CULINARY EPISTEMOLOGY AND CULTURAL MNEMONICS IN STEPHEN CHBOSKY’S NONNAS (2025)

Abstract

This paper “Culinary Epistemology and Cultural Mnemonics in Stephen Chbosky’s Nonnas (2025)” explores how the embodied practice of culinary epistemology function as a counter hegemonic archive in reclaiming the past and the formation of a cultural identity against the homogenizing forces of assimilation in America. Directed by Stephen Chbosky, Nonnas is a culinary narrative in which food surpasses its role as a spectacle and becomes the medium through which intergenerational memory, grief and cultural identity are mediated. This paper analyses how the culinary memory of the nonnas (real-life Italian grandmothers) who are the custodians of cultural knowledge – ethnic Italian recipes help the protagonist Joe Scaravella in establishing an Italian restaurant “Enoteca Maria” in memory of his late mother at Staten Island in New York. Drawing on the theoretical framework of David E. Sutton (Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory) this study exposes the relationship between culinary memory and cultural identity. In locating Nonnas within the broader framework of culinary cinema, this article presents the movie as a cultural text in which the embodied culinary practice is directly linked with reclaiming the past as well as the cultural identity of the protagonist.