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'The Comic and the Rule' in Pastagate: Food, Humor and the Politics of Language in Quebec
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| Author/collaborator |
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| Title |
'The Comic and the Rule' in Pastagate: Food, Humor and the Politics of Language in Quebec
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| Abstract |
The author notes that when the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), Quebec’s language police, ordered a Italian restaurant in Montreal in 2013 to use the French word “pâtes” instead of “pasta,” Pastagate broke. She explains that the initial (global) laughter about the events quickly turned into public outcry resulting, among others, in a partial reform of the OQLF. The author examines the dynamics that drove the scandal and that subsequently engendered political change, and more broadly the intersections of food and language as identity markers and sites of contestation. Based on an analysis of the media discourses that accompanied the scandal in Quebec, Canada and to a lesser degree abroad, the author makes the argument that Pastagate was able to challenge the status quo because the scandal was both comic and tragic when it questioned the perceived “authenticity” of “foreign” cuisines as well as the nationally grounded identity of the cosmopolitan consumer. She concludes that an action that was meant to protect Quebec’s national (i.e. Francophone) identity undermined a largely uncontroversial source of national distinction, the consumption of "the other" through their cuisines.
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| Publication |
Food, Culture and Society : An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research
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| Volume |
Vol. 20
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| Issue |
no. 4
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| Pages |
709-727
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| Date |
2017
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| Language |
en
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| Citation |
Ketterer Hobbis, Stephanie. “‘The Comic and the Rule’ in Pastagate: Food, Humor and the Politics of Language in Quebec.” Food, Culture and Society : An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol. 20, no. 4 (2017): 709–727.
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