Mercantilización Cultural, Gourmetización y Gentrificación de los Espacios Culinarios de Madrid como Consecuencia de la Estadounidensificación de la Ciudad

Abstract

This dissertation explores the key role food has in transforming Madrid. It uses the relationships between food, culture and capital as a way to examine food effects on the urban process. The first two chapters highlight the connection between urban transformation, gourmetization of traditional and ethnic culinary spaces, and the concept of “selling place” in relation to the commodification of culture and urban regeneration. The first chapter focuses on the evolution and transformation of three food markets in Madrid. Some of these traditional food markets have been transformed into gourmet niches that satisfy the needs of foodies, residents, visitors, and tourists. The second chapter explores the emergence of Gourmet Mexican restaurants along with the new dynamics that take place within the postmodern city, in terms of consumption and production. This helps illustrate how the growth of many new and gourmetized Mexican restaurants operate as cultural venues to enhance the symbolic economy of Madrid, leading, in some cases, to a culinary and commercial gentrification, specially when these establishments are centrally located. My last chapter examines how the aforementioned urban processes are articulated in visual cultural artifacts. I particularly focus on two films where two major chefs and their high-end restaurants operate as part of the symbolic capital of different postindustrial cities. The analysis of Fuera de Carta (2008) and Chef ( 2014 )– among other secondary examples that are discussed– focuses on the gourmetization of culinary urban space , where food and chefs are the protagonists that help recreate the culinary imaginary.