Paper short abstract:

The recent elitist "New Romanian Cuisine" movement builds food heritage and by doing so it revives and re-invents the local gastronomy while addressing longstanding anxieties around the lack of "creativity" and "authenticity" in a bottom-up process that articulates and negotiates identity.

Paper long abstract:

My presentation seeks to understand a recent culinary movement centred around re-traditionalising practices and recipes in high end restaurants that self-identify as the "New Romanian Cuisine." Drawing on the analysis of menus, material culture and hospitality practices in eight such restaurants in Bucharest, I describe that the "New Romanian Cuisine" is largely an elite gastronomic practice set in motion by repatriated Romanian chefs, determined to revive and re-invent the local gastronomy. They see themselves as a resistance movement to globalisation, recasting Romanian food as global "ethnic food", while simultaneously referencing multiculturalism. Through the New Romanian Cuisine, the young culinary elite addresses longstanding anxieties around the lack of "creativity", "authenticity" and fit with contemporary lifestyles. Building food heritage is entangled in tensions over deciding which ingredients to include and what to leave behind, as well as intense debates about what it means to be Romanian. The findings indicate that chefs see possible symbolic upgrades in recipes, practices and ingredients otherwise forgotten or ignored with the goal to affirm identity, to pursue national authenticity as ethnic food, and attract high-end clientele. Since heritage food is not an economy of scale but one of distinction, the cultural capital controlled by chefs and consumers is key in building such cuisine. This research contributes to deepening our understanding of how food heritigization articulates and negotiates identity and adds to the growing body of literature related to heritage research, including the re-invention of  traditions.