The history of food is closely and inevitably connected with human history; we can appreciate this vital and always changing relationship through the development of every human civilization on earth. In the creation of different techniques to make crops grow safely, or the cattle-raising we can see this connection, related with almost every technological development. One remarkable example is the use of terraces for rice growing in Asia.
Food is also a interesting topic when we study anthropology: food is related to culture and the traditions of almost every human group in our world. We need it, in order to maintain our health, strength and keeping us alive in a reality which is always changing. Because of its primary importance, and its role on our lives as living beings, food is connected with our beliefs about life and death, and our costumes.
Currently, the social implications of food on our globalized reality is influenced by large food companies, what we see in cable tv and the internet. Is very common to see the European and north American influence in the variety of food we can buy at the supermarket and fast food restaurants.
But this globalization of food is relatively recent, and there still many places where we can observe a delicate, complex and symbolic relation with food, without commercial intervention. Those places and their people are most of the time hidden from crowded cities, and they even live without any connection with the rest of the world.
So, how food functions in social allocation, in terms of ethnicity, race, nationality and class?
As we said before, we can appreciate in food many of the beliefs about life, death and the divinity of each culture. Eating is a activity in which people spend many time in their life, and it is seen as a ritual process for many indigenous groups.
In many places,food is used to represent the victory against death, spiritual negative forces or the enemy. Some food is only eaten in special circumstances or celebrations, and prepared with elements and animals which are hard to find, prepare or hunt. In those cases, food is separated in two or more different contexts, the common diet and the exceptional food.
One good example is the ceremonial cannibalism, a tradition in some African and south American tribes. It consisted on eating, in a special ceremony, parts of the human body of an enemy, a person offered in a sacrifice to the gods, or ashes from a family member’s body. It is not common to see today because of the illegal implications and the efforts of many countries to make this costumes disappear; the most recent documentation we have about it was compiled on the 90's decade.
In other tribes, consuming certain elements is an important part of their initiation rituals, where boys become strong male warriors. The Sambia tribe’s masculinization ritual is one of the most shocking for our culture, since the Sambias believe that are unable to boys to mature unless they has to ingest semen from elders members of the tribe, because it would bring them the necessary strength to be a real man.
The same happens with other foodstuffs which are believed to have special effects on human’s body. Balut, which is a fertilized duck egg, is a common street snack in Philippine. Despite it is associated with low-class snack or poverty, many people there think eating balut is a way to prove their manhood, and also is believed it can act as a natural Viagra.
We can even find this kind of uses in fiction. An example of this take place in the epic fantasy novels, A song of ice and fire written by George R. R. Martin. It occurs when Daenerys, a pregnant young girl, must eat a whole horse’s heart to give her unborn son strength and avoid negative consequences on his future life on the patriarchal tribe, as being effeminate, have a disease or being weak. This scene was also played for the television serie Game of Thrones, because of its heavy connotation and the contrast that this kind of ceremony has with what we live in our reality.
As we have seen, the reactions of people from different and opposed cultural environments, and their opinions and feelings about certain food and recipes can be very illustrative when we are analyzing the differences and contrast in the costumes and way of life from two different human groups.
In Peru eating cuy, the peruvian guinea pig, is an old-dated tradition. In most countries guinea pigs are seen as pets, but in Peru, since pre-colonial times, they have been an important source of protein. The cuy even has its own festival, where the biggest animal,and the cuy with the best costume win a prize. The owner keeps the prize, and the cuys are feed, slaughtered and cooked.
This tradition is so rooted on peruvian culture, that is possible to see a famous religious painting, representing The Last Supper, in which Jesus is portrayed with a big roasted cuy on a dish in front of him.
It is also eaten in Bolivia, some areas in Ecuador and Colombia. In the rest of sudamerica, north america and europe, this treatment with guinea pig is generally shocking, but it lead us to very interesting questions.
People in most countries like to eat meat from rabbits and hares, animals belonging to the lagomorpha family. Those animals are very similar to the cuy and are usually also taken as rodents. In despite of that, people from the rest of america and europe, as we said before, think it is disgusting, and even disturbing. Is very remarkable, isn't it?.
In our opinion, the artificial separations created in our minds by our culture, society and religion to differentiate what it is accepted to eat and what is not, are very subtle.
These beliefs that make us find certain kind of animals disgusting to eat, many times (if not always) are not imposed by the rational logic. Those rules and limits are subjective, because they not necessarily respond to a practical reason. They have more to do with what we have learned from our cultural environment. What we believe is necessary to eat in a determined context is something dictated by the imposition of society.
And, finally...
We can conclude that without a doubt the food defines us. In this field, anthropology shows that every society and culture has its own culinary tastes, which are transmitted to each member. Culture also provides rules on what we can eat with certain connotations depending on society. In short, the food becomes a form of language that helps us understand who we are and it serves both to solidify group membership and to set groups apart. As mentioned previously, some of the examples of this is the consume of certain types of meat and the ceremonial uses of food in different cultures.
The connection between humans and food will always exist, and we must learn to value and respect the differences. Of course, we have make our best effort to modificate our costumes, not only related to alimentation, if they affect our natural environments or represent a potential danger to other people. After all, we are what we eat, but it is that way only for one reason: food represent us. And if we make the effort to transform our society to be respectful to others, our food and habits will reflect the change.
I really like food and eating, there is nothing more exciting to try new things and how your palate feel these new sensations and flavours. I agree, food is part of our life, either make our parties or meetings more “tasty”, or making troubles betweens teenagers and people obsessed with their weight. Food makes you who you are, sad to think that there are people who are rejected by the things that eat, or people judged by what they do not consume. Everyone has their own right to eat how and what they want, as long as respect human and animals rights in the process. I eat meat, but I disagree completely on how raising livestock. For that reason food have the power that it have, is a power give it for people.
ReplyDeleteI also think food is something really important, since it’s something essential to live and a delight. I think people have a double standard with meat, as you wrote, each culture eats things that for others are not even considered edible, like in Korea where it’s normal to eat dogs, most Chileans believe this is awful, especially when they see how dogs are treated, but they don’t say nothing about how cows, chickens, pigs, or other animal are mistreated in the slaughterhouse. For me both are just equally bad.
ReplyDeleteIs interesting the wide variety of shades that can take something so simple for humans as is the food. Food define important characteristics of a culture, a society, and individuals in a very subtle form, because we do not even realize about how different we can do until we compare to other societies.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned Evelyn, in the west we consider eating dogs something completely disgusting and even cruel, but eat cows and other animals is considered common.
The same applies with the tribes mentioned in the article, which ate human flesh as part of rituals.
Basically, we are part of a society where we are formed and moulded. It's really interesting to study and learn about this, because it shows us clearly as being all humans we can change our thoughts and lifestyles radically just for the environment and society in which we live.