An Anti-Communist Revolution of Gastronomy Cover Image

An Anti-Communist Revolution of Gastronomy
An Anti-Communist Revolution of Gastronomy

The Gastronomy Renewal Movement and Hungarian History

Author(s): Gábor Egry, Ágnes Kata Miklós
Subject(s): Social history, Recent History (1900 till today)
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Fakulta sociálních věd
Keywords: gastronomy;post-communism;politics of identity;Kádár-era;Hungary;history;mythmaking;

Summary/Abstract: The article’s aim is to analyze how parts of the gastronomy renewal movement in Hungary are connected to nationalist politics of identity in Hungary. Based on insights from the study of everyday ethnicity, banal nationalism and comparative memory studies in CEE it shows how the nationalist anti-communist concept of history that constitutes a cornerstone of the identity of the right is in herent in the gastronomy movement. It is a-historic and manifestly mythici zing, finding the lowest point of gastronomy history in the Kádár-era, a period also excluded from national history in the great narrative of the right. This adjustment enables the movement to overturn existing hierarchies and infuse the public discourse with its own lan- guage with the help of politics but at the price of obligatorily lending its support to political PR action that contradicts its own promoted values.

  • Issue Year: 9/2015
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 104-119
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: English