A Taste of Progress by Nelleke Teughels Peter Scholliers

Author:Nelleke Teughels, Peter Scholliers [Nelleke Teughels, Peter Scholliers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 19th Century, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781317186434
Google: dce1CwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-09T01:26:48+00:00

Conclusion

Names like ‘Belgian Waffles’ and associated world’s fair fantasies have economic value (see http://www.wafelsanddinges.com/), but they also have effects for identity construction and loaded image building, even of a nation. The ‘Belgian waffle’ was made in the USA in the sixties and savoured in memories ever since. To satisfy the demand of international visitors, waffles (not always the Brussels but even the Liège variety) with strawberries and whipped cream are now also sold in the touristic hotspots in the Belgian capital. In liminal situations like world’s fairs, consumers can be persuaded to try out and collectively embrace culinary loaded products connected to the name of a country; that can be recreated, resold and remembered. The importance of the formula of franchises and concessions in the context of world’s fairs brings in new questions and models in the history of national identities and associations. The very ambiguous roles and opportunities that could be grabbed in the institutional void (including a boycott by Belgium) that the strange 1964–65 fair in New York generated, were exceptional, in particular in combination with the very ambiguous chronotope of a Belgian ‘picturesque village’ formula. The ambitions of the BFE company with their Bel-gem waffles connected to the Belgian Village that opened much too late and left months of ambiguity of the status of ‘Belgium’ (to be opened later) were matched by the campaign of a number of Seattle businessmen in New York who were using the Cleyman waffle irons and recipes that had been a success in 1962, the actions of other smaller players that also set up waffle stands, corners or items on the menu of their restaurants and bars, in combination with the Elvis movie and texts and images in the media, and of course the irresistible smell of making waffles in open air: many convergent facts caused the huge volcano explosion or wave of waffle batter in the fairground of 1964 and 1965 in New York.42 This remarkable evolution and convergence between 1962 and 1965 was synthesised and remembered since in an edible chronotope: the Belgian Waffle.

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