Strategies of distinction: Aesthetic materiality and restrained discourse

Abstract

This paper clarifies the role of objects in generating both cultural meanings and valuable forms of status by building upon previous research on cultural consumption and mediation, while simultaneously highlighting the intrinsic materiality of such practices. Beginning with the sociological notion that clues to high-status cultural consumption exist within journalistic writing about food, this project asks how profit-seeking firms make use of related discursive strategies to establish that their cultural products are not only delicious but also distinctive. To that end, this paper examines the packaging materials and packaging discourse of two case study firms whose food products are similar, in kind and country of origin, and whose food packages all meet the shared expectations of the US gourmet food market, in order to explore how their packages differentiate themselves from their competitors and frame their contents as valuable. In order to understand these firms as both commercial storytellers and amateur cultural intermediaries, the comparative case study methodology is employed with the goal of describing the process whereby profit-seeking firms make use of gourmet food writing and food packages to create distinction within an omnivorous, and economically valuable, marketplace. This paper draws attention to food packaging as a form of gourmet food writing which has a role to play in the dynamics of distinction within the contemporary gastronomic field.