Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book consists of five main chapters, each exploring both a particular cultural border as structured by alimentary/culinary practices, and a psychopolitical transitional process that takes place at this border. It focuses on culinary rites of passage in general terms and explores broader tendencies; attend to the cultural specificity of alimentary/culinary psychopolitics examining the cases of Chile and Greece respectively. The book discusses the case of Chile and what one could call the rite of passage from colonialism to neoliberal multiculturalism. The massive popularisation of what was a hitherto unknown indigenous condiment and its incorporation within both quotidian and gourmet national cuisine, define a passage from a divided nation of an exclusionary neoliberalism to a neoliberal multiculturalism that attempts to unites all Chileans under the spirit of entrepreneurship.