Research Article
BibTex RIS Cite

A Kitchen of His Own: Claiming Black Culinary Identity in Kwame Onwuachi’s Memoir Notes of a Young Black Chef

Year 2022, Issue: 58, 89 - 111, 15.11.2022

Abstract

This article examines Kwame Onwuachi’s memoir Notes of a Black Young Chef (2019). In this memoir, Onwuachi narrates his coming-of-age story with a focus on his culinary journey starting in the Bronx and moving to the world of fine-dining. The chef manages to express himself through cooking and gains social visibility although he has been challenged by racial stereotyping and social hierarchies around him since his childhood. Onwuachi’s life narrative has references to the black bildungsroman, and he constructs his culinary style accordingly. Onwuachi treats food as a self narrative. He rejects the notion of a classical restaurant and transforms the kitchen into a culinary stage where he would display his life as well as the diversity of black identities together with food culture. The chef dislocates the assigned gendered and interpellated racial identity and claims his own space through his self-narrative and culinary performance. Therefore, this article examines the intersections of food, performance, and performativity. Onwuachi, as a black chef, recasts culinary performance and the traditional celebrity chef image to promote social transformation and racial equality for the black community

Year 2022, Issue: 58, 89 - 111, 15.11.2022

Abstract

There are 0 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects North American Language, Literature and Culture
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Gül Varlı Karaarslan This is me 0000-0001-6484-3136

Publication Date November 15, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Issue: 58

Cite

MLA Varlı Karaarslan, Gül. “A Kitchen of His Own: Claiming Black Culinary Identity in Kwame Onwuachi’s Memoir Notes of a Young Black Chef”. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, no. 58, 2022, pp. 89-111.

JAST - Journal of American Studies of Turkey