Food (Anthropology)

Paella Valencia is a world-famous dish, originally from the Spanish region of Valencia. This is a classic ‘Mediterranean cuisine’ recipe, in which rice is the basic ingredient. It has gone from being a humble dish for farmers
to being an exemplar of social gastronomy, partying and celebration. Originally local, after the strong boost from
Tourism in Spain, it has become one of the most prominent icons of our country. This global character has fuelled
a heated discussion, widely reported in the international media, about the true recipe. This is indicated by the
abundant global bibliography on the subject.
After a quantitative investigation among non-professional chefs from the 266 towns in the province of
Valencia, we found that 10 ingredients are repeated with a very high frequency and that we consider to be the
basic ingredients. Fifty other ingredients were identified that are used occasionally, as a sign of the diversity and
richness of the dish. This study is provided to offer guidelines to focus debate and social discussion on what the
ingredients of a “true Paella Valenciana” should be.

In a radical departure from previous ethnographies of food, this book asks how and why food is pivotal to social relations and forms of identity that emerge as normal and not-normal. It does so by describing the production, consumption, distribution, and disposal of ‘normal Bengali food’ in middle-class households that employ cooks from poor classes, and in Bengali restaurants, in contemporary Calcutta (India) and Dhaka (Bangladesh). In a rare comparative foray into Bengali Hindu and Muslim food-ways on both sides of the border, the book includes addas (‘idle-talk’) and interviews with both men and women. It initiates a dialogue that links issues of agency, place, hospitality, and ownership with a new field that places food as an ‘artefact’ at the centre of its inquiry. It invites the reader throughout to approach food afresh, as the key that unlocks the complexities of what is mundane yet profound — the everyday.

The book thus analyses the constant and fraught negotiations that feed into definitions of normality, class and identity through networks of human and non-human interactions – persons, places, and things - in the deeply intimate yet intensely public domain of food. Food transactions here provide a window into shifting configurations of trust, power, and conflict integral to social relationships, shaped by events such as the 1943–44 Bengal famine, the 1947 partition of India, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.

Table of Contents:

List of Photographs

Foreword by Marilyn Strathern

Preface and Acknowledgements

Note on Language, Translation, and Transliteration of Bengali Words

1. Food as Agency: Introducing Normality

2. The Actants of a Normal Foodscape

3. 'Like Everyday’: Creating Normality

4. The Everyday Normal Sacred Kitchen

5. Of Seducing and Respectable, Hospitable and Stingy Foods: Subjectivities of Normal Food

6. Cha (tea), Gan (song), aar (and) Adda (‘idle’/’care-less’ talk): Making and Consuming Normal Food Identities

7. Normal Food and Ownership

8. Postprandial Ruminations

Bibliography

Index

Feasting equipment, copper‐alloy cauldrons and flesh‐hooks, are a distinctive feature of the later Atlantic Bronze Age suggesting elements of a shared ideology whose ultimate origin may lie in the eastern Mediterranean. The easterly distribution of the earliest British cauldrons previously identified is further confirmed by the recent discovery of a Type Colchester example at Salle, Norfolk, which brings to three the number of cauldrons of this type found in the region. Similarities between them suggest their origin lies in a single workshop, if not individual craftsman. The appearance of the cauldrons found at Feltwell, Norfolk, and Salle is so close as to suggest a new ‘Feltwell’ Variant. Analysis of the contents of the Feltwell cauldron hint at the function of these intriguing objects as high status cooking vessels, most likely reserved for the chiefly class and deployed in the hosting of feasts which, along with flesh‐hooks, served to build and cement political alliances.

KEYWORDS
CAULDRON, FLESH‐HOOK, FEASTING, LATER BRONZE AGE, IDEOLOGY, BRONZE AGE CHRONOLOGY, METAL DETECTING

🇵🇱(🇬🇧 below) ABSTRAKT

Wiele jest sposobów konserwowania owoców ze zbieractwa i z upraw. Jednym z najdoskonalszych jest typ produktu, którego forma kulinarna, znana od stuleci albo i tysiącleci w krajach Azji Centralnej i Kaukazu, a w Polsce udokumentowana dużo później. Najdoskonalsza dlatego, że wykorzystuje naturalne źródło energii cieplnej: promienie słoneczne. Historycznie, jego wytwarzanie nie było wcale li tylko rozrywką kulinarną w formie deseru, a... atrybutem praktyk obrzędowych islamu.
Powszechny wśród konsumentów (nie badaczy) sposób poszukiwania informacji, to wynajdywanie haseł w platformie Wikipedia. Geneza przekąsek z suszonych owoców jest tu błędnie formułowana. Opisy głoszą, że jest to tradycja i pomysł kuchni rosyjskiej, co jest nieprawdą. Rosja carska zawłaszczyła wiele utworów i konceptów kulinarnych licznych narodów i etnosów. Ta próba dominacji trwała w ZSRR i trwa dziś. Produktów tych nie wymyślili ani Rosjanie, ani Ukraińcy, ani Polacy. Kto zatem? W antropologii i badaniach nad pożywieniem (jedzeniem) jest to pytanie retoryczne, nie mające odpowiedzi. Nacjonalizacja kulinariów nie jest właściwym tropem. Niewątpliwie jednak warto podjąć analizę antropologiczną praktyk jedzeniowych, której fragmentem jest niniejsze opracowania.
Autorka, Anna Maria Rumińska, antropolożka kultury i jedzenia, architektka i projektantka ogrodów, kucharka-rekonstruktorka i kuratorka kulinarna, analizuje genezę i symbolikę PASTU, przekąsek z suszonych owoców. Bada ich rozmaite formy, nazwy narodowe i etniczne oraz głęboką symbolikę ukrytą w etymologii. Czerpie wiedzę ze źródeł turkijskich, np. kirgiskich i tureckich, a także arabskich, syryjskich i perskich, uznawszy źródła centralnoazjatyckie i kaukaskie za najważniejsze. Zajrzała też do źródeł indyjskich. Sporządziła mapę tego typu przekąsek. W Indiach wykonano badania naukowe w zakresie składu chemicznego. Istnieje nawet naukowy przepis kulinarny stworzony na potrzeby tej analizy.
Autorka prezentuje tu pierwsze i jedyne tłumaczenie wyników indyjskich badań, jak również krytykę opracowania FAO (Food and and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) poświęconego tego typu przekąskom. Dzięki temu tłumaczeniu dostępna jest gastronomiczna analiza relacji między wieloma aspektami: nazwami narodowymi i etnicznymi, odmianami tego produktu i jego pochodnymi, sposobem przyrządzania, proporcjami składników owocowych, temperaturą, wilgotnością, czasem składowania, rodzajem opakowania, zawartością witaminy C, pleśni i drożdży.
Ta antropogastronomiczna praca badawcza zyskała wiele cennych wątków dzięki kontaktom w sieci SlowFood.com, szczególnie dzięki kontaktom Autorki z sieci „Terra Madre Salone del Gusto”, przede wszystkim z 2018 roku.
Niniejsze Studium to dogłębna analiza kulinarna, antropogastronomiczna i historyczna zawierająca również przepisy na różne przekąski z ich odmiennymi nazwami, instrukcje zdjęciowe i tekstowe. Całość zajmuje 40 stronach formatu A4. Studium zawiera tekst i wiele kolorowych ilustracji. Plik PDF ebook dostępny jest w linku albo na zamówienie emailem:
https://gum.co/SKOzu
chwastozercy (at) gmail. com
Partnerzy i Mecenasi:
Slow Food Dolny Śląsk - Społeczność Slow Food Promocji Kulinarnego Dziedzictwa Dolnego Śląska
www.slowfooddolnyslask.org

Pełny tekst:
https://chwastozercy.gumroad.com/l/SKOzu

***

🇬🇧 ABSTRACT

There are many ways to preserve foraged (uncultivated) or cultivated fruits. One of the most perfect is a product, a culinary form known for centuries or even millennia in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, also documented in Polish records much later. The most perfect, because it utilizes a natural source of thermal energy: sun rays. Historically, its production was not a culinary entertainment in the form of a dessert, but ... a ritual practice of Islam.
A common way of searching for information among consumers (not researchers) is searching for phrases in the Wikipedia platform. The origin of the dried fruit snacks is wrongly worded here. The descriptions say, this is a tradition and an idea of Russian cuisine, which is not true. Tsarist Russia appropriated many works and culinary concepts of many other nations and ethnoses, and this attempt to dominate was continued by the USSR and goes on today. These snacks were not invented by Russians, Ukrainians, or Poles. So by whom? In the food anthropology and food studies this is a rhetorical question, with no answer. Culinary nationalization is not the right track. Undoubtedly, however, it is worth undertaking an anthropological analysis of food practices, a part of which this study is.
The author, Anna Maria Rumińska, cultural and food anthropologist, architect and garden designer, chef-reenactor and culinary curator, analyzes the origins and symbolism of PAST, dried fruit snacks. She examines its various forms, national and ethnic names, and deep symbolism hidden in etymology. She draws knowledge from Turkic sources, e.g. Kyrgyz and Turkish, as well as Arab ones, Syrian and Persian, considering Central Asian and Caucasian sources as the most important. She also looked at Indian records. She made a linguistic map of this type of snacks. In India, scientific research has been carried out on this type of snack in terms of its chemical composition. There is even a scientific culinary recipe created for the purpose of this analysis.
The author presents the first and only Polish translation of the Indian research results, as well as a critique of the study of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) devoted to this type of snacks. Thanks to this translation, what is possible is a gastronomic analysis of the relationship between many aspects: national and ethnic names, varieties of this product and its derivatives, preparation method, proportions of fruit ingredients, temperature, humidity, storage time, type of packaging, content if vitamin C, moulds and yeasts.
This anthropogastronomic research gained many valuable threads thanks to the contacts within the SlowFood.com network, especially thanks to the Author's contacts from the network "Terra Madre Salone del Gusto", mainly from 2018.
This anthropogastronomic study is an in-depth anthropological, culinary and historical analysis, including recipes for various dried fuit snacks with their different names, photographs and text instructions. The whole is 40 pages of A4 format. The study contains text and a lot of colorful illustrations.
The PDF e-book in English is available by email order:
chwastozercy (at) gmail. com

Partners and Patreons:
Slow Food Dolny Śląsk - Slow Food Community for Promotion of Dolny Slask Culinary Heritage
www.slowfooddolnyslask.org

In this article, I explore how cooking knowledge is constituted and show that a sense of taste is central to it. Drawing on the thick description of domestic couscous preparation in Marrakech, Morocco, I treat taste both as a multisensory form of knowing that includes a sixth sense, temporality, and as a broader set of values that inform everyday food preparation. The notion of taste knowledge highlights that there is much more to a cook's knowledge than the act of cooking, and that food and the broader environment play an active part in it. Importantly, taste knowledge only fully emerges as an activity in which past, present, and future experiences are evaluated against material and social changes. Finally, taste knowledge shows that phenomenologically inspired research allows an understanding of broader cultural, economic, and political processes and how these shape, and are shaped by, the work of low-income, yet highly knowledgeable, women.

Hardly a meal is eaten without bread in Morocco. Despite a nutritional transition mirroring the global trend towards more sugar, fat and animal protein, cereals, largely in the form of bread, remain highly valued and the unchallenged staple food. At the same time bread is politically sensitive, for the legitimacy of the government historically rests on the provision of cheap flour and bread to its urban citizens. Notwithstanding a general tendency towards economic liberalization, the production, distribution and consumption of wheat are still controlled by the government, not least due to continuing urbanization and persistently high rates of poverty, which have contributed to political revolutions in neighbouring countries. In this context, what cereals are eaten and how they are made into bread is meaningful not only culturally, but also economically and politically. To capture the multiple values of bread and to analyze their material and symbolic entanglements, I think of poor and recently urbanized Moroccans as 'cereal citizens'. Based on the premise that bodily practices are central to the creation of meaning and value, I argue that, in selecting cereals and making bread, recently urbanized poor Moroccans craft an ambivalent sense of belonging that celebrates their rural origins while accepting their dependence on cheap, largely imported wheat. In doing so, they assert themselves as political subjects, and their daily practices of bread-making can be considered a civic practice.

Knowledge is increasingly thought of as a common good. This is exhibited in the fact that
many central economies are moving towards economic paradigms where knowledge plays a
fundamental role. This paper explores the confluence between both processes, asking in what
ways an economic model based on the knowledge commons can open up new socioeconomic
scenarios in the face of overwhelming neoliberal financialization.

The study shows how communal baking practices were used to establish a sense of community, and to establish and maintain feelings of mutual solidarity during the first half of the nineteenth century in the mill towns of northern England, taking the case of the Maudlands in Preston, Lancashire as an example. Two excavations of communal bakehouses set within terraced dwelling houses are presented, believed to be the first reported examples of this form of architecture. Combined with documentary evidence the study shows how food, and in particular baked bread, was deployed to ease the passage from rural to industrial life.
KEYWORDS
INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, FOOD, BREAD, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, COTTON MILLS, BAKEHOUSE, OVEN, SOCIAL HISTORY

The Institut français d'archéologie orientale (IFAO) and Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw, Research Center in Cairo (PCMA) are organising an international conference on food and drink in Egypt and Sudan throughout history, focusing on the continuity and innovations that have occurred at times of change.

Whether political, religious, cultural or environmental, drastic transformations have often left their mark on food. They affected available ingredients, how they were prepared and consumed, and even people's attitude towards certain items. The conference will aim to question notions of continuity in both Egyptian and Sudanese cuisines, focusing on shifts observed in food and drink as a result of times of transitioning. Presented papers will not only cover a wide geographical and temporal range, but are expected to be interdisciplinary, highlighting the diverse methodologies and datasets that can be used to study food-and drinkways. By including both Egypt and Sudan together, the meeting will allow scholars to reflect on (dis)similarities on continuities and traditions between these neighbouring countries.

We invite papers in English tackling continuities and transitions observed in any of the following themes:  Sourcing food and drink;  Processing foods and drinks (methods of preparation, including technological innovations and import of ideas, recipes and techniques);  Choice of foods and drink, and their consumption (which includes foods becoming staples; clean and unclean foods; taboos and prohibitions);  Spaces of food/drink preparation (such as kitchens) and consumption (such as refectories);  Fasting and Feasting;  Ritual feeding and drinking (feeding and drinking in religious and funerary contexts);  Social contexts of food and beverages: Food/drink and identity; food/drink and status/prestige.

In this study, it was aimed to determine the changing in eating habits of women who migrated from Kars to Istanbul. Kars, a city which is at the eastern tip of Turkey, Istanbul is a cosmopolitan city in the most western end. For this purpose, conversational interviews were done with 8 retired teachers who migrated almost 40 years ago. Before the interview, knowledge about the study was given to these participants and consent forms were taken. Interviews held in İstanbul during August 2019. The possible cultural diffusion after migration and the changes in food culture and the habits tried to be preserved were determined and thus, an evaluation was made about the power of diffusion in people's food choices. ÖZET Bu çalışmada Kars'tan İstanbul'a göç eden kadınların yeme alışkanlıklarındaki değişimin belirlenmesi amaçlandı. Türkiye'nin doğu ucunda yer alan Kars, İstanbul en batı ucunda kozmopolit bir şehir. Bu amaçla, yaklaşık 40 yıl önce İstanbul'a göç etmiş 8 emekli öğretmenle konu kapsamında görüşme yapılmıştır. Görüşme öncesinde bu katılımcılara çalışma hakkında bilgi verilmiş ve katılımcı rıza formları alınmıştır. Görüşmeler Ağustos 2019'da İstanbul'da yapılmıştır. Göç sonrası olası kültürel difüzyon ve gıda kültüründeki değişiklikler ve korunmaya çalışılan alışkanlıklar belirlendi ve böylece insanların gıda seçimlerinde difüzyonun gücü hakkında bir değerlendirme yapıldı.

This paper will explore the ubiquitous relationship between food and mortuary rituals in pre-Roman Veneto (Italy). By analysing a wealth of grave assemblages from the main Venetic localities, it is argued that food consumption was related to death at several different levels. On the one hand, as suggested by commonplace explanations, food residuals and culinary implements placed within the tomb may be interpreted as offerings for the dead, or the remains of the funerary banquet consumed in honour of the deceased. On the other hand, however, a more profound contiguity between mortuary rituals and eating practices is implied by the employment of culinary vessels as urns. The adoption of a range of cooking vessels and liquid-containers as urns suggests that human remains may have been conceived as metaphorical food, with the possibility, for the mourners, to elaborate symbolic links between selected foods and the dead, probably in relation to his/her gender, age and rank. Finally, I will support this interpretation of Venetic funerary rituals by looking at anthropological research on the relation between dying and eating, and at the archaeological case of Etruria, where the deposition of exceptional cremated males in food and wine-containers has been interpreted as a form of solemn sacrifice.

En las comunidades rurales de la costa y sierra de Oaxaca, cada vez es más frecuente encontrarse una mujer como cabeza de familia, cumpliendo funciones clave dentro del grupo doméstico. A las mujeres se las puede ver trabajando en la casa, cultivando el huerto, criando aves de corral, cosechando café, trayendo leña y/o agua o elaborando artesanías. A esto, hay que sumar el cuidado de los y las hijas y la responsabilidad de todo el proceso alimentario. Ante la necesidad de mejorar su situación socioeconómica, muchas de ellas se han apuntado a programas que promueven actividades emancipadoras, aunque eso haya supuesto aumentar su carga de trabajo dentro y fuera de casa.

Food is a universal human experience. People everywhere must eat to survive, yet what foods are eaten and how they are enjoyed can vary widely across cultures and time. While the dishes that bring comfort vary from culture to culture and person to person, is turning to food for comfort a cultural universal?

This paper explores the strategic relevance for communities of properly managing collective symbolic capital under a neoliberal context, focusing on the impact of neoliberal policies in the capacity of communities to control the appropriation of value of their agro-food productions. The current economic crisis in Spain increases the pressure on the social and economic reproduction of the lower classes within local communities, and threatens the virtuous balance between the management of common resources and the collective symbolic capital associated with them. Entrepreneurial and institutional logic favors the capturing of collective symbolic capital by local bourgeoisies and transnational companies, while depleting the local common resources that had been exploited sustainably by local communities for centuries. The case study of the cultivation of clams in Carril, Spain, illustrates this process, while the
conclusions from previous research on other Spanish agro-food systems are presented to provide a comparative analysis and potential development alternatives based on different strategies for the management of collective symbolic capital.

This article probes the understandings and experiences of punishment and imprisonment in and around Chimoio, Manica Province, Mozambique. Focusing on two cases of imprisonment
under severe conditions in the provincial agricultural prison of Chimoio, the article argues that corporal punishment is part of the punitive infrastructure of both the colonial and post-colonial state. Analysing the two contrasting cases, the article probes the significance of the metaphor for prison entry – ‘entering the red sands’ – to make the argument that carceral punishment is understood in terms of entry into a state space of potential death. The article recognises the importance of grounding perspectives on imprisonment and punishment beyond assumptions of universal regimes of imprisonment and punishment regimes. In doing so, it focuses on popular
understandings and experiences of such practices and supports its argument by demonstrating, firstly, the long-term trajectory of corporal punishment in Mozambique and, secondly, by showing how imprisonment is perceived as challenging key tenets of sociality.

Issues of Food and Drink: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Volume editor Sarah Ralph, General Editors David Barrowclough and Mary Chester-Kadwell.

Papers:
Sarah Ralph: Preface
Michael Dietler: Introduction: Embodied Material Culture
F. Hagen and H. Koefoed: Private Feasts at Deir el-Medina
Sarah Ralph: Eat, Drink and Be Roman?
I. Danaher: Food for Thought
F. Mozota and A. Romero: Food, Drink and 'the Other' in the Celtiberian City-state of Segeda I
R. Clark: Glass Vessels in 'Lundenwic'
P. Patrick: An Arcaheology of Overindulgence
J. Tocancipa-Falla: 'De la nata y el ripio' Drinking Coffee, Changes and Social Notions of Quality in Colombia
P. Brusaferro: Ethical Authenticity, Artefacts and Value Systems
David Barrowclough: Community Spirit: Distilling Scottish Identity, the case of Strathblane

The dominant research approach to both food insecurity and charitable meal provision is nutritionistic, deficit-orientated and ignores wider socio-economic issues. This reinforces existing power dynamics and overlooks the agency of people living food-insecure lives. We critique this dominant approach and draw on the everyday experiences of families facing food insecurity to ground an alternative approach that emphasises food as a social determinant of health.

Why We Eat, How We Eat maps new terrains in thinking about relations between bodies and foods. With the central premise that food is both symbolic and material, the volume explores the intersections of current critical debates regarding how individuals eat and why they eat. Through a wide-ranging series of case studies it examines how foods and bodies both haphazardly encounter, and actively engage with, one another in ways that are simultaneously material, social, and political. The aim and uniqueness of this volume is therefore the creation of a multidisciplinary dialogue through which to produce new understandings of these encounters that may be invisible to more established paradigms. In so doing, Why We Eat, How We Eat concomitantly employs eating as a tool - a novel way of looking - while also drawing attention to the term 'eating' itself, and to the multiple ways in which it can be constituted. The volume asks what eating is - what it performs and silences, what it produces and destroys, and what it makes present and absent. It thereby traces the webs of relations and multiple scales in which eating bodies are entangled; in diverse and innovative ways, contributors demonstrate that eating draws into relationships people, places and objects that may never tangibly meet, and show how these relations are made and unmade with every mouthful. By illuminating these contemporary encounters, Why We Eat, How We Eat offers an empirically grounded richness that extends previous approaches to foods and bodies.