Devouring the nation: gastronomy and the settler-colonial sublime in Peru

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores chef Virgilio Martínez’s culinary exploration of Peruvian biodiversity and his claims of ‘discovering,’ selecting, classifying, and transforming local, ‘unknown,’ Indigenous ingredients and knowledge into high-end global cuisine. Taking Martínez seriously as an artist and cultural agent, I suggest that his work can be understood as a form of what I call the settler-colonial sublime, art that conceals and obscures the erasure and appropriation of specific Indigenous peoples and practices. As with all hegemonic projects, there is room for counter-narratives, and I consider the possibility for the emergence of other-than-colonial relations. Nevertheless, reading Martínez’s culinary artistry alongside the provocative performance art of Elizabeth Lino in Cerro de Pasco helps reveal how the skill and artistry of Peruvian chefs like Martínez work in tandem with a ‘gastropolitical complex’ of political, cultural, and economic forces to obscure ongoing entanglements with coloniality.