ABSTRACT
Today, the World Wide Web is the platform for a number of cultural phenomena that previously used to leave their marks offline. Emails have almost supplanted the physical letter, paper diaries have been swapped for online blogs, and we befriend each other virtually via social media networks. This turn towards the digital also includes how we create and consume food and recipes, as food blogging, like other virtual outlets, has “emerged as a new and viable way for people to share information about food in a non-professional capacity” (Lofgren, 2013, p. 1). However, online expressions are fleeting and need to be stored before they lend themselves to being studied. Focusing on methodological possibilities and challenges from different examples of use, this chapter explores how various Internet archives, like the archived web in general, can be fruitfully employed in food studies. The chapter is based on the premise that paying attention to archiving strategies is central to understanding the potential of a given source material. Accordingly, it focuses on how web archives differ from traditional physical archives.
