Title: Cooking with gas; the food writer as celebrity.
This paper will consider the historical precedents of the food writer as celebrity, from Ancient Rome to post-war New Zealand, Britain and the USA.

Food writing and food-based media events have expanded enormously in the last five years. Food writers are writing autobiographies or travel books, while television abounds with celebrity chefs spitting, shouting, or mincing their way through issues of quality and presentation. Master Chef is the new spectator sport; in New Zealand there is even a whole Sky channel devoted to food and more in other countries. But is the food writer as celebrity a new concept?

With particular reference to audience theory and the political economy approach to the media, this paper will discuss how food writing has long been a product of a convergence of genre, technology and culture, and the personality and lifestyle of the food writer always a significant factor in celebrity.