Consuming Identities: Evocations and Embodiments of 'Home', 'Memory', and 'Chineseness' in Diasporic Chinese Celebrity Chefs' Cookbooks and Television Programmes

This thesis takes an in-depth look at diasporic Chinese celebrity chefs, and the ways in which they articulate their sense of identity in the cooking television programmes and cookbooks which they have authored and appeared in. I analyse how Australian-Chinese celebrity chefs Kylie Kwong and Poh Ling Yeow embody and negotiate their identities through the food they cook, and the memories and narratives which they share about family, 'home', and 'belonging' to a particular place, country, or ethnic community. This thesis contributes new and significant insights into celebrity chefs by utilising a multidisciplinary approach and theories from postcolonial studies, documentary studies, diaspora studies, and psychoanalysis.