The sovereign meal of the male leader: Matteo Salvini’s food porn aesthetics

As a crucial component of « Italianicity », food is a common topic in the political discourse in Italy. The diffusion of the grammars and practices of food porn media offer new possibilities for political communication: in Italy, it’s especially the sovereignist and populist parties who use such a language. In this article we will focus on the application of food porn as a gastro- nationalist device by Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing party Lega. In Salvini’s specific aesthetics of food porn, we can detect a « lo-fi » strategy - based on the counter-position with « high cuisine » –, which resonates with the rejection of the intellectual elites’ attitudes and know-how. Furthermore, with his food porn production, Salvini aims to celebrate the material and pragmatic elements typically associated with the traditional masculinity supported by the « anti-gender » movements in Italy and elsewhere. Thanks to the representation of food and meals, Salvini thus proposes an image of himself as a typical Italian male, ready to defend the borders of nation, tradition and gender.