Easy Eatalian: Chefs of Italian origin hosting cookery series on British television and mediating their cultural heritage

Drawing on an analysis of a sample of extracts from TV cookery programs hosted by Antonio Carluccio, Gennaro Contaldo and Giorgio Locatelli, three Italian chefs who under different circumstances chose the UK as their elective professional home-country, the present paper sets out to investigate three cases of recent (after the 1970s and after the 1980s) migration to the UK linked to the food industry. Well-known London restaurateurs, but also TV personae, these three chefs have become very popular both in the UK and in Italy via their British TV cookery series. This essay looks for narration patterns that relate to migration, redemption and success in the TV series analysed, and also addresses the topic of how culture-specific contents of the Italian food tradition have been retained, erased or adapted in order to appeal to UK recipients who do not share the cultural or the gastronomic background of the chefs’ country of origin. One further objective of the study is to investigate if the TV chefs’ representation of a sense of identity and belonging connect more to the Italian community at home or to the Italian-British community in the UK, and how these aspects have been conveyed through such culturally connoted programs as TV cookery series. In order to obtain a more thorough picture of the factors involved, the paper also considers cookbooks accompanying the TV series along with other cookbooks published by the chefs on Italian cuisine.