Authenticity Isn't About Food: A Conversation with Fabio Parasecoli

Article by: Janna Tamargo | Photography by: Janna Tamargo | Published July 3, 2026

As someone whose doctoral research examined the social construction of authenticity, I've spent years thinking about why people become so invested in whether something is "real." Authenticity is one of those concepts that seems obvious until you begin asking who defines it, under what conditions, and for what purpose.

Those questions eventually led me to food.

Not because food is unique, but because food is one of the places where debates about authenticity become especially visible. Every day we hear people arguing over whether a restaurant is authentic, whether a recipe has been "ruined," or whether a particular cuisine has stayed true to its origins. On the surface these appear to be culinary disagreements. Sociologically, they are debates about identity, memory, belonging, and cultural authority.

That is why I wanted to sit down with food scholar Fabio Parasecoli. I saw our conversation as an opportunity to explore how these larger sociological questions play out specifically within food culture.

Very quickly, it became clear that we were speaking the same language.

Authenticity Is a Response to Globalization

One of Parasecoli's most interesting observations is that authenticity is actually a relatively recent obsession.

Until the second half of the twentieth century, people rarely spoke about food in terms of authenticity. The concept gained prominence alongside globalization, when transportation, refrigeration, migration, and international trade made cuisines available far beyond their places of origin.

Globalization expanded our choices, but it also changed our relationship with food.

We became increasingly disconnected from where our food comes from, who produces it, and the communities that shaped it. At the same time, international travel exposed people to the foods they thought they already knew. Someone might grow up eating "Thai food" in New York only to arrive in Bangkok and discover an entirely different culinary landscape.

Authenticity becomes a way of resolving that tension.

From my perspective as a sociologist, this illustrates something larger: authenticity functions as a social response to uncertainty. When familiar categories become blurred, people search for certainty. "Authentic" offers that certainty, even if the category itself is socially constructed.

Food Is Rarely the Real Argument

Throughout our discussion, I found myself returning to an idea that has shaped my own research.

Authenticity is rarely about the object itself.

In food, the recipe becomes a stand-in for something much larger.

People believe they are arguing about tomatoes, pasta, or spices, but what they are often negotiating are questions of identity. Which traditions deserve preservation? Who belongs to a culture? Who has the authority to represent it? Whose version counts?

Food simply provides a remarkably accessible stage upon which these deeper cultural conversations unfold.

Parasecoli illustrated this beautifully with an example few people would expect.

He recalled an episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo in which Honey Boo Boo's mother proudly prepared "sketti"—spaghetti mixed with butter and ketchup in the microwave. By almost any culinary standard, it would be dismissed as inauthentic.

Yet within that family, it represented tradition. It expressed care, memory, and belonging.

That, too, is authenticity.

Not because the recipe originated in Italy, but because authenticity can also exist within families and communities.

As sociologists have long argued, authenticity is never simply discovered. It is collectively assigned.

Heritage is Constructed, Not Uncovered

One point where our conversation overlapped particularly well was the relationship between authenticity and heritage.

People often imagine heritage as something waiting to be uncovered, as though traditions remain frozen in time until someone rediscovers them.

In reality, heritage is continually produced.

Communities decide which traditions represent them, governments codify certain foods through legal protections, and institutions elevate particular practices while overlooking others.

Parasecoli pointed to geographical indications like Parmigiano Reggiano as examples of legal authenticity, where governments establish formal definitions of what counts as the "real" product.

But even these legal categories emerge through social and political processes.

The same is true of UNESCO's recognition of culinary heritage.

These designations do not simply preserve culture, they actively participate in defining it.

National Cuisines Are Stories Nations Tell About Themselves

One of the most fascinating parts of our dialogue centered on nationalism.

Many people assume national cuisines naturally evolved over centuries.

History tells a more complicated story.

Italy provides a classic example.

Following unification, writers such as Pellegrino Artusi gathered regional recipes into a single cookbook that helped construct what people now recognize as Italian cuisine. Regional diversity became national identity through cultural work rather than historical inevitability.

The same questions continue to emerge in countries with more recent national identities.

Who decides what counts as Nigerian food?

Whose recipes become representative?

Which regions are included?

Which are left out?

These are political questions as much as culinary ones.

Again, authenticity becomes less about recipes than about power.

Gastronationalism and Its Opposite

Parasecoli also discussed the growing scholarship surrounding gastronationalism: the use of food to reinforce national identity.

But he was equally interested in gastrodiplomacy.

Food can build borders.

It can also build bridges.

State dinners, diplomatic banquets, and shared meals communicate respect across cultures in ways politics sometimes cannot.

Richard Nixon's visit to China remains one of the best-known examples. The symbolism of sharing meals became part of diplomacy itself.

Food, in this sense, becomes another language.

Can Industrial Food Still Be Authentic?

One assumption that often accompanies discussions of authenticity is that it must be artisanal, local, or small-scale.

Parasecoli challenged that assumption through examples from Poland, where industrial food brands became deeply embedded in cultural memory.

Their authenticity comes not from handcrafted production but from shared experience.

Millions of people grew up with these foods.

They became part of national identity.

This distinction is important because authenticity should not be confused with nostalgia for a particular economic model. Authenticity is socially produced whether something is made in a village bakery or a factory, provided communities invest it with meaning.

The Meals We Remember

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Parasecoli about meals that felt authentic to him.

Interestingly, none involved famous restaurants.

He spoke about potatoes and peppers prepared by his mother-in-law in Calabria, steamed fish wrapped in banana leaves in Cambodia, and eating pho on a cold Hanoi morning while squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder with locals before work.

These experiences resonated with my own travels.

Some of the meals I remember most vividly were not extraordinary because of the ingredients. They were meaningful because I was briefly participating in everyday life rather than consuming a curated performance designed for tourists.

Those moments remind us that authenticity often emerges through relationships rather than recipes.

Authenticity Is a Social Relationship

When our conversation ended, I was struck less by our differences than by how naturally sociology and food studies complement one another.

My own work has argued that authenticity is socially constructed...that objects are not inherently authentic but become authentic through collective meaning-making.

Parasecoli's work demonstrates how food offers one of the richest places to observe that process unfolding.

Perhaps that is why debates over authentic food rarely end.

Because they were never really about food in the first place.

They are about identity.

They are about memory.

They are about heritage.

They are about belonging.

Food simply gives those conversations a seat at the table.