Spice talk: An Orientalist register in Nigella Lawson's cooking shows

Abstract

Abstract This study argues that spice talk, a register that indexes spices as exotic, is one linguistic instantiation of the discourse of Orientalism. I identify the presence of this register from the advent of the Spice Trade to the present, then provide a case study of its use in cooking show programs by British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, whose Orientalist description of the spices and foods she prepares is a means of indexing physical commodities from the East as ‘‘Oriental’’ and naturalizing the link between spices and the exotic, as well as upholding power imbalances. I maintain that spice talk comprises five thematic features: poetics, sensuality, tourism, otherness, and coloniality. I argue throughout for a situated understanding of spice talk, asserting that contemporary practices of consumption and patterns of taste cannot be divorced from the broader social order or the weight of history.

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