By Sophie Marie Cappelen and Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen

How can you invent a novel cuisine and culinary heritage? The study explores how a group of organisational actors constructs and employs historical narratives to authenticate, legitimise and mobilise support for a new, local cuisine, claimed to be temporally anchored in an unspecified ancient past. Conducting an in-depth case study of a culinary movement based in Istanbul, Turkey, three forms of ambiguity are identified that enable the construction of a common culinary heritage.