Gender and food television: a transnational perspective on the gendered identities of televised celebrity chefs

This chapter examines the importance of gender in the history of food television in an American/European context, by discussing the scientific literature on the topic. The analysis covers a period from the very first shows in the 1930s and 1940s, until 2016. It will be argued that despite the apparent plurality of the genre, it reproduces – especially until the late 1990s – a gendered dichotomy between men’s and women’s cooking. In programs hosted by men, cooking expresses authority and connoisseurship, whereas cooking in shows hosted by women is portrayed as a way to embrace “traditional feminine values” of nurturing and home management. However, this chapter brings out a series of examples in which these gendered models are negotiated and transgressed. This chapter, which draws on examples from the US, UK, and France, argues that the gendering of cooking shows should be understood in relation to other social categories, notably ethnicity and class. With this in mind, I conclude that food television not only reproduces hierarchies between men and women, but also between various kinds of masculinity and femininity.