Operative practices and transnational culinary information flows in restaurants ownedby Mexican migrants who have returned from the United States

Abstract

This paper examines the visibilization of transnational culinary information flows through the narratives and operative practices related to foodproduction that take place in restaurants owned by Mexican cooks who have returned from the United States. Through an ethnographic analysis,this article shows how the reproduction of culinary knowledge acquired by migrants in the US configures the social reality of returned cooks: fromthe performativity of action as a means of agency, the restructuring of spaces for food preparation and the negotiations that take part therein, to thereinterpretation of ethnic foods as a material aspect of the effects of transnational migration.