s economy, with recent figures detailing that food and beverage sales contribute over 10 per cent of this revenue, with spend on culinary tours and cookery classes, home wares such as tea-sets and cookbooks, food magazines and food memoirs additional to this (Singapore Government). This may be related to the fact that Singapore not only promotes food as a tourist attraction, but also actively promotes itself as an exceptional culinary destination. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) includes food in its general information brochures and websites, and its print, television and cinema commercials (Huat and Rajah). It also mounts information-rich campaigns both abroad and inside Singapore. The 2007 ‘Singapore Seasons’ campaign, for instance, promoted Singaporean cuisine alongside films, design, books and other cultural products in London, New York and Beijing. Touring cities identified as key tourist markets in 2011, the ‘Singapore Takeout’ pop-up restaurant brought the taste of Singaporean foods into closer focus. Singaporean chefs worked with high profile locals in its kitchen in a custom-fabricated shipping container to create and demonstrate Singaporean dishes, attracting public and media interest. In country, the STB similarly actively promotes the tastes of Singaporean foods, hosting the annual World Gourmet Summit (Chaney and Ryan) and Pacific Food Expo, both attracting international culinary professionals to work alongside local leaders. The Singapore Food Festival each July is marketed to both locals and visitors. In these ways, the STB, as well as providing events for visitors, is actively urging Singaporeans to proud of their food culture and heritage, so that each Singaporean becomes a proactive ambassador of their cuisine. Singapore Food Writing Popular print guidebooks and online guides to Singapore pay significantly more attention to Singaporean food than they do for many other destinations. Sections on food in such publications discuss at relative length the taste of Singaporean food (always delicious) as well as how varied, authentic, hygienic and suited-to-all-budgets it is. These texts also recommend hawker stalls and food courts alongside cafés and restaurants (Henderson et al.), and a range of other culinary experiences such as city and farm food tours and cookery classes. This writing describes not only what can be seen or learned during these experiences, but also what foods can be sampled, and how these might taste. This focus on taste is reflected in the printed materials that greet the in-bound tourist at the airport. On a visit in October 2013, arrival banners featuring mouth-watering images of local specialities such as chicken rice and chilli crab marked the route from arrival to immigration and baggage collection. Even advertising for a bank was illustrated with photographs of luscious-looking fruits. The free maps and guidebooks available featured food-focused tours and restaurant locations, and there were also substantial free booklets dedicated solely to discussing local delicacies and their flavours, plus recommended locations to sample them. A website and free mobile app were available that contain practical information about dishes, ingredients, cookery methods, and places to eat, as well as historical and cultural information. These resources are also freely distributed to many hotels and popular tourist destinations. Alongside organising food walks, bus tours and cookery classes, the STB also recommends the work of a number of Singaporean food writers—principally prominent Singapore food bloggers, reviewers and a number of memoirists—as authentic guides to what are described as unique Singaporean flavours. The strategies at the heart of this promotion are linking advertising to useful information. At a number of food centres, for instance, STB information panels provide details about both specific dishes and Singapore’s food culture more generally (Henderson et al.). This focus is apparent at many tourist destinations, many of which are also popular local attractions. In historic Fort Canning Park, for instance, there is a recreation of Raffles’ experimental garden, established in 1822, where he grew the nutmeg, clove and other plants that were intended to form the foundation for spice plantations but were largely unsuccessful (Reisz). Today, information panels not only indicate the food plants’ names and how to grow them, but also their culinary and medicinal uses, recipes featuring them and the related food memories of famous Singaporeans. The Singapore Botanic Gardens similarly houses the Ginger Garden displaying several hundred species of ginger and information, and an Eco(-nomic/logical) Garden featuring many food plants and their stories. In Chinatown, panels mounted outside prominent heritage brands (often still quite small shops) add content to the shopping experience. A number of museums profile Singapore’s food culture in more depth. The National Museum of Singapore has a permanent Living History gallery that focuses on Singapore’s street food from the 1950s to 1970s. This display includes food-related artefacts, interactive aromatic displays of spices, films of dishes being made and eaten, and oral histories about food vendors, all supported by text panels and booklets. Here food is used to convey messages about the value of Singapore’s ethnic diversity and cross-cultural exchanges. Versions of some of these dishes can then be sampled in the museum café (Time Out Singapore). The Peranakan Museum—which profiles the unique hybrid culture of the descendants of the Chinese and South Indian traders who married local Malay women—shares this focus, with reconstructed kitchens and dining rooms, exhibits of cooking and eating utensils and displays on food’s ceremonial role in weddings and funerals all supported with significant textual information. The Chinatown Heritage Centre not only recreates food preparation areas as a vivid indicator of poor Chinese immigrants’ living conditions, but also houses The National Restaurant of Singapore, which translates this research directly into meals that recreate the heritage kopi tiam (traditional coffee shop) cuisine of Singapore in the 1930s, purposefully bringing taste into the service of education, as its descriptive menu states, “educationally delighting the palate” (Chinatown Heritage Centre). These museums recognise that shopping is a core tourist activity in Singapore (Chang; Yeung et al.). Their gift- and bookshops cater to the culinary tourist by featuring quality culinary products for sale (including, for instance, teapots and cups, teas, spices and traditional sweets, and other foods) many of which are accompanied by informative tags or brochures. At the centre of these curated, purchasable collections are a range written materials: culinary magazines, cookbooks, food histories and memoirs, as well as postcards and stationery printed with recipes. Food Magazines Locally produced food magazines cater to a range of readerships and serve to extend the culinary experience both in, and outside, Singapore. These include high-end gourmet, luxury lifestyle publications like venerable monthly Wine & Dine: The Art of Good Living, which, in in print for almost thirty years, targets an affluent readership (Wine & Dine). The magazine runs features on local dining, gourmet products and trends, as well as international epicurean locations and products. Beautifully illustrated recipes also feature, as the magazine declares, “we’ve recognised that sharing more recipes should be in the DNA of Wine & Dine’s editorial” (Wine & Dine). Appetite magazine, launched in 2006, targets the “new and emerging generation of gourmets—foodies with a discerning and cosmopolitan outlook, broad horizons and a insatiable appetite” (Edipresse Asia) and is reminiscent in much of its styling of New Zealand’s award-winning Cuisine magazine. Its focus is to present a fresh approach to both cooking at home and dining out, as readers are invited to “Whip up the perfect soufflé or feast with us at the finest restaurants in Singapore and around the region” (Edipresse Asia). Chefs from leading local restaurants are interviewed, and the voices of “fellow foodies and industry watchers” offer an “insider track” on food-related news: “what’s good and what’s new” (Edipresse Asia). In between these publications sits Epicure: Life’s Refinements, which features local dishes, chefs, and restaurants as well as an overseas travel section and a food memories column by a featured author. Locally available ingredients are also highlighted, such as abalone (Cheng) and an interesting range of mushrooms (Epicure). While there is a focus on an epicurean experience, this is presented slightly more casually than in Wine & Dine. Food & Travel focuses more on home cookery, but each issue also includes reviews of Singapore restaurants. The bimonthly bilingual (Chinese and English) Gourmet Living features recipes alongside a notable focus on food culture—with food history columns, restaurant reviews and profiles of celebrated chefs. An extensive range of imported international food magazines are also available, with those from nearby Malaysia and Indonesia regularly including articles on Singapore. Cookbooks These magazines all include reviews of cookery books including Singaporean examples – and some feature other food writing such as food histories, memoirs and blogs. These reviews draw attention to how many Singaporean cookbooks include a focus on food history alongside recipes. Cookery teacher Yee Soo Leong’s 1976 Singaporean Cooking was an early example of cookbook as heritage preservation. This 1976 book takes an unusual view of ‘Singaporean’ flavours. Beginning with sweet foods—Nonya/Singaporean and western cakes, biscuits, pies, pastries, bread, desserts and icings—it also focuses on both Singaporean and Western dishes. This text is also unusual as there are only 6 lines of direct authorial address in the author’s acknowledgements section. Expatriate food writer Wendy Hutton’s Singapore Food, first published in 1979, reprinted many times after and revised in 2007, has long been recognised as one of the most authoritative titles on Singapore’s food heritage. Providing an socio-historical map of Singapore’s culinary traditions, some one third of the first edition was devoted to information about Singaporean multi-cultural food history, including detailed profiles of a number of home cooks alongside its recipes. Published in 1980, Kenneth Mitchell’s A Taste of Singapore is clearly aimed at a foreign readership, noting the variety of foods available due to the racial origins of its inhabitants. The more modest, but equally educational in intent, Hawkers Flavour: A Guide to Hawkers Gourmet in Malaysia and Singapore (in its fourth printing in 1998) contains a detailed introductory essay outlining local food culture, favourite foods and drinks and times these might be served, festivals and festive foods, Indian, Indian Muslim, Chinese, Nyonya (Chinese-Malay), Malay and Halal foods and customs, followed with a selection of recipes from each. More contemporary examples of such information-rich cookbooks, such as those published in the frequently reprinted Periplus Mini Cookbook series, are sold at tourist attractions. Each of these modestly priced, 64-page, mouthwateringly illustrated booklets offer framing information, such as about a specific food culture as in the Nonya kitchen in Nonya Favourites (Boi), and explanatory glossaries of ingredients, as in Homestyle Malay Cooking (Jelani). Most recipes include a boxed paragraph detailing cookery or ingredient information that adds cultural nuance, as well as trying to describe tastes that the (obviously foreign) intended reader may not have encountered. Malaysian-born Violet Oon, who has been called the Julia Child of Singapore (Bergman), writes for both local and visiting readers. The FOOD Paper, published monthly for a decade from January 1987 was, she has stated, then “Singapore’s only monthly publication dedicated to the CSF—Certified Singapore Foodie” (Oon, Violet Oon Cooks 7). Under its auspices, Oon promoted her version of Singaporean cuisine to both locals and visitors, as well as running cookery classes and culinary events, hosting her own television cooking series on the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, and touring internationally for the STB as a ‘Singapore Food Ambassador’ (Ahmad; Kraal). Taking this representation of flavor further, Oon has also produced a branded range of curry powders, spices, and biscuits, and set up a number of food outlets. Her first cookbook, World Peranakan Cookbook, was published in 1978. Her Singapore: 101 Meals of 1986 was commissioned by the STB, then known as the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. Violet Oon Cooks, a compilation of recipes from The FOOD Paper, published in 1992, attracted a range of major international as well as Singaporean food sponsors, and her Timeless Recipes, published in 1997, similarly aimed to show how manufactured products could be incorporated into classic Singaporean dishes cooked at home. In 1998, Oon produced A Singapore Family Cookbook featuring 100 dishes. Many were from Nonya cuisine and her following books continued to focus on preserving heritage Singaporean recipes, as do a number of other nationally-cuisine focused collections such as Joyceline Tully and Christopher Tan’s Heritage Feasts: A Collection of Singapore Family Recipes. Sylvia Tan’s Singapore Heritage Food: Yesterday’s Recipes for Today’s Cooks, published in 2004, provides “a tentative account of Singapore’s food history” (5). It does this by mapping the various taste profiles of six thematically-arranged chronologically-overlapping sections, from the heritage of British colonialism, to the uptake of American and Russia foods in the Snackbar era of the 1960s and the use of convenience flavoring ingredients such as curry pastes, sauces, dried and frozen supermarket products from the 1970s. Other Volumes Other food-themed volumes focus on specific historical periods. Cecilia Leong-Salobir’s Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire discusses the “unique hybrid” (1) cuisine of British expatriates in Singapore from 1858 to 1963. In 2009, the National Museum of Singapore produced the moving Wong Hong Suen’s Wartime Kitchen: Food and Eating in Singapore 1942–1950. This details the resilience and adaptability of both diners and cooks during the Japanese Occupation and in post-war Singapore, when shortages stimulated creativity. There is a centenary history of the Cold Storage company which shipped frozen foods all over south east Asia (Boon) and location-based studies such as Annette Tan’s Savour Chinatown: Stories Memories & Recipes. Tan interviewed hawkers, chefs and restaurant owners, working from this information to write both the book’s recipes and reflect on Chinatown’s culinary history. Food culture also features in (although it is not the main focus) more general book-length studies such as educational texts such as Chew Yen Fook’s The Magic of Singapore and Melanie Guile’s Culture in Singapore (2000). Works that navigate both spaces (of Singaporean culture more generally and its foodways) such Lily Kong’s Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food, provide an consistent narrative of food in Singapore, stressing its multicultural flavours that can be enjoyed from eateries ranging from hawker stalls to high-end restaurants that, interestingly, that agrees with that promulgated in the food writing discussed above. Food Memoirs and Blogs Many of these narratives include personal material, drawing on the author’s own food experiences and taste memories. This approach is fully developed in the food memoir, a growing sub-genre of Singapore food writing. While memoirs by expatriate Singaporeans such as Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family, produced by major publisher Hyperion in New York, has attracted considerable international attention, it presents a story of Singapore cuisine that agrees with such locally produced texts as television chef and food writer Terry Tan’s Stir-fried and Not Shaken: A Nostalgic Trip Down Singapore’s Memory Lane and the food memoir of the Singaporean chef credited with introducing fine Malay dining to Singapore, Aziza Ali’s Sambal Days, Kampong Cuisine, published in Singapore in 2013 with the support of the National Heritage Board. All these memoirs are currently available in Singapore in both bookshops and a number of museums and other attractions. While underscoring the historical and cultural value of these foods, all describe the unique flavours of Singaporean cuisine and its deliciousness. A number of prominent Singapore food bloggers are featured in general guidebooks and promoted by the STB as useful resources to dining out in Singapore. One of the most prominent of these is Leslie Tay, a medical doctor and “passionate foodie” (Knipp) whose awardwinning ieatŸishootŸipost is currently attracting some 90,000 unique visitors every month and has had over 20,000 million hits since its launch in 2006. An online diary of Tay’s visits to hundreds of Singaporean hawker stalls, it includes descriptions and photographs of meals consumed, creating accumulative oral culinary histories of these dishes and those who prepared them. These narratives have been reorganised and reshaped in Tay’s first book The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries, where each chapter tells the story of one particular dish, including recommended hawker stalls where it can be enjoyed. Ladyironchef.com is a popular food and travel site that began as a blog in 2007. An edited collection of reviews of eateries and travel information, many by the editor himself, the site features lists of, for example, the best cafes (LadyIronChef “Best Cafes”), eateries at the airport (LadyIronChef “Guide to Dining”), and hawker stalls (Lim). While attesting to the cultural value of these foods, many articles also discuss flavour, as in Lim’s musings on: ‘how good can chicken on rice taste? … The glistening grains of rice perfumed by fresh chicken stock and a whiff of ginger is so good you can even eat it on its own’. Conclusion Recent Singapore food publishing reflects this focus on taste. Tay’s publisher, Epigram, growing Singaporean food list includes the recently released Heritage Cookbooks Series. This highlights specialist Singaporean recipes and cookery techniques, with the stated aim of preserving tastes and foodways that continue to influence Singaporean food culture today. Volumes published to date on Peranakan, South Indian, Cantonese, Eurasian, and Teochew (from the Chaoshan region in the east of China’s Guangdong province) cuisines offer both cultural and practical guides to the quintessential dishes and flavours of each cuisine, featuring simple family dishes alongside more elaborate special occasion meals. In common with the food writing discussed above, the books in this series, although dealing with very different styles of cookery, contribute to an overall impression of the taste of Singapore food that is highly consistent and extremely persuasive. This food writing narrates that Singapore has a delicious as well as distinctive and interesting food culture that plays a significant role in Singaporean life both currently and historically. It also posits that this food culture is, at the same time, easily accessible and also worthy of detailed consideration and discussion. In this way, this food writing makes a contribution to both local and visitors’ appreciation of Singaporean food culture. References Ahmad, Nureza. “Violet Oon.” Singapore Infopedia: An Electronic Encyclopedia on Singapore’s History, Culture, People and Events (2004). 22 Nov. 2013 ‹http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_459_2005-01-14.html?s=Violet%20Oon›.Ali, Aziza. Sambal Days, Kampong Cuisine. Singapore: Ate Ideas, 2013. Alsagoff, Lubna. “English in Singapore: Culture, capital and identity in linguistic variation”. World Englishes 29.3 (2010): 336–48.Bergman, Justin. “Restaurant Report: Violet Oon’s Kitchen in Singapore.” New York Times (13 March 2013). 21 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/travel/violet-oons-kitchen-singapore-restaurant-report.html?_r=0›. Bishop, Peter. “Eating in the Contact Zone: Singapore Foodscape and Cosmopolitan Timespace.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 25.5 (2011): 637–652. Boi, Lee Geok. Nonya Favourites. 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Acknowledgements Research to complete this article was supported by Central Queensland University, Australia, under its Outside Studies Program (OSPRO) and Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC). An earlier version of part of this article was presented at the 2nd Australasian Regional Food Networks and Cultures Conference, in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, Australia, 11–14 November 2012. The delegates of that conference and expert reviewers of this article offered some excellent suggestions regarding strengthening this article and their advice was much appreciated. All errors are, of course, my own.

Introduction Sharing food is central to culture. Indeed, according to Montanari, “food is culture” (xii). Ways of sharing knowledge about food, such as the exchange of recipes, give longevity to food sharing. Recipes, an important cultural technology, expand the practice of sharing food beyond specific times and places. The means through which recipes, and information about food, is shared has historically been communicated through whatever medium is available at the time. Cookbooks were among the first printed books, with the first known cookbook published in 1485 at Nuremberg, which set a trend in which cookbooks were published in most of the languages across Western Europe by the mid 16th century (Mennell). Since then, recipe collections have found a comfortable home in new and emerging media, from radio, to television, and now, online. The proliferation of cookbooks and other forms of food-related media “can be interpreted as a reflection of culinary inexperience, if not also incompetence—otherwise why so much reliance on outside advice?” (Belasco 46). Food-related media has also been argued to reflect both what people eat and what they might wish they could eat (Neuhaus, in Belasco). As such, cookbooks, television cooking shows, and food websites help shape our identity and, as Gallegos notes, play “a role in inscribing the self with a sense of place, belonging and achievement” (99). Food writing has expanded beyond the instructional form common to cookbooks and television cooking shows and, according to Hughes, “has insinuated itself into every aspect of the literary imagination” (online) from academic writing through to memoir, fiction, and travel writing. Hughes argues that concerns that people are actually now cooking less that ever, despite this influx of food-related media, miss the point that “food writing is a literary activity […] the best of it does what good writing always does, which is to create an alternative world to the one you currently inhabit” (online). While pragmatic, this argument also reinforces the common perception that food writing is a professional pursuit. It is important to note that while cookbooks and other forms of food-related media are well established as a means for recipes to be communicated, recipes have a longer history of being shared between individuals, that is, within families and communities. In helping to expand recipe-sharing practices, food-related media has also both professionalised and depersonalised this activity. As perhaps a reaction to this, or through a desire to re-establish communal recipe-sharing traditions, blogging, and specifically food blogging, has emerged as a new and viable way for people to share information about food in a non-professional capacity. Blogging has long been celebrated for its capacity to give “ordinary” people a voice (Nilsson). Due to their social nature (Walker Rettberg) and the ability for bloggers to create “networks for sharing ideas, trends and information” (Walker Rettberg 60), blogs are a natural fit for sharing recipes and information about food. Additionally, blogs, like food-related media forms such as cookbooks, are also used as tools for identity building. Blogger’s identities may be closely tied to their offline identity (Baumer, Sueyoshi and Tomlinson), forged through discussions about their everyday lives (Lövheim) or used in a professional capacity (Kedrowicz and Sullivan). Food blogs, broadly defined as blogs primarily focused on food, are one of the most prominent means through which so-called “ordinary” people can share recipes online, and can be seen to challenge perceptions that food writing is a professional activity. They may focus specifically on recipes, restaurant reviews, travel, food ethics, or aesthetic concerns such as food styling and photography. Since food blogs began to appear in the early 2000s, their number has steadily increased, and the community has become more established and structured. In my interview with the writer of the popular blog Chocolate & Zucchini, she noted that when she started blogging about food in 2003 there were perhaps a dozen other food bloggers. Since then, this blogger has become a professional food writer, published author, and recipe developer, while the number of food bloggers has grown dramatically. It is difficult to know the precise number of food blogs—as at July 2012, Technorati ranked more than 16,000 food blogs, including both recipe and restaurant review blogs (online)—but it is clear that they are both increasing in number and have become a common and popular blog genre. For the purposes of this article, food blogs are understood as those blogs that mostly feature recipes. The term “recipe blog” could be used, but food bloggers make little distinction between different topic categories—whether someone writes recipes or reviews, they are referred to as a food blogger. As such, I have used the term “food blog” in keeping with the community’s own terminology and practices. Recipes published on blogs reach a wider audience than those shared between individuals within a family or in a community, but are not as exclusive or professional, in most instances, as traditional food-related media. Blogging allows for the compression of time and space, as people can connect with others from around the world, and respond and reinvigorate posts sometimes several years after they have been written. In this sense, food blogs are more dynamic than cookbooks, with multiple entry points and means for people to discover them—through search engines as well as through traditional word of mouth referrals. This dynamism allows food bloggers to form an active community through which “ordinary” people can share their passion for food and the pleasures of cooking, seek advice, give feedback, and discuss such issues as seasonality, locality, and diet. This article is based on research I conducted on food blogs between 2010 and 2012, which used an ethnographic, cultural studies approach to online community studies to provide a rich description of the food blogging community. It examines how food blogging provides insight into the eating habits of “ordinary” people in a more broad-based manner than traditional food-related media such as cookbooks. It looks at how food blogging has evolved from a subcultural activity to an established and recognised element of the wider food-related media ecology, and in this way has been transformed from a hobbyist activity to a cottage industry. It discusses how food blogs have influenced food-related media and the potential they have to drive food trends. In doing so, this research does not consider the Internet, or online communities, as separate or distinct from offline culture. Instead, it follows Richard Rogers’s argument for a new approach to Internet studies, in which “one is not so much researching the Internet, and its users, as studying culture and society with the Internet” (29). A cultural studies approach is useful for understanding food blogs in a broader historical and cultural context, since it considers the Internet as “a rich arena for thinking about how contemporary culture is constituted” (Hine et al. 2). Food Blogging: From Hobbyist Activity to Cottage Industry Benkler argues that “people have always created their own culture” (296); however, as folk culture has gradually been replaced by mass-produced popular culture, we have come to expect certain production values in culture, and lost confidence in creating or sharing it ourselves, for fear of it not meeting these high standards. Such mass-produced popular culture includes food-related media and recipes, as developing and sharing recipes has become the domain of celebrity chefs. Food blogs are created by “ordinary” people, and in this way continue the tradition of community cookbooks and reflect an increased interest in both the do-it-yourself phenomena, and a resurgence of a desire to share and contribute to folk culture. Jenkins argues that “a thriving culture needs spaces where people can do bad art, get feedback, and get better” (140-1). He notes that the Internet has drastically expanded the availability of these spaces, and argues that: "some of what amateurs create will be surprisingly good, and some artists will be recruited into commercial entertainment or the art world. Much of it will be good enough to engage the interest of some modest public, to inspire someone else to create, to provide new content which, when polished through many hands, may turn into something more valuable down the line" (140-1). Food blogs provide such a space for amateurs to share their creations and get feedback. Additionally, some food bloggers, like the artists to whom Jenkins refers, do create recipes, writing, and images that are “surprisingly good”, and are recruited, not into commercial entertainment or the art world, but into food-related media. Some food bloggers publish cookbooks (for example, Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini), or food-related memoirs (for example, Molly Wizenberg of Orangette), and some become food celebrities in their own right, as guests on high profile television shows such as Martha Stewart (Matt Armendariz of mattbites) or with their own cooking shows (Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman Cooks). Others, while not reaching these levels of success, do manage to inspire others to create, or recreate their, recipes. Mainstream media has a tendency to suggest that all food bloggers have professional aspirations (see, for example, Phipps). Yet, it is important to note that, many food bloggers are content to remain hobbyists. These food bloggers form the majority of the community, and blog about food because they are interested in food, and enjoy sharing recipes and discussing their interest with like-minded people. In this way, they are contributing to, and engaging with, folk culture within the blogging community. However, this does not mean that they do not have a broader impact on mainstream food-related media. Food-Related Media Response As the food blogging community has grown, food-related media and other industries have responded with attempts to understand, engage with, and manage food bloggers. Food blogs are increasingly recognised as an aspect of the broader food-related media and, as such, provide both competition and opportunities for media and other industries. Just as food blogs offer individuals opportunities for entry into food-related media professions, they also offer media and other industries opportunities to promote products, reach broader audiences, and source new talent. While food bloggers do not necessarily challenge existing food-related media, they increasingly see themselves as a part of it, and expect to be viewed as a legitimate part of the media landscape and as an alternative source of food-related information. As such, they respond positively to the inclusion of bloggers in food-related media and in other food-related environments. Engaging with the food blogging community allows the wider food-related media to subtly regulate blogger behaviour. It can also provide opportunities for some bloggers to be recruited in a professional capacity into food-related media. In a sense, food-related media attempt to “tame” food bloggers by suggesting that if bloggers behave in a way that they deem is acceptable, they may be able to transition into the professional world of food writing. The most notable example of this response to food blogs by food-related media is the decision to publish blogger’s work. While not all food bloggers have professional aspirations, being published is generally viewed within the community as a positive outcome. Food bloggers are sometimes profiled in food-related media, such as in the Good Weekend magazine in The Sydney Morning Herald (Karnikowski), and in MasterChef Magazine, which profiles a different food blogger each month (T. Jenkins). Food bloggers are also occasionally commissioned to write features for food-related media, as Katie Quinn Davies, of the blog What Katie Ate, who is a regular contributor to delicious magazine. Other food bloggers have been published in their own right. These food bloggers have transitioned from hobbyists to professionals, moving beyond blogging spaces into professional food-related media, and they could be, in Abercrombie and Longhurst’s terms, described as “petty producers” (140). As professionals, they have become a sort of “brand”, which their blog supports and promotes. This is not to say they are no longer interested in food or blogging on a personal level, but their relationship to these activities has shifted. For example, Dusoulier has published numerous books, and was one of the first food bloggers to transition into professional food-related media. However, her career in food-related media—as a food writer, recipe developer and author—goes beyond the work of a petty producer. Dusoulier edited the first English-language edition of I Know How To Cook (Mathiot), which, first published in 1932 (in French), has been described as the “bible” of traditional French cookery. Her work revising this classic book reveals that, beyond being a high-profile member of the food blogging community, she is a key figure in wider food culture. Such professional food bloggers achieve a certain level of celebrity both within the food blogging community and in food-related media. This is reflective of broader media trends in which “ordinary” people are “plucked from obscurity to enjoy a highly circumscribed celebrity” (Turner 12), and, in this way, food bloggers challenge the idea that you need to be an “expert” to talk publicly about food. Food Blogging as an Established Genre Food blogs are often included alongside traditional food-related media as another source of food-related information. For example, the site Eat your books, which indexes cookbooks, providing users with an online tool for searching the recipes in the books they own, has begun to index food blogs as well. Likewise, in 2010, the James Beard Foundation announced that their prestigious journalism awards had “mostly abolished separate categories based on publishing platforms”, although they still have an award for best food blog (Fox online). This inclusion reflects how established food blogging has become. Over time, food blogs have co-evolved and converged with food-related media, offering greater diversity of opinion. Ganda Suthivarakom, a food blogger and now director of the SAVEUR website, says that “in 2004, to be a food blogger was to be an outsider in the world of food media. Today, it couldn’t be more different” (online). She argues that “food blogs leveled the playing field […] Instead of a rarefied and inaccessible group of print reviewers having a say, suddenly thousands of voices of varying skill levels and interests chimed in, and the conversation became livelier” (Suthivarakom online). It is worthwhile noting that while there are more voices and more diversity in traditional food-related media, food blogging has also become somewhat of a cliché: it has even been satirised in an episode of The Simpsons (Bailey and Anderson). As food blogging has evolved it has developed into an established and recognised genre, which may be nuanced to the bloggers themselves, but often appears generic to outsiders. Food blogging has, as it were, gone mainstream. As such, the thousands of voices are also somewhat of an echo chamber. In becoming established as a genre, food blogs reflect the gradual convergence of different types of food-related media. Food blogs are part of a wider trend towards user-generated, food-related online content. It could also be argued that reality shows take cues from food blogs in terms of their active audiences and use of social media. MasterChef in particular is supported by a website, a magazine, and active social media channels, reflecting an increasing expectation of audience participation and interactivity in the delivery of food-related information. Food bloggers have also arguably contributed to the increasingly image-driven nature of food-related media. They have also played a key role in the popularity of sharing photos of food through platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. Food Blogs and Food Trends Food blogs, like cookbooks, can be seen to both reflect and shape culture (Gallegos). In addition to providing an archive of what “ordinary” people are cooking on a scale not previously available, they have potential to influence food trends. Food bloggers are essentially food enthusiasts or “foodies”. According to De Solier, “most foodies see themselves as culturalists rather than materialists, people whose self-making is bound up in the acquisition of cultural experiences and knowledge, rather than the accumulation of material things” (16). As foodies, food bloggers are deeply engaged with food, keen to share their knowledge and, due to the essential and convivial nature of food, are afforded many opportunities to do so. As such, food blogs have influence beyond the food blogging community. For example, food bloggers could be seen to be responsible, in part at least, for the current popularity of macarons. These sweet, meringue-based biscuits were featured on the blog A la cuisine! in 2004—one of the earliest examples of the recipe in the food blogging community. Its popularity then steadily grew throughout the community, and has since been featured on high-profile and popular blogs such as David Lebovitz (2005), The Traveller’s Lunchbox (2005), and La Tartine Gourmand (2006). Creating and posting a recipe for macarons became almost a rite of passage for food bloggers. At a food blogging conference I attended in 2011, one blogger confided to me that she did not feel like a proper blogger because she had not yet made macarons. The popularity of macarons then extended beyond the food blogging community. They were the subject of a book, I Love Macarons (Ogita), first published in Japanese in 2006 and then in English in 2009, and featured in a cooking challenge on MasterChef (Byrnes), which propelled their popularity into mainstream food culture. Macarons, which could have once been seen as exclusive, delicate, and expensive (Jargon and Passariello) are now readily available, and can even be purchased at MacDonalds. Beyond the popularity of specific foods, the influence of food bloggers can be seen in the growing interest in where, and how, food is produced, coupled with concerns around food wastage (see, for example, Tristram). Concerns about food production are sometimes countered by the trend of making foods “from scratch,” a popular topic on food blogs, and such trends can also be seen in wider food culture, such as with classes on topics ranging from cheese making to butchering (Severson). These concerns are also evident in the growing interest in organic and ethical produce (Paish). Conclusion Food blogs have demonstrably revitalised an interest in recipe sharing among “ordinary” people. The evolution of food blogs, however, is just one part of the ongoing evolution of food-related media and recipe sharing technologies. Food blogs are also an important part of food culture, and indeed, culture more broadly. They reflect a renewed interest in folk culture and the trend towards “do-it-yourself”, seen in online and offline communities. Beyond this, food blogs provide a useful case study for understanding how our online and offline lives have become intertwined, and showcase the Internet as a part of everyday life. 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Introduction Cookbooks are more than recipes. They are valuable historical artifacts containing information about the food, culture and society that produced and used them (Driver, Theophano, Wheaton). This story is based on my first and failed attempt at using an old recipe to make a cheddar cheese. It examines the effect of changed technology on artisanal cooking practices (Supski, Giard) and how recipe writing has had to adapt to changed culinary technology. In the absence of the generational—mother to daughter—handing down of cooking practices, and an inherited understanding of traditional cooking techniques gained through practice over time, today’s recipes rely on clear written instructions, illustrations and demonstration for their success. Luce Giard’s discussion of women’s domestic work, and what she refers to as “memory of apprenticeship” (157), and the technological changes that interrupted artisanal food making, underpin the story. Using creative nonfiction this story invites the reader to appreciate how food and cooking are connected to our lives—from the local to the global, connecting food to remembering (Berzok), nostalgia (Duruz), and family relationships (Giard, Supski).My Cheddar CheeseWith their high degree of ritualization and their strong affective investment, culinary activities are for many women of all ages a place of happiness pleasure and discovery. Such life activities demand as much intelligence, imagination and memory as those traditionally held as superior, such as music and weaving (Giard 151). My first attempt at making a cheddar cheese started out as a culinary adventure—part nostalgia, part challenge and part boast. I had in mind the cloth wrapped cheddar cheese of my childhood. We called it mouse’s cheese, as even the mice preferred it to the Kraft cheddar cheese that came wrapped in foil and packaged in a box. My father would peel the cloth away from the round of cheese before cutting out a wedge from it. Then he would slice it, and lay it on buttered toast and grill it until it melted. Bubbles of cheesy oil slid off the sides of the toast, onto the bottom of the grill pan, where cold and crisp afterwards, I would pick them off and eat them. I think that it was this memory that drove my anticipation of the joy of actually making a cheese. The process not only connected me to this memory but also would give me the satisfaction of saying, “I made it myself.” Giard understood this pleasure, connecting it to the lives we lead today:when for so many people nothing remains at the end of the day except for the bitter wear and tear of so many dull hours, the preparation of a meal furnishes that rare joy of producing something oneself, of fashioning a ferment of reality, of knowing the joys of demiurgic miniaturization, all the while securing the gratitude of those who will consume it by way of pleasant and innocent seductions (158). The recipe came from a Country Women’s Association (CWA) cookbook first published in 1936 but republished with minor changes in 1982. It looked simple enough, and the fact that it was there, in amongst recipes for fresh cheeses and butter, gave me the confidence to simply follow the recipe. I would include it in a blog I had started about cooking from old recipe books. Making a cheese gave me the perfect opportunity to follow one recipe and report on its development over its six-week maturation. My followers, I thought, could come on this culinary journey with me. Day One: The Boast I am making a cheddar cheese from a CWA (Country Women’s Association) cookbook. This book, first published in 1936 has chapters on invalid cooking, household hints and a section called ‘Hints to Temper the Temper’. In the butter and cheese making section there is a recipe for a cheddar cheese. It looks so easy. Just a few ingredients: milk, rennet, salt and food colouring, and a few lines of instruction. A friend has fashioned a sort of cheese press for me—based on a picture of one we found on the internet. Yesterday I bought eight litres of organic milk and set to. The recipe is very simple: 1) Heat the milk to blood temperature, add nine rennet tablets and a teaspoon of cheese colouring. Leave it to set and harden and once that is done cut it into the curd and drain the whey off. 2) Once it is dry, add salt and turn it into a cheese press—lined with muslin—to start pressing all the excess moisture out by applying a bit more pressure each day. 3) Once all the moisture is pressed out it wrap it in waxed cheese cloth, set it in a cool place and turn it each day for six weeks.I am at the first stage and the whey is draining away. I think it will be another couple of days before I can start pressing it.In six weeks, I will have a cheese (Adams).Mary Shearer wrote in the foreword of this new 1982 edition of the original text, that the needs of the community had changed in fifty years of CWA service and this included a significant change to meet these needs, namely, a conversion of the recipes from imperial measurements to the metric system. But she expressed confidence that, with the tried recipes of many country women, “the universal appeal enjoyed since the first edition will be retained” (Foreword). Marjorie Maughan, who also wrote a message in the foreword, felt that “with the adaptability of women, the use of metric measures will be accomplished with ease and this edition will be as popular as ever.”Until I started, I had not considered failure. The recipe was included in a reliable cookery book that promised to have universal appeal and where the only possible challenge for cooks of its day would be its metric, rather than imperial, measurements. I was familiar with both metric and imperial—the only challenge mentioned in the foreword—and seduced by the simplicity of both the instructions and the ingredient list. I was soon to discover that my CWA recipe was full of omissions, assumptions, and errors.Cheese was traditionally made in many country kitchens as a way of preserving milk. The skill needed to make it was acquired through years of watching and learning. A written recipe was more of an aide memoire consisting of a list of ingredients and a few lines of simple instruction. To write recipes for today’s cooks, recipe writers usually work from test-kitchens and must include precise detail: their words are tested and edited until they are foolproof. Old recipes are full of assumed knowledge. They often lack details, leave out ingredients, do not provide measurements (or use measurements that are no longer in common usage, like a peck), and use equipment and ingredients that are no longer available or now have a different name. But as Giard writes, women are practiced at dealing with culinary challenges, “each meal demands the invention of an alternative mini-strategy when one ingredient or the appropriate utensil is lacking” (158). I soon found problems with the recipe. It called for eight litres (two gallons) new milk, a two and a half kilogram (five pound) jam tin (which would hold the cheese from six gallons of milk), salt, a teaspoon of cheese colouring, and one dessertspoon of rennet (or nine rennet tablets). What was new milk? What is cheese colouring? Where can I get rennet tablets? The recipe was imprecise: two and a half kilograms does not equate to five pounds. Where do I get a jam tin? I remember big tins of jam from my childhood but I was not sure jam was even packaged in tins these days. Why did I need a tin that would hold six gallons of milk when I only needed two gallons for this cheese? Yellow food colouring would be fine—perhaps with a drop of red to give a more orange tint to the finished cheese—and I found rennet tablets in the supermarket, but I was still unsure about the quantity of salt needed. My previously-quite-simple-recipe now had layers of complexity. There was no one I could ask, and I did not have Giard’s “memory of apprenticeship”:Yet, from the minute one becomes interested in the process of culinary production, one notices that it requires a multiple memory: a memory of apprenticeship, of witnessed gestures, and of consistencies, in order, for example, to identify the exact moment when the custard has begun to coat the back of a spoon and thus must be taken off the stove to prevent it from separating (157–58). I reasoned that if I just did exactly what the instructions said, it had to work: Warm the cheese to blood heat, add the cheese colouring and rennet and stir well. Cover with a cloth to keep in the heat. When the curd is set and firm, cut through and through with a large knife to release the whey. Dip the whey off with a saucer, pressing the curd while doing so. Drain off all the whey and when fairly dry crumble the curd and add salt to taste—about 2 teaspoons should be about sufficient (CWA 342).How hot is blood heat and do I need a thermometer? How much cheese colouring do I need? How firm is firm? How many “through and through” cuts should I make? How dry is “fairly dry”? With my cheese now doomed to fail, I searched for The Australian Dairy Board on the Internet looking for some answers. In a modern cheese factory, to ensure the cheese composition is uniform, milk is standardised: stripped then re-made with all its fats and proteins adjusted to the right proportion, although some small cheese makers do not standardise their milk. Then this milk is pasteurised to destroy all disease making micro-organisms, make the cheese safe to eat, and improve its quality. Cheese starter cultures are used (there was no mention of these in my CWA recipe) and once the milk coagulates and is cut to release the whey, it has to be stirred to release more whey. The length of time the curds are stirred is important in the process as it influences the type of cheese that was made.The women who followed my CWA recipe would have dipped a finger into the milk to test its temperature, tasted the curds for salt, and known when the colour was right. They would have just known when the cheese was pressed enough to wrap in the waxed cloth. They would have covered their day clothes with an apron—protecting their clothes from spills—rather than protecting the cheese from contamination. There would be no sterile gloves, white coats, hairnets, or thermometers in their kitchens. If I had been able to ask them questions their answer would have been, “it is done this way because it has always been done more or less like that” (Giard 171).My cheese was both lacking in salt and very pale. Perhaps, I thought, the flavour would intensify and it would darken during the maturation process. If it stayed this colour it would be the same creamy white as an English Wensleydale cheddar rather than the eggnog-coloured mouse cheeses of my childhood. The cheese press was my inspired “mini-strategy” and one step away from being experimental. It was made from 1) the back of a plastic clipboard with holes drilled into it, 2) a piece of agricultural pipe, 3) a flat circular disk of metal the same diameter as the inside of the agricultural pipe attached to a long screw, to add pressure to the cheese and, 4) a handle which allowed me to screw the piece of metal onto the top of the cheese to apply pressure and weight. I was excited to try it and I pushed on: "Line a cheese press with the cheesecloth, pack the curd into it and fold the cloth over the top. Put on a lid—a saucer that will fit in the tin will do very well—place a 3 kg (6 lb.) weight on top and press for 12 hours" (CWA: 343).I had more questions. Should I put the weighted cheese in the refrigerator for the twelve hours whilst it drained or would it be fine on the bench overnight? Three kilograms does not equal six pounds but this probably didn’t matter as I was using a press and not weights. Somewhat intuitively, I decided to leave it overnight on the bench. It was winter after all and the house would be cold once the heating went off automatically at 10.00 pm. I crossed my fingers, wrote about it in my blog and posted some pictures.Day Three: Emerging DoubtsI have just salted the cheese and put it into the press for seven days. Each day I have to increase the weight and change the cheesecloth. It’s a bit smelly …I sourced wax for the next stage and it arrived in the post today. I will keep rewrapping and pressing until the weekend then I will wax it and put it away until it matures.I am a little worried that I did not salt it enough. The recipe said two teaspoons and I wonder if it meant tablespoons. Time will tell (Adams). At this point things started to go very wrong. The cheese smelled off. Perhaps I had ruined my cheese right at the start when I left it out on the bench for its first overnight pressing. Maybe it should have been in the refrigerator. I should have added more salt. There was nothing to do but to keep going and see what happened. I could learn from mistakes, reflect on the process, and try again if it did not work. There was still the possibility that it would work; although the smell in the ’fridge suggested otherwise. Once it was coated in wax, I reasoned, it could not smell.After seven days of pressing, the cheese was now ready to be wiped well, dried, wrapped in buttered muslin, and stored in a cool place for two weeks, and turned every day. I used cheese wax instead of buttered muslin and put it in the refrigerator.The final words from CWA were: "The cheese will be ready in about six weeks, but is better if kept for three months. (A press may be made out of [the] jam tin. The bottom must be punctured, and holes punched around the tin). A wooden press is best" (342).My final words were, "Day-Seven: Failure" (Adams).I was a tad impatient and very concerned about the smell so I waxed the cheese a couple of days early and it is now stashed away in the fridge. (Sealing it in wax should stop it stinking out the fridge!) I have to turn it each day for two weeks then leave it for six. My cheese is either slowly maturing or rotting. The wax has sprung leaks and the clear liquid coming out does not smell good … but I will keep turning it daily for another four weeks (Adams).The Dairy Board instructions dictated that maturation takes place in temperature controlled cool rooms and that cheddar requires a temperature of between 8 and 10˚C for three to twenty-four months. During maturation the enzymes in the cheese break down the fats and proteins allowing the textural and flavour characteristics of the cheese to develop. My cheese sat in the refrigerator (I have no idea what the temperature is set at), where I duly turned it every day. After five weeks the stench in the refrigerator was no longer bearable as the smelly liquid had started to ooze out of the wax. I took it out and cut into it. Beneath its wax-coating my cheese had matured into a stinking mass of soft, oyster-coloured crumbly curds. I binned it, without so much as a taste. Final Post: Know Your Limitations I did make a little goat cheese and that was pretty delicious. I used the same method but I pressed it lightly for a day then wrapped it in greaseproof paper and left it in the fridge. We ate it fresh the next day (Adams).This experiment helped me realise that today’s recipe books contain detailed instructions because the knowledge of cookbook writers, including how to utilise the available technology, has to be conveyed to the reader following their recipes. Such clear instructions are necessary now, whereas in the past, cooks were drawing on skills and knowledge they either had, or could draw on other knowledge sources and networks to gain. I have not given up on making cheddar cheese. I still have the cheese press and some wax, and the cheesecloth I used is washed and folded in the cupboard. Before I do try again, however, I will consult a modern cookbook or book myself into a cheesemaking course and learn from someone who has the skills I need.References Adams. Jill. First Catch a Chicken. 2011. 1 May 2013 ‹http://firstcatchachicken.wordpress.com›.Berzok, Linda Murray. Storied Dishes: What Our Family Recipes Tell Us About Who We Are and Where We’ve Been. Oxford: Praeger, 2011.Country Women’s Association Western Australia Inc. The C.W.A. Cookery Book and Household Hints. 36th ed. Perth: Wigg, 1982.Dairy Australia. “Cheesmaking.” 2013. 20 Jan. 2013 ‹http://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/Dairy-food-and-recipes/Dairy-Products/Cheese/Cheesemaking.aspx›.De Certeau, Giard, Luce, and Mayol, Pierre. The Practice of Everyday Life Vol. 2: Living and Cooking. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1998.Driver, Elizabeth. “Cookbooks as Primary Sources for Writing History.” Food, Culture & Society 12.3 (2009): 257–74.Duruz, Jean. “Food as Nostalgia: Eating in the Fifties and Sixties.” Australian Historical Studies 113 (1999): 231–50.Supski, Sian. “‘We still mourn that book’: Cookbooks, Recipes and Foodmaking Knowledge in 1950’s Australia.” Journal of Australian Studies 28.84 (2005): 85–94.Theophano, Janet. Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote. New York: Palgrave, 2002.Wheaton, Barbara. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. New York: Touchstone / Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Introduction The trope of food is often used in the humanities to discuss aspects of a culture that are customarily overlooked by a textualist approach, for food embodies a kind of knowledge that comes from the direct engagement with materials and processes, and involves taste as an aesthetics that exceeds the visual concept of the “beautiful.” Moreover, cooking is one of the most ancient cultural practices, and is considered the habit that defines us as humans in comparison to other animals—not only culturally, but also physiologically (Wrangham). Today we have entered a post-human age in which technological augmentations, while promoting the erasure of embodiment in favour of intelligence (Hayles), create new assemblages between the organic and the digital, thus redefining what it means to be human. In this context, a reassessment of the practice of cooking as the manipulation of what constitutes food—both for thought and for the body—may promote a more nuanced approach to contemporary culture, in which the agency of the non-human (from synthetic materials to the digital) affects our modes of being and reflects on our aesthetic sensibility. In the 1980s, Guy Debord observed that the food industry's standardisation and automation of methods of production and consumption have anaesthetised the consumer palate with broader political and cultural implications. Today the Internet has extended the intertwinement of food and technology to the social and aesthetic spheres, thus further impacting on taste. For instance, cultural trends such as “foodism” and “slow food” thrive on blogs and social networks and, while promoting an artisanal style in food preparation and presentation, they paradoxically may also homogenise cooking techniques and the experience of sharing a meal. This leads to questions regarding the extent to which the digitalisation of culture might be hindering our capacity to taste. Or, given the new possibilities for connectivity, can this digitalisation also foster an aesthetic sensibility associated with different attitudes and approaches to food—one that transgresses both the grand narratives and the standardisation promoted by such gastronomic fashions? It also leads to the question of how such activities reflect on the collective sphere, considering the contagious character of networked communication. While foodism thrives online, the Internet has nevertheless prompted a renewed interest in DIY (do-it-yourself) cooking techniques. As a recent issue of M/C Journal testifies, today cookbooks are produced and consulted at an unprecedented rate—either in print or online (Brien and Wessell). Taking the example of the online diffusion of DIY cheese-making recipes, I will below trace the connections between cooking, computer culture, and taste with the support of Gilbert Simondon's metaphysics of technics. Although Simondon never extensively discussed food in relation to technology, the positioning of technicity at the heart of culture allows his work to be used to address the multifaceted nature of taste in the light of recent technological development, in particular of the Network. As a matter of fact, today cooking is not only a technical activity, in the sense that it requires a certain practical and theoretical skilfulness—it is also a technological matter, for the amount of networked machines that are increasingly used for food production and marketing. Specifically, this paper argues that by disentangling the human—albeit partially—from the capitalist cycle of production-marketing-consumption and by triggering an awareness of the increasingly dominant role technology plays in food processing and manufacturing, the online sharing of home-cooking advice may promote a reconfiguration of taste, which would translate into a more nuanced approach to contemporary techno-culture. In the first part of this discussion, I introduce Simondon’s philosophy and foreground the technical dimension of cooking by discussing cheese-making as a process of individuation. In the second, I focus on Simondon’s definition of technical objects and technical ensembles to position Internet culture in relation to cooking, and highlight how technicity folds back on taste as aesthetic impression. Ultimately, I conclude with some reflections on how such a culinary-aesthetic approach may find application in other techno-cultural fields by promoting an aesthetic sensibility that extends beyond the experience of the “social” to encompass an ethical component. Cooking as Individuation: The Networked Dimension of Taste Simondon is known as the thinker, and “tinkerer”, of technics. His project is concerned with ontogenesis—that is, the becoming of objects in relation to the terms that constitute them as individual. Simondon’s philosophy of individuation allows for a better understanding of how the Internet fosters certain attitudes to food, for it is grounded on a notion of “energetic materiality in movement” (Deleuze and Guattari 408) that explains how “immaterial” algorithms can affect individual experience and cultural production. For Simondon, individuation is the process that arises from objects being out-of-phase with themselves. Put differently, individuation allows for “the conservation of being through becoming” (Genesis 301). Likewise, individualisation is “the individuation of an individuated being, resulting from an individuation, [and creating] a new structuration within the individual” (L’Individuation 132). Individuation and individualisation are processes common to all kinds of being. Any individual operates an internal and an external resonance within the system in which it is enmeshed, and produces an “associated milieu” capable of entering into relation with other individuals within the system. Simondon maintains that nature consists of three regimes of individuation, that is, three possible phases of every being: the physical, the biological, and the psycho-social—that develop from a metastable pre-individual field. Technology traverses all three regimes and allows for further individualisation via transductive operations across such phases—that is, via operations of conversion of energy from one form to another. The recent online diffusion of DIY cheese-making recipes lends itself to be analysed with the support of Simondon’s philosophy. Today cheese dominates degustation menus beside the finest wines, and constitutes a common obsession among “foodies.” Although, as an object, cheese defies more traditional canons of beauty and pleasure—its usual pale yellow colour is not especially inviting and, generally speaking, the stinkier and mouldier it is, the more exclusive and expensive it usually is—it has played a sizeable role in the collective imagination since ancient times. Although the genesis of cheese predates archival memory, it is commonly assumed to be the fruit of the chemical reaction naturally occurring in the interaction of milk with the rennet inherently contained in the bladders made of ruminants’ stomachs in which milk was contained during the long transits undertaken by the nomadic cultures of Central Asia. Cheese is an invention that reportedly occurred without human intervention, and only the technical need to preserve milk in high temperature impelled humans to learn to produce it. Since World War II its production is most exclusively factory-based, even in the case of artisanal cheese (McGee), which makes the renewed concern for homemade cheese more significant from a techno-cultural perspective. Following Simondon, the individualisation of cheese—and of people in relation to cheese—depends on the different objects involved in its production, and whose associated milieu affects the outcome of the ontogenetic process via transductive operations. In the specific case of an industrial block of cheese, these may include: the more or less ethical breeding and milking of cows in a factory environment; the types of bacteria involved in the cheese-making process; the energy and costs inherent in the fabrication of the packaging material and the packaging process itself; the CO2 emissions caused by transportations; the physical and intellectual labour implied in marketing, retailing and selling; and, last but not least, the arguable nutritional value of the factory-produced cheese—all of which, in spite of their “invisibility” to the eyes of the consumer, affect physical conditions and moods when they enter into relation with the human body (Bennet). To these, we may add, with specific reference to the packaging: the RFID tags that electronically index food items into databases for a more efficient management of supplies, and the QR codes used for social media marketing purposes. In contrast, the direct engagement with the techno-material conditions at the basis of the home cookery process allows one to grasp how different operations may affect the outcome of the recipe. DIY cheese-making recipes are specifically addressed to laypeople and, because they hardly demand professional equipment, they entail a greater attunement with, and to, the objects and processes required by the recipe. For instance, one needs to “feel” when milk has reached the right temperature (specifically, 82 degrees centigrade, which means that the surface of the milk should be slightly bubbly but not fully boiling) and, with practice, one learns how the slightest movement of the hand can lead to different results, in terms of consistency and aspect. Ultimately, DIY cheese-making allows the cook to be creative with moulding, seasonings, and marinading. Indeed, by directly engaging with the undiscovered properties and potentials of ingredients, by understanding the role that energy (both in the sense of induction and “transduction”) plays on form and matter, and by developing—often via processes of trial and error—technics for stirring, draining, moulding, marinading, canning, and so forth, making cheese at home an exercise in speculative pragmatics. An experimental approach to cooking, as the negotiation between the rigid axioms that make up a recipe and the creative and experimental components inherent in the operations of mixing and blending, allows one to feel the ultimate outcome of the cooking process as an event. The taste of a homemade cheese is linked to a new kind of knowledge—that is, an epistemology based on continuous breakages that allow for the cooking process to carry on until the ultimate result. It is a knowledge that comes from a commitment to objects being out-of-phase, and from the acknowledgement of the network of technical operations that bring cheese to our tables. The following section discusses how another kind of object may affect the outcome of a recipe, with important implications for aesthetics, that is, technical objects. The Internet as Ingredient: Technical Objects, Aesthetics, and Invention The notion of technical objects complements Simondon’s theory of individuation to define the becoming of technology in relation to culture. To Simondon: “the technical object is not this or that thing, given hic et nunc, but that of which there is a genesis” (Du Mode 20). Technical objects, therefore, are not simply technological artifacts but are constituted by a series of events that determine their evolution (De Vries). Analogously to other kinds of individuals, they are constituted by transductive operations across the three aforementioned phases of being. The evolution of technical objects extends from the element to the individual, and ultimately to the technical ensemble. Elements are less than individualised technical objects, while individuals that are in a relation of interconnection are called ensembles. According to Simondon, technical ensembles fully individualise with the realisation of the cybernetic project. Simondon observes that: “there is something eternal in a technical ensemble [...] and it is that which is always present, and can be conserved in a thing” (Les Cahiers 87). The Internet, as a thing-network, could be regarded as an instance of such technical ensembles, however, a clarification needs to be made. Simondon explains that “true technical ensembles are not those that use technical individuals, but those that are a network of technical individuals in a relation of interconnection” (Du mode 126). To Simondon, humankind has ceased to be a technical individual with the industrialisation and automation of methods of production, and has consigned this function to machines (128). Expanding this line of thought, examples such as the viral spreading of memes, and the hypnotic power of online marketing campaigns, demonstrate how digital technology seems to have intensified this process of alienation of people from the functioning of the machine. In short, no one seems to know how or why things happen on the Internet, but we cannot help but use it. In order to constitute “real” technical ensembles, we need to incorporate technics again into culture, in a relation of reciprocity and complementarity with machines, under the aegis of a technical culture. Simondon specifies that such a reconfiguration of the relation between man and machines can only be achieved by means of an invention. An invention entails the individualisation of the technical ensemble as a departure from the mind of the inventor or designer that conceived it, in order to acquire its own autonomous existence (“Technical Mentality”). It refers to the origin of an operative solidarity between individual agents in a network, which provides the support for a human relation based on the “model of transidividuality” (Du Mode 247). A “transindividual relation” is a relation of relations that puts the individual in direct contact with a real collective. The notion of real collective is opposed to that of an interindividual community or social sphere, which is poisoned by the anxieties that stem from a defected relation with the technical ensemble culture is embedded in. In the specific context of the online sharing of DIY cheese-making recipes, rather than a fully individualised technical ensemble per se, the Internet can be regarded as one of the ingredients that make up the final recipe—together with human and the food—for the invention of a true technical ensemble. In such a framework, praxis, as linked to the kind of non-verbal knowledge associated with “making,” defines individuation together with the types of objects that make up the Network. While in the case of foodism, the practice of online marketing and communication homogenises culture by creating “social phenomena,” in the case of DIY cooking advice, it fosters a diversification of tastes, experiences, and flavours linked to individual modes of doing and cooking, that put the cook in a new relation with the culinary process, with food, and with the guests who have the pleasure to taste her meal. This is a qualitative change in the network that constitutes culture, rather than a mere quantitative shift in energy induction. The term “conviviality” (from the Latin con-vivere) specifically means this: a “living together,” rather than a mere dinner party. For Simondon, a real technical ensemble is an assemblage of humans, machines, tools, resources and milieus, which can only be éprouve—i.e., experienced, also in the sense of “experimented with”—rather than represented. A technical ensemble is first and foremost an aesthetic affair—it can only be perceived by experimenting with the different agents involved in the networked operations that constitute it. For Simondon “aesthetics comes after technicity [and] it also returns to us in the heart of technicity” (Michaud in De Boever et al. 122). Therefore, any object bears an aesthetic potential—even something as trivial as a homemade block of cheese. Simondon rejects the idea of an aesthetic object, but affirms the power of technicity to foreground an aesthetic impression, which operates a convergence between the diverging forces that constitute the mediation between man and world, in terms of an ethical treatment of technics. For Simondon, the beautiful is a process: “it is never, properly speaking, the object that is beautiful: it is the encounter operating a propos of the object between a real aspect of the world and a human gesture” (Du Mode 191 emphasis added). If an analysis of cooking as individuation already foregrounds an aesthetics that is both networked and technical, the relational capabilities afforded by networked media have the power to amplify the aesthetic potential of the human gesture implied in a block of homemade cheese—which today extends from searching for (or writing) a recipe online, to pouring the milk and seasoning the cheese, and which entails less environmental waste due to the less intensive processing and the lack of, or certainly a reduction in, packaging materials (Rastogi). The praise of technical creativity resounds throughout Simondon’s thought. By using the Internet in order to create (or indeed cook) something new, the online sharing of DIY cooking techniques like cheese-making, which partially disengages the human (and food itself) from the cycle of production-marketing-consumption that characterises the food industry in capitalist society by fostering an awareness of the networked operations that constitute her as individual, is an invention in its own right. Although the impact of these DIY activities on the global food industry is still very limited, such a hands-on approach, imbued with a dose of technical creativity, partially overcomes the alienation of the individual from the production process, by providing the conditions to “feel” how the individualisation of cheese (and the human) is inscribed in a larger metabolism. This does not stop within the economy of the body but encompasses the techno-cultural ensemble that forms capitalist society as a whole, and in which humans play only a small part. This may be considered a first step towards the reconciliation between humans and technical culture—a true technical ensemble. Indeed, eating involves “experiments in art and technology”—as the name of the infamous 1960s art collective (E.A.T.) evokes. Home-cooking in this sense is a technical-aesthetic experiment in its own right, in which aesthetics acquires an ethical nuance. Simondon’s philosophy highlights how the aesthetics involved in the home cooking process entails a political component, aimed at the disentanglement of the human from the “false” technical ensemble constituted by capitalist society, which is founded on the alienation from the production process and is driven by economic interests. Surely, an ethical approach to food would entail considering the biopolitics of the guts from the perspective of sourcing materials, and perhaps even building one’s own tools. These days, however, keeping a cow or goat in the backyard is unconceivable and/or impossible for most of us. The point is that the Internet can foster inventiveness and creativity among the participants to the Network, in spite of the fixity of the frame in which culture is increasingly inscribed (for instance, the standardised format of a Wordpress blog), and in this way, can trigger an aesthetic impression that comprises an ethical component, which translates into a political stand against the syncopated, schizophrenic rhythms of the market. Conclusion In this discussion, I have demonstrated that cooking can be considered a process of individuation inscribed in a techno-cultural network in which different transductive operations have the power to affect the final taste of a recipe. Simondon’s theory of individuation allows us to account for the impact of ubiquitous networked media on traditionally considered “human” practices, thus suggesting a new kind of humanism—a sort of technological humanism—on the basis of a new model of perception, which acknowledges the non-human actants involved in the process of individuation. I have shown that, in the case of the online sharing of cheese-making recipes, Simondon’s philosophy allows us to uncover a concept of taste that extends beyond the mere gustatory experience provided by foodism, and in this sense it may indeed affirm a reconfiguration of human culture based on an ethical approach towards the technical ensemble that envelops individuals of any kind—be they physical, living, or technical. Analogously, a “culinary” approach to techno-culture in terms of a commitment to the ontogenetic character of objects’ behaviours could be transposed to the digital realm in order to enlighten new perspectives for the speculative design of occasions of interaction among different beings—including humans—in ethico-aesthetic terms, based on a creative, experimental engagement with techniques and technologies. As a result, this can foreground a taste for life and culture that exceeds human-centred egotistic pleasure to encompass both technology and nature. Considering that a worryingly high percentage of digital natives both in Australia and the UK today believe that cheese and yogurt grow on trees (Howden; Wylie), perhaps cooking should indeed be taught in school alongside (rather than separate to, or instead of) programming. References Bennet, Jane. Vibrant Matter: a Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010 Brien, Donna Lee, and Adele Wessell. “Cookbook: A New Scholarly View.” M/C Journal 16.3 (2013). 7 Jan. 2014. ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/688›. Crary, Jonathan, and Sanford Kwinter. Incorporations. New York: Zone, 1992. De Boever, Arne, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe, and Ashley Woodward, eds. Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012. De Vries, Marc. “Gilbert Simondon and the Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts.” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 12.1 (2008). Debord, Guy. “Abat-Faim.” Encyclopedie des Nuisances 5 (1985) 2 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.notbored.org/abat-faim.html›. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum, 2004. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Howden, Saffron. “Cultural Cringe: Schoolchildren Can’t See the Yoghurt for the Trees.” The Sydney Morning Herald 5 Mar. 2012. 5 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/cultural-cringe-schoolchildren-cant-see-the-yoghurt-for-the-trees-20120304-1ub55.html›. McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004. Michaud, Yves. “The Aesthetics of Gilbert Simondon: Anticipation of the Contemporary Aesthetic Experience.” Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology. Eds. Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe, and Ashley Woodward. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012. 121–32. Rastogi, Nina. “Soft Cheese for a Clean Planet”. Slate 15 Dec. 2009. 25 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2009/12/soft_cheese_for_a_clean_planet.html›. Simondon, Gilbert. Du Mode d’Existence des Objets Techniques. Paris: Aubier, 2001. ---. L’Individuation a La Lumière Des Notions de Forme et d’Information. Grenoble: Millon, 2005. ---. “Les Cahiers du Centre Culturel Canadien” 4, 2ème Colloque Sur La Mécanologie. Paris, 1976. ---. “Technical Mentality.” Parrhesia 7 (2009): 17–27.---. “The Genesis of the Individual.” Incorporations. Eds. Jonathan Crary, and Sanford Kwinter. New York: Zone, 1992. 296–319. Wrangham, Richard. “Reason in the Roasting of Eggs.” Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development Volume VII. Eds. Reza Negarestani, and Robin Mackay. London: Urbanomic, 2011. 331–44. Wylie, Catherine. “Significant Number of Children Believe Cheese Comes from Plants, Reveals New Survey.” The Independent 3 Jun. 2013. 5 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/significant-number-of-children-believe-cheese-comes-from-plants-reveals-new-survey-8641771.html›.

This dissertation examines how women’s food writing, from blogs to cookbooks to novels, demonstrate a desire to articulate themselves as people within communities rather than accept a dehumanized identity as a consumer or set of credit-card numbers. I argue that through an emphasis on connection with one another via a discourse of scratch cooking and locally sourced foods, women are able to push back against the hegemony of corporate food and industrial agriculture. Working from a case study model, each of my chapters examines the distinct ways in which women assert their personhood apart from the homogenizing influences of mainstream food culture. As a means of articulating this woman’s culinary culture, predicated on a foundation of scratch cooking and local ingredients and relationships, I examine the food blog Fed Up With Lunch and the author’s use of an anonymous persona to interrogate the federal school lunch program; feminist vegetarian and vegan cookbooks authored by collectives of women who rely on oppositional identities in order to push back against what they view as hegemony; how diasporic Indian women use scratch cooking as a means of self-expression within the context of migration; and the novel cookbook as an example of injecting a feminist discourse of food into a traditional fictional narrative. Read together, these discrete case studies make an argument for women’s power to effect meaningful change from within the circumscribed space of the kitchen.<br>text

碩士<br>國立高雄餐旅大學<br>台灣飲食文化產業研究所<br>99<br>Along with the prevalence and prosperity of Internet instruments, the tide of blog overwhelms the world. The name of “Grassroots Journalism” (Dan Gillmor, 2005) has proved its influence, by recording life or share information. According to the market research, the culinary articles is the most essential and popular classification. In the mean while, product placement marketing had invaded the blog space. Unlike the original pure sharing nature, there are more and more articles about foretasting which are sponsored by companies in food blogs today. In the background, how much do the consumers understand the truth of bloggers selling electronic word-of-mouth or trust？ The current study focused on food blogs, observed the cognition and response of blog readers by using experimental method. The purpose of the research is to clarify the cognition background of the consumers about the placement marketing in food blogs. As the research result indicate, the variables “commercialization”, “communicative strategy” and “interaction” all have significant effects on “consumer perception”. The mutual effect of “interaction” and two moderating variable “involvement” and “own blog” are significant on “consumer perception”.

The diploma thesis deals with the characteristics of the discourse of selected Czech food blogs. On the one hand the food blogs, which are considered here as part of the media content, have common features with other culinary discourses, on the other hand they have their specifics, which are given mainly by their multimodal nature. The theoretical part therefore introduces the culinary discourse, as well as the phenomenon of blogging, which was made possible with the advent of the Internet and web services. The thesis then presents a brief food blogs history and previous foreign research, that dealt with the characteristics of the food blogs language. Qualitative analysis of discourse, which was used for the food blogs analysis in the research part of the thesis, focuses on common language and formal features of food blogs, discourses of individual authors and the most common topics that food blogs contain. The research material was selected based on the results of the last year of the Food blog roku competition. These are contributions from three popular Czech food blogs, which were published on blogs in the first half of 2019. These contributions were subjected to an in-depth analysis, the results of which are subsequently presented in the thesis.

Emotional persuasion techniques used in culinary blogs Summary In this paper, we present emotional persuasive techniques that are most often used by wellknown authors of culinary blogs. In the introductory part, we refer to the beginnings of gastronomic literature and show the development of culinary-related genres, starting from ancient cookbooks to culinary blogs. In the following sections, we discuss the distinguishing features of culinary blogs, such as evaluation and emotionalization, as well as persuasive techniques to convince recipients to choose the right blog and recipe: likableness, credibility, creating a community. In the final part, we conclude that emotional marking and valorisation of reality are the features that distinguish culinary blogs from traditional genres related to gastronomy.

One of many projects in virtual worlds in Opensim, platform devoted to teaching, perhaps the most distinctive and significant, was the one that had as its purpose the application of mathematics to the culinary art in a hotel school. It was an experimentation iTEC (Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom) and innovative teaching methodology was used, with the help of new technologies, using Opensim and several useful widgets to your project. Studying geometry, using various geometric shapes conceived, designed and processed, they are built in 3D tessellations in opensim, then reproduced in laboratory confectionery, sugar paste and used to decorate cakes with colored geometric elements and special shapes. All through insights, searches on the net, development of concept maps, team work, aimed at the development of pupils' blog and lots of fun. Was also attended by the industry's most experienced students and faculty kitchen, for processing geometric tessellations cakes.