Gastromania on Italian TV
Gastromania on Italian TV

Summary/Abstract: By turning on the TV, at any time of the day or night, one can come across programs in which food is the undisputed protagonist. Actually, the presence of food on TV is not a contemporary phenomenon, but it goes back to the origins of television. Over time, the way of narrating food has been transformed, as well as the role attributed to it and the values (gastronomic and social) associated to it. In this paper, after having traced a historical overview of Italian food television programming, we focus on the analysis of four recent programs. The objective is to understand how settings, rhythmic and temporal scansion, and the distribution of roles among the various actors involved configure narratives with well-structured mechanisms and convey different ways of understanding cooking, the role of the chef, and the relationship with the audience at home.

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