The Common Meat: Culinary Capital, Food Privilege, and Waste in Starve

Abstract

Written by Brian Wood with art by Danijel Žeželj and Dave Stewart, Starve (Image 2015–2016) is a comic book revolving around the comeback of self-exiled celebrity chef Gavin Cruikshank. His food travelling TV show has been turned into a culinary sport arena in which renowned chefs battle for the entertainment of the super-rich 1% of the world’s population, cooking with rare ingredients whose consumption is illegal or regulated due to extinction. Caught in a conflict with the TV network and his ex-wife, Cruikshank is sickened by the very essence of the reality show, serving only to feed the expectations of opulence, decadence, and exclusivity of the privileged audience. The comic tackles issues related to waste and abuse of food sources, while denouncing the nature of the gourmet food industry. By showing Cruikshank’s navigation through the show and his consequent boycott, Starve lays bare the mechanisms of an industry in which chefs are bound to produce transgressive novelty, whether procuring the meat of animals on the brink of extinction or transforming “common meat” into refined bites that can indulge the privileged palate. Social power asymmetries are exposed to appalling effect, as the mediated context glamourizes the otherwise “distasteful” handling of animal bodies that is assumed as reserved for kitchen peons and the lower classes. In the dystopic yet realistic universe described in Starve, culinary capital is key to inequality, but also a means of empowerment against food insecurity. Cruikshank’s aim to create a network of food businesses rooted in their neighborhood and the optimization of the available resources embodies the possibility to revert food deserts, counterbalancing the mechanisms of the gourmet industry.