Research on Turkish chefs' gastronationalist attitudes

Gastronationalism is defined as the expression and reinforcement of national identity and nationalist feelings through local cuisines and food culture. This concept encompasses the process of creating a nationalist identity through food, with the belief that the food culture of a particular country or region is superior or unique to others. In recent years, it has been observed that the studies on the concept of gastro nationalism, which has been examined by different branches of science and disciplines, have generally been conducted with qualitative research methods and that there is no measurement tool for the concept. This research aims to examine the attitudes of individuals towards national food cultures and local cuisines by addressing the idea of gastronationalism. It also provides a theoretical framework to explore this concept, which has been addressed in a limited way in the literature, in more depth and makes an empirical contribution to the subject. One of the most important objectives of the research is to present the Gastronationalism Scale, which was developed to measure the gastronationalist tendencies of individuals. Content validity, construct validity and reliability analyses were conducted during the development process of the scale. As a result of the scale development study, a gastronationalist attitude scale consisting of 3 dimensions and 12 items emerged. The scale was tested with 689 participants with different demographic characteristics across Turkey. In this process, the factor structure of the scale was tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and it was seen that it exhibited a consistent and reliable structure. Based on the analysis of the participants' responses to the scale, it was concluded that Turkish chefs have high levels of gastronationalist attitudes. This study fills an important gap both in the field of gastronomy and in the context of nationalism and cultural identity studies and provides an original contribution to understanding the role of local cuisines in the construction of national identity.