ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with the genre of the confessional food narrative and its connections to specific discourses of modern and post-modern masculinities and sexual identities. Waxman instead refers to Anthony Bourdain’s in order to evaluate his work in relation to the food memoir, and Nicola Humble considers his food writing in the context of gender in discursive cookbooks. Brien's study provides a detailed critical evaluation of the food memoir and describes Bourdain's work as professional food survival memoir pointing out the paradigm shift in Bourdain's writing style and focus on the chef as modern hero figure introduced to the genre of food writing. Masculinity as a specific focus of interrogation has gained ground in critical studies since the 1990s as an interdisciplinary field and has offered a wide range of approaches to the ways in which male gender identity is performed in relation to issues such as class, race, and sexuality.
