UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Agrarian Pasts, Utopian Futures : : Food, Nostalgia, and the Power of Dreaming in Old Comedy and the New Southern Food Movement Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7tg32193 Author Kelting, Lily Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Agrarian Pasts, Utopian Futures: Food, Nostalgia, and the Power of Dreaming in Old Comedy and the New Southern Food Movement A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Theatre by Lily Kelting Committee in charge: University of California, San Diego Professor Nadine George-Graves, Chair Professor Page duBois, Co-chair Professor Patrick Anderson Professor Anthony Edwards Professor Marianne McDonald University of California, Irvine Professor Daphne Lei 2014 Copyright Lily Kelting, 2014 All rights reserved. Signature Page The Dissertation of Lily Kelting is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-chair Chair University of California, San Diego University of California, Irvine 2014 iii Table of Contents Signature Page ............................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... vii Vita……… ..................................................................................................................... x Abstract of the dissertation ............................................................................................ xi Introduction: Be realistic! Demand the impossible. ....................................................... 1 Why utopianism? ................................................................................................... 9 Why these case studies? ...................................................................................... 13 Methodologies ..................................................................................................... 14 Why food? ........................................................................................................... 21 Chapters ............................................................................................................... 24 Chapter One: Golden Age Utopias and the Power of Utopian Thinking in Aristophanes’ Birds and Assemblywomen ........................................................ 30 “Outlines of a Better World”: Towards a definition of utopian performance ..... 30 Aristophanes’ novelty and utopianism ................................................................ 39 Golden Age utopias before Aristophanes ............................................................ 54 Utopianism in Aristophanes: transcending the meddlesome city ........................ 63 Polypragmosune, sophism, and the boastful chef ............................................... 68 City and country .................................................................................................. 74 A culinary free-for-all in Assemblywomen: the limit case of slavery ................. 79 Chapter Two: Utopian Thinking and Utopia at odds in Aristophanes’ Acharnians .... 89 A road map .......................................................................................................... 96 Democratic ideology and longing: a brief literature review .............................. 102 iv Dikaiopolis at Athens ........................................................................................ 106 Utopian freedom between positive and negative freedoms ............................... 116 Utopia and the failure of democracy ................................................................. 126 Chapter Three: Regressive Temporal Logic of Paula Deen’s Southern-Fried Nostalgia and the Seoul Food of the Future ................................................................... 139 Nostalgia as antihistory ..................................................................................... 142 Nostalgia as televisually mediated .................................................................... 146 Nostalgia at the border between regional history and American exceptionalism ........................................................................................................................... 148 Nostalgia and contemporary health concerns: on diabetes and kimchi grits ..... 154 Antihistory and temporal estrangement ............................................................. 159 Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the afterlife of the spoken menu minstrel show 166 The regressive logic of temporal estrangement ................................................. 170 Re-enactment and the regressive logic of southern nostalgia ........................... 174 Atlanta’s Buford Highway ................................................................................ 181 Chapter Four: Nostalgia and Utopianism in Contemporary Southern Food Cookbooks ........................................................................................................................ 195 “Telling a better—telling a fuller story” ........................................................... 142 Starters ............................................................................................................... 200 Cookbooks as performance ............................................................................... 208 Culinary mimesis and cooking by feel .............................................................. 211 Appetizers: archiving loss ................................................................................. 218 Grains: continuity versus discontinuity ............................................................. 221 Drinks: substitution and surrogation ................................................................. 227 Meats: hunting, experience, and the South outside the South ........................... 230 Preserves: celebrating and reinventing southern culture ................................... 238 In Defense of the City of Pigs: Some Conclusions .................................................... 244 The city of pigs .................................................................................................. 250 Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 249 v List of Tables Figure 1: “Road map” to Acharnians. .......................................................................... 97 Figure 2: Booker Wright. Still from Mississippi: A Self Portrait (1966). .................. 164 Figure 3: Mama Blue serves shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ............ 172 Figure 4: Grandma Blue serves shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ........ 172 Figure 5: Mama Blue is served shrimp soup. Still from Forrest Gump (1994). ........ 180 Figure 6: Signs on Buford Highway, Atlanta Georgia (2010). .................................. 182 vi Acknowledgements In San Diego, a brand called “No Bad Days” emblazons its slogan across tire covers, back windshields, and baseball caps. I have taken this message, outlined by two curving palm trees, much to heart. This dissertation could not exist without the love, friendship, and support of my exceptional friends and colleagues. I submit this dissertation in a spirit of deep gratitude to those who push, nurture, and laugh with me. I would like to thank my incredible colleagues and friends in the Department of Theatre and Dance. My lone cohort, Julie Burelle, has been not only an incisive editor but also an unwavering defender of my work and ideas even before I was. Heather Ramey has routinely encouraged me to dream, live, and dissertate outside the box. Sonia Fernandez has been an indispensable source of good sense and most importantly good fun. Janet Hayatshahi invited me to join her onstage after I was the only incoming student to answer “no” to the orientation-week question “are you an artist?” My answer has changed. Of course, my brilliant, funny, challenging, talented, and supportive colleagues and collaborators have truly made every day a joy. In particular, I can’t wait to high-five Naysan Mojgani, Melissa Minnifee, and Nadeen Kharputly when this is all done. Amy Evans at the Southern Foodways Alliance made the last two chapters possible. She deserves to be thanked over a microphone in a large and full auditorium. The Southern Foodways Alliance is an invaluable academic resource for the serious and passionate study of southern foodways. It is also comprised of some very sharp, generous, and kind women. The dissertation that follows would be very different without several late nights on the balcony of City Grocery. Thank you to Emilie vii Dayan Hill for hosting me and the University of Mississippi and UCSD’s Department of Theatre and Dance for financially supporting my time there. I would also like to thank the generous and passionate chefs and authors who agreed to be interviewed for this project.