From tourist product to ordinary food?

Local food products, either new, “traditional”, or based on a specific conception of food heritage, play an important role in the development of the rural tourism sector in Norway. Building on different concrete Norwegian case studies, this article seeks to better understand the role tourism plays in the creation, or revival, of cultural identity based on local food products and food heritage. The paper uses the concept of the “tourist gaze” in order to analyze tourists and local consumers’ perceptions and appropriation of local food. The article highlights the consequences of the emergence of culinary and local food heritage for tourists in Norway, and concludes that tourism increases the awareness of food heritage and strengthens local identity, although these food products are not much used in ordinary food consumption.