Cosmopolitan gastro-aesthetics and the new tastes of Timor

Abstract

In Dili, a new generation of Timorese “foodies” are reshaping the culinary landscape by formulating “Timorese Cuisine.” Armed with mobile devices and active on social media, they seek to build Timor's reputation as a tourist destination by managing consumers' appreciation for “local foods” through a novel “gastro-aesthetics” a culturally inflected field of qualities which contribute to judgements of the “pleasantness,” “beauty,” or “goodness” of food. But bringing Timorese foodways into correspondence with global consumer tastes unsettles their qualitative characteristics and their medical, moral, and cosmological meanings. With cultural politics dominated by resistance heroes and the Indonesian-educated “new generation,” this movement marks a youthful contribution to Timor-Leste's viability through entrepreneurialism. As the country's fossil fuel economy is challenged by climate change, and tourism promoted as a sustainable alternative, configuring “Timorese Cuisine” is an element of nation-branding at once elevates and diminishes the efficacies of “local foods” as social substances.