The Emergence of National Food: The Dynamics of Food and Nationalism 9781350074132, 9781350074163, 9781350074149

Citation preview

The Emergence of National Food

Also Available From Bloomsbury Cooking Technology, edited by Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz Food, Masculinities, and Home, edited by Michelle Szabo and Shelley L. Koch Food, Power, and Agency, edited by Jürgen Martschukat and Bryant Simon

The Emergence of National Food The Dynamics of Food and Nationalism Edited by Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 This paperback edition published in 2020 Copyright © Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, Ronald Ranta and Contributors, 2019 Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. cover image: Brixton Market © Ronald Ranta All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ichijo, Atsuko, 1967-editor. | Johannes, Venetia, editor. | Ranta, Ronald, editor. Title: The emergence of national food: the dynamics of food and nationalism / edited by Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes and Ronald Ranta. Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019001500 | ISBN 9781350074132 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350074156 (epub) | ISBN 9781350074149 (ePDF) Subjects: LCSH: Food habits–Political aspects. | Food habits–Social aspects. | National characteristics. | Nationalism. Classification: LCC GT2850 .E525 2019 | DDC 394.1/2–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001500 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-7413-2 PB: 978-1-3501-8392-6 ePDF: 978-1-3500-7414-9 eBook: 978-1-3500-7415-6 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta

vii 1

Part One The “Template”: The “Orthodox” Emergence and Development of National Food 1 2 3 4 5

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine José M. Sobral The Cookbook in Mexico: A Founding Document of the Modern Nation Sarah Bak-Geller Corona Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia Andreja Vezovnik and Ana Tominc Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride Nevena Nancheva Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana Brandi Simpson Miller

17 28 39 51 61

Part Two Contemporary Accounts of the Emergence and Development of National Food 6 7 8 9

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods: From Haggis to Deep-Fried Mars Bars Joy Fraser and Christine Knight Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study Venetia Johannes National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica Mona Nikolić Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine Isabel M. Aguilera Bornand

73 85 96 107

Part Three Critical Accounts of National Food 10 Does Israeli Food Exist? The Multifaceted and Complex Making of a National Food Ronald Ranta and Claudia Raquel Prieto-Piastro 11 Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation Liora Gvion 12 Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States: An Empirical or Conceptual Problem? Amy B. Trubek

119 130 142

vi

Contents

13 The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet 14 “They’re Always Eating Cuy”: Food Regionalism and Transnationalism in Ecuador and the Andes Emma-Jayne Abbots

151

Conclusion Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta

175

References Index

181

164

204

Contributors Editors Atsuko Ichijo is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, International Relations and Human Rights at Kingston University, UK. Her main research interest is in nationalism studies and she is the author of Food, National Identity and Nationalism (coauthored with Ronald Ranta, 2016, Palgrave) and Nationalism and Multiple Modernities: Europe and Beyond (2013, Palgrave). She is a member of the editorial team of Nations and Nationalism and a book series editor of the “Identities and Modernities in Europe” series (published by Palgrave). Venetia Johannes completed her DPhil in anthropology at the University of Oxford in October 2015, where she also completed an MSc in social anthropology in 2011. The title of her doctoral thesis was “Nourishing the Nation: Manifestations of Catalan Identity through Food,” where she studied how Catalans use food and cuisine as a means of expressing their national identity. Previously she studied business management at the Royal Agricultural University (2007–2010), and she has worked in finance and marketing research. She is currently a research associate with the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis is to be published under the title, Nourishing National Identity: Manifestations of Catalan Nationalism through Food (Berghahn Books) in 2019. Ronald Ranta is a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Kingston University, UK. His research focuses on nationalism and the politics of identity through two broad areas of interest. The first, which grew out of his PhD research on the ArabIsraeli conflict, examines the way in which Israeli national identity and culture were and continue to be constructed in relation to Palestinian identity and culture. The second area of interest concerns the relationship between food, nationalism, and globalization. As a former chef, he is particularly interested in how, in relation to globalization, food is conceptualized and promoted as national. He is the author of Food, National Identity and Nationalism (coauthored with Atsuko Ichijo, 2016, Palgrave) and From the Arab Other to the Israeli Self: Palestinian Culture in the Making of Israeli National Identity (coauthored with Yonatan Mendel, 2016, Routledge).

Authors Emma-Jayne Abbots is a senior lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her research addresses the cultural politics of food, eating, and the body, with

viii

Contributors

a particular focus on migration, gender and care, heritage and artisanality, and labor relations. Published books include The Agency of Eating (Bloomsbury, 2017), Why We Eat, How We Eat (Ashgate, 2013), and Careful Eating (Ashgate, 2015). Isabel M. Aguilera Bornand is Professor at the Anthropology Department of the Tarapacá University, Arica, Chile. She studied sociology at the University of Chile and has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona. Publications include De la cocina al Estado nación. El ingrediente Mapuche (ICARIA, 2016); Becoming Typical: a Genealogical Approximation to Merken Boom in Chile (RIVAR). Sarah Bak-Geller Corona (associate professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) is an École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), École Normale Supérieur (ENS), and Hong Kong University alumna, and currently teaches in the Institute for Anthropological Research (UNAM) in Mexico. Her main research interest is the political dimension of food practices in colonialist and nationalist contexts in Mexico and Latin-America (eighteenth to twentieth centuries). She participated in the UNESCO Chair World Food Systems and in various anthropological research projects on food heritage, ethnicity, and race. She is the author of Habitar una cocina (Inhabit a Kitchen), 2006. Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet (MS, Food Systems Graduate Program, University of Vermont, 2017) is the author of “Poutine Dynamics,” a much-discussed paper in which he argued that labeling poutine as a Canadian dish is culturally appropriating Québécois culture. “Poutine Dynamics” is part of his master’s thesis titled “Poutine, Mezcal and Hard Cider: The Making of Culinary Identities in North America.” He is now the assistant director of Strategic Development for Montreal’s Public Markets. Joy Fraser is a folklorist and is completing a book tracing the cultural history of haggis as a contested symbol of Scottishness. Her work has appeared in Contemporary Legend, Scottish Studies, Ethnologies, and Shima. Liora Gvion is Professor of Sociology at The Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel, whose major fields of interests are the sociology of food and the sociology of the body. Her previous researches concerned cultural and political aspects of the Palestinian cuisine in Israel, the lesbian community, and the professional body. Christine Knight researches contemporary food culture, focusing on popular nutrition discourses and dietary advice. She recently completed a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Medical Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, investigating the negative stereotype of the Scottish diet within the United Kingdom. She is a visiting research fellow in science, technology & innovation studies, University of Edinburgh; the Food Values Research Group, University of Adelaide; and School of Health Sciences, Flinders University; and a board member of the Association for the Study of Food & Society.

Contributors

ix

Brandi Simpson Miller holds an MA in world history from Georgia State University (2015). She is a doctoral researcher at the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies London. Her research interests include the study of the social history of Ghana, particularly the political aspects of global and local food practices from the precolonial period to Ghanaian independence. Nevena Nancheva is Lecturer in Politics, International Relations and Human Rights at Kingston University London, and a researcher at the Centre for Research on Communities, Identities, and Difference. She has written on European integration, nationalism, national minorities, and refugee migration. Her research project, EU Migrants in the UK: Political Community, Identity and Security (2016–17), was funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. She is the cofounder of an academic research network on EU migration (eu-migrants.net). Mona Nikolić (PhD, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, 2014). In her PhD thesis Identität in der Küche. Kulturelle Globalisierung und regionale Traditionen in Costa Rica (transcript, 2015), she examines the global-local relationship in the field of cuisine and eating habits as identity markers in Costa Rica. Her research interests include the anthropology of food and consumption, transnational studies and globalization, and the anthropology of Central America. Claudia Raquel Prieto-Piastro is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at King´s College London. Her research areas include the study of nationalism, particularly the role of everyday practices in the construction of national identities. José M. Sobral (senior researcher, Universidade de Lisboa) is a social anthropologist and historian. He has conducted research on Portuguese rural society, nationalism, migration, racism, social memory, epidemics, and food. His later work deals with culinary nationalism and cod as a marker of Portuguese identity. He is a former president of the Portuguese Anthropological Association and has coedited Food between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape (Bloomsbury, 2014), with Nuno Domingos and Harry West. Ana Tominc (lecturer, Queen Margaret University) holds a PhD in discourse analysis from Lancaster University (2012). She teaches food, culture, and communication in a postgraduate Gastronomy MSc. She is interested in discourses of everyday life, especially related to food, and has published on celebrity chef discourse and globalization, discursive construction of identity via food, and food programs on socialist TV. She is the author of The Discursive Construction of Class and Lifestyle: Celebrity Cookbooks in Post-Socialist Slovenia (2017, John Benjamins). Amy B. Trubek (professor, University of Vermont) is the faculty director for the Food Systems Graduate Program and was trained as a chef and an anthropologist. Her research interests include the history of the culinary profession, globalization of

x

Contributors

the food supply, the relationship between taste and place, and cooking as a cultural practice. She is the author of several books, including Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession, which looks closely at the connection between nationalism and professional culinary expertise. Andreja Vezovnik is an associate professor at the Department of Media and Communication Studies and a researcher at the Centre for Social Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Her primary research interest lies in discourse theory, critical discourse studies, critical political theory, and semiotics. She mainly researches the phenomena of migration and citizenship, political representation, various political and media discourses of the nation, and the national as well as everyday life practices during (post-)socialism such as food consumption.

Introduction Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta

Over the past two decades food has emerged as a “mainstream topic of research” (Counihan and Van Estrik, 2008). This should not come as a surprise—not only is food essential to life, it also is an important part of the political world, both materially and symbolically. Given that the contemporary world is based on nation states as the dominant form of political power and organization, and given the utility and importance of food, two of the editors, Atsuko Ichijo and Ronald Ranta, choose to examine the relationship between food and nationalism. They argued that the “food and nationalism” axis, as a paradigm of analysis, is an exceptionally useful one through which to investigate the world we live in. This is because it enables us to investigate politics—who gets what, when, and how—from the everyday level to the national and global ones (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). The current volume takes a more historical lens to the food and nationalism paradigm. It investigates the circumstances and processes under which national food emerges (or does not emerge) through a wide range of comparative case studies. This is important precisely because “the history of any nation’s diet is the history of the nation itself, with food fashion, fads, and fancies mapping episodes of colonialism and migration, trade and exploration, cultural exchange and boundary-marking” (Bell and Valentine, 1997: 168). Through trying to understand the emergence, and non-emergence, of national food in a comparative setting, the volume sheds light on a number of perennial questions in the study of nations and nationalism, in particular the when, why, and how of the emergence of nations. The focus of the investigation in the volume is on nationalism and the interaction between food, as something essentially political, and a range of forces and processes that accompany nationalism. Since the relationship between food and identity has been examined by a large number of scholars mainly from anthropology and social history (see, for example, Counihan and Van Estrik, 2008), this introduction concentrates on identifying and examining key issues in the exploration of food and nationalism.

National food, cuisine, and food culture Before launching an inquiry into theoretical and conceptual issues in food and nationalism, the term we have chosen, national food, needs to be discussed. In this

2

The Emergence of National Food

volume, the expression “national food” is used as an umbrella term to capture a variety of dimensions food displays in reference to nationalism: food in nationalism is not just a cuisine. Let us briefly examine a selection of terms that are used to describe food before demonstrating why the term “national food” is useful in our query of the relationship between food and nationalism.

Cuisine If food is discussed in relation to nationalism, the most frequently used term would be “cuisine” as in “French cuisine,” “Chinese cuisine,” and so on. In fact, when the term “cuisine” is used, it is almost always expected that it has national, if not regional, affiliation as seen in “Caribbean cuisine” and “New England cuisine.” In other words, the term “cuisine” almost always contains reference to a group of people such as a nation. This is because cuisine is a cultural product inherently linked to a common language and a specific geographical space (Ferguson, 2004). As is always the case in social sciences, cuisine is a contested concept. Is cuisine a clear set of constructed social food behaviors, specific food items, particular ingredients, tastes and textures that are understood or accepted by the imagined community? Or is cuisine, or national food, always problematic, a “holistic artifice.” as Mintz (1996: 104) describes it? Food ingredients after all are often not native to the cuisines that claim them, and in some cases are not even produced in sufficient quantities locally. Does cuisine require an acceptance from the imagined community? Do people need to eat or cook it on a regular basis? Or does that not count? In this regard cuisines are always fragmented, regional, class-based, etc. It is therefore clear that “the term covers widely, and often wildly, divergent referents” (Ferguson, 2004: 23). What makes cuisine “national” becomes an issue, and this is what Rachel Laudan’s definition drives at: A national cuisine is usually thought to be one which is familiar to all citizens, eaten by all of them, at least on occasion, and found across the entire national territory, perhaps with regional variations. It is assumed to have a long continuous history, and to reflect and contribute to the national character. (Laudan, 2013: 324)

A cuisine is therefore something that represents the essence of the nation. In early twenty-first-century social science, we all know how problematic it can be to make an essentialist/primordialist claim without being accused of being unscientific. Alternatively, we can consider cuisine merely as a construct that takes raw ingredients and uses them to create cultural boundaries and distinctions, to differentiate through the creation of a culinary “self ” and “other” (Fischler, 1988; Ray, 2008). If we take this view, cuisine becomes just yet another tool for boundary-making, which is probably more in tune with the dominant instrumentalist paradigm in social science. However, this purely instrumentalist view of cuisine would not neatly fit with how people feel about their cuisine. Some people do genuinely feel that their cuisine represents the essence of their nation/group, a view which social scientists need to take seriously.

Introduction

3

Foodways/food culture If not cuisine, terms such as foodways and food culture are often used. They can be seen as sub-categories of or alternatives to cuisine and as an attempt to address some commonalities in terms of practices, traditions, methods of preparation, and economic and political dimensions of food. The word “foodways” has become a popular buzz word in the sociological study of food, and is particularly prevalent in the discussion and study of the heritagization of foods and their recognition by bodies such as UNESCO (see, for example, Di Giovine and Brulotte, 2015). However, a satisfactory definition has rarely been given in this arena to explain what, exactly, is meant by this catch-all term. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, foodways (in plural, a foodway in singular is the oesophagus) represent “the eating habits and culinary practices of a people, region, or historical period” (Meriam-Webster, 2018). This is the definition that we will follow in this volume. This definition shares much with the term “cuisine” above, however without the emotional associations and feelings of ownership, attachment, and even primordialism that “cuisine” implies. It is perhaps for this reason that “foodways” has been preferred in academic literature because it is a less contested term, associated with the objective study of food’s role in an economic and social system. “National foodways” seems a less emotive, controversial, and contested term than “national cuisine.” The word “foodways” also implies movement, as a process, the way a food moves through a food chain or an economic system. Di Giovine and Brulotte (2015) use the term to suggest transformation, a route that foods travel through to become heritage. Nevertheless, the term is still used to describe the performance and social relations of groups: “foodways bind individuals together, [and] define the limits of the group’s outreach and identity” (Keller-Brown and Mussell, 1984: 5). Some scholars, uncomfortable with the duality of the term encompassing both cultural and material practices and process, have instead turned towards using the term food culture (for example, Mendel and Ranta, 2014). In practice, this means separating the economic and political dynamics of the food system (foodways) from the social and cultural (food culture). In a sign of the growing confusion of terminology and definitions, food culture has also been used as an umbrella term to denote the entirety of a society’s food culture, encompassing national, regional, and ethnic foodways and cuisines.

National food In order to overcome these terminological issues, we choose to use a more neutral and flexible term, namely “national food.” The advantage of the term “national food” is that it can transcend many of the difficulties associated with terms such as cuisine, foodways, and food culture. It signifies food that is seen as national by at least some members of the nation. It is of course contested, but it does not make any essentialist claims. National food simply provides a description of what is being considered as national. Because it captures the way food is seen and experienced by people, it respects their agency in defining what is national and what is not.

4

The Emergence of National Food

In this volume, the flexibility of the term national food allows investigation into the relationship between food and nationalism in a variety of ways. Some chapters focus on a particular food item: Tominc and Vezovnik focus on potica, which has come to represent the Slovene nation. Nancheva analyzes the rise of a particular strain of yoghurt producing bacteria that is seen as a Bulgarian national symbol. Sobral looks at the processes through which salt cod has been defined as the “faithful friend” and a symbol of the Portuguese. Fraser and Knight show how two food items, haggis and deepfried Mars bars, have come to symbolize the Scottish nationhood of old and present in reference to Scotland’s relationship with England as well as explain the intersectionality of class and nationalism. In these examples, it is not a cuisine that helps define a nation but a particular food item or dish that comes to represent the nation. However, a particular food item or dish does not always become national as is described in two fascinating and very different case studies. Fabien-Ouellet details why poutine, a dish originating from Quebec, should not be seen as a Canadian dish, in reference to the multicultural principles on which the Canadian nation is built. Similarly, Abbots looks at the ways in which cuy (guinea pig) is claimed by various groups of people in the Andean region of Ecuador as their own food and shows why there is no national food in Ecuador. If there is no agreement about particular dishes or food items, the possibility of having national food diminishes. The looser definition provided by the term food culture is taken up by Ranta and Prieto-Piastro in examining the relationship between food and nationalism in Israel. They argue that, while Israelis lack a cuisine, there are clear culinary practices and traditions that are nationally shared, at least by some members of the nation (JewishIsraelis). The idea of food culture is also made use of in Givon’s chapter which documents practices associated with traditional Palestinian cuisine that are now increasingly abandoned by professional and aspiring Palestinian women in Israel. For them, the traditional way of preparing food does not represent the essence of their being; rather it is seen as a hindrance to their efforts to join modern Israeli society. The idea of food culture is also found in chapters by Simpson-Miller and Aguilera. Both argue that national food culture, let alone national cuisine, is impossible in Ghana and Chile respectively. In the Ghanaian case, the legacy of colonialism and political economy of cocoa prevents food from being used as a symbol of national unity. In Chile, the legacy of dictatorship emphasizes diversity and multi-culturality in many spheres of life which has led to a vibrant food scene, but it has also made it more difficult for any food/food culture/cuisine to be presented and accepted as national.

Food and theories of nationalism The current volume follows the tripartite classification of theories of nationalism— modernist, primordialist/perennialist, and ethno-symbolist accounts—first proposed by Anthony D. Smith (1998) and further developed by others (Ichijo and Uzelac, 2005; Özkirimli, 2017). The classification hinges on the nature of the nation as a form of human grouping and that of nationalism as an ideology which drives or shapes social

Introduction

5

action, and therefore it is a fundamentally sociological endeavor. In this section, we review how the “food and nationalism” axis emerges in different strands of theories of nationalism.

Modernism Those who are labeled modernists hold that nations are a form of human grouping which can only be found in the modern period (roughly the eighteenth century onwards) because they are the product of nationalism, which is in turn a response to certain modern conditions, be it industrialization, the rise of the nation-state, the Enlightenment, or the decline of sacred authority. According to Ernest Gellner, whose definition of nationalism is perhaps best known, nationalism is a societal response to industrialization. Gellner holds that premodern agrarian communities existing in a high degree of isolation with a correspondingly high level of cultural particularity cannot meet the demands of industrialization. Industrialization requires concentration of labor, effective communication, administrative devices, all of which in turn require a degree of cultural homogeneity—the standardization of language, sharing of cultural understanding and so on. The modern state, with its centralized system, is best placed to carry out homogenization that is demanded by industrialization, thus, his definition of nationalism: “primarily a political principle that holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (Gellner, 1983: 1). When examining the relationship between food and the modernist account of nationalism, the focus is often placed on cookbooks and recipes because they play an important role in fixing the contour of a nation. Concepts of national food started to appear at about the same time as the centralization of the nation-state’s power, the industrialized food system, internationalization, and urbanization came into existence (Laudan, 2013). The role of cookbooks in nationalist projects has been explored by Igor Cusak (2000, 2003, 2004) and Arjun Appadurai (1988), among others. In this volume, Bak-Geller traces the ways in which cookbooks have contributed to the formation of the idea of “Mexican-ness.” The cookbooks are closely tied to various aspects of modernization: the development of the printing press, the improvement of literacy rate (according to Gellner, in response to the functional requirement of industrialization), the standardization of language, the expansion of trade, market activities and distribution system, commercialization and tourism, to name but a few. What cookbooks do in this context is to identify and fix what is “national” about a particular food item, cuisine, or food culture. This can be carried out in a top-down as well as bottom-up manner. The case of Indian cookbooks under colonialism discussed by Appadurai (1988) can be seen as describing a bottom-up movement in that middleclass Indian women were actively engaged with an act of reclaiming their “national” space in the colonial context, if it is accepted that “middle-class women” constitute the bottom layer. Another example of cookbooks which occupy an ambiguous position between top-down and bottom-up movement is the case of Catalonia discussed by Johannes in this volume: in the case of Catalonia, cookbooks were at some point used in a clearly top-down manner by the pro-Catalan intelligentsia and regional politicians to define and fix the boundary of the nation, but under the authoritarian regime, they

6

The Emergence of National Food

were used as a means of resisting oppression (Johannes in this volume). As seen in the Israeli case by Ranta and Prieto-Piastro covered in this volume, governments and national movements have used cookbooks to build, develop, or shape the nation. As the Israeli case study shows, it is not always successful.

Primordialism/Perennialism Strictly speaking, primodialists and perennialists do not have the same understanding of what a nation is and what nationalism is, but in contrast to modernists, they share a commonality: both of them reject the intrinsic linkage between nations and nationalism on the one hand and modernity on the other. And for this reason, they are put together under the same sub-heading in this piece. For primordalists, including prominent nationalists such as Herder and eminent scholars such as Clifford Geertz, Edward Shills, Pierre van den Berghe, and Steven Grosby, a human grouping called a nation is a biological fact: humans by their nature organize themselves in a nation, and the nation is implicitly, if not explicitly, understood to be a given (or in Geertz’s words ‘cultural givens,’ something that is understood as being given by actors involved), which cannot be overridden by human agency. Because the nation is a given, attachment to the nation and acting on behalf of it—nationalism—is experienced as irresistible and overwhelming making nationalism one of the most powerful driving forces of human action, according to the primordial account of nations and nationalism. Some primordialists understand a nation as extended kinship focusing on the intergenerational aspect, which then gives a certain moral aspect to the grouping called the nation (for the account of a nation as extended kinship, see van den Berghe, 1981, 2005; Grosby, 2005; for moral psychology of the nation, see Yack, 2012). In contrast to primordialists who try to identify the “cause” of the phenomena of nations and nationalism, perennialists can be seen as “descriptive” in that their claim is that a form of human grouping called a nation has repeatedly appeared in human history across the globe, and that as such nations and nationalism are part and parcel of humanity. Theorists such as Adrian Hastings (1997) and John Armstrong (1982) have treated nations and nationalism as a permanent fixture of human society without seeking biological justification. The primordialist and perennialist accounts of nations and nationalism can be seen as uncritical acceptance of nationalist ideology or unreflected conservatism, which is unsurprisingly not very fashionable in a “progressive” environment of post–Second World War scholarship. It is clear that the modernist account of nations and nationalism is dominant and hegemonic in today’s scholarship, but both primordialism and perennialism direct our attention to one of the puzzling issues in nationalism: why do people get so worked up about nationalism? The modernists would turn to some kind of manipulation such as the state/elite’s control of masses to explain why nationalism could invoke such a level of passion. The primordialists and perennialists provide a different take on this—because nations are seen as given, because nations represent kinship, because the nation is a moral community, and because nations have been part and parcel of human existence. Both of them appear to point to the effects of the perceived or experienced “oldness” of nations and

Introduction

7

nationalism on human behavior: the attraction of nations and nationalism does not lie with novelty as modernism suggests; it is with the sense of continuity that the perceived or experienced “oldness” of the nation brings. When approaching the question of national food from the primordialist/ perennialist perspective, the relationship between how national food is talked about and Romanticism comes to the fore. It is generally held that in reaction to the Enlightenment which placed rationality at the helm of human intellectual activity, Romanticism reasserted the supremacy of the subjective, the irrational, the emotional and so on in human experiences. Because its focus on the individual has been translated into a search for the foundation of originality of different peoples, Romanticism as an intellectual movement is associated with the surge in interest in folk culture, which in turn is held to have facilitated nationalism in the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century. Folklorists inspired by Romanticism look for the soul of the nation, which was believed to be found among ordinary people, typically peasants, who had not been “contaminated” by the march of science and modernity. Romanticism has also shaped the way the relationship between human beings and their environment is understood. The appreciation of natural beauty and prioritization of senses and emotion exalted in Romanticism have forged or strengthened the link between the environment and people in our understanding; pure air of the mountain range makes mountain people pure; wind-swept lands covered with heath make people sturdy, and so on. As industrialization gathered pace, repulsion against urban pollution and squalor led to the idealization of the rural, which was aided by Romanticism. In this regard, food becomes an important item to unite people and the land. As discussed in the Israeli chapter, the Zionist movement attempted to turn diasporic Jews into Jews grounded in Palestine. The connection between the people and the land as a primordial, non-negotiable factor can also be found in the Slovene chapter which describes the ways in which the premodern, rural past was invoked in the promotion of potica as a way of rejecting the socialist—modernity-oriented—past. The Canadian chapter picks up on the organic connection between the people and the land, which is widely accepted at the level of common sense, as a reason why poutine cannot be a Canadian dish. In Catalonia, visiting and experiencing different Catalan regions, and consuming the food products associated with those different geographic areas, is a crucial part of national identity performance. In exploring the influence of Romanticism in the emergence of national food, the Palestine chapter provides a telling analysis. Liora Givon reports young Palestinian working women in Israel are abandoning traditional cooking in order to become “modern,” to be more like Israelis, and eating like Israelis is their method of achieving it. This example is very interesting because these women are defying the primordialist logic of nationhood; they are apparently resisting and desisting what is supposed to be the overwhelming force of Palestinian nationhood.

Ethno-symbolism The third category of ethno-symbolism has emerged as a critique of both modernism, which has become the orthodoxy in the study of nationalism, and primordialism/ perennialism. This perspective prioritizes the historical dimension of human existence

8

The Emergence of National Food

by emphasizing the symbols from the ethnic base of the nation and by examining nations in the continuity and disruption between them and ethnic communities. Nations are therefore neither novel nor biological, but the product of history in which human agency has interacted a variety of symbols according to scholars such as Anthony D. Smith and John Hutchinson, two most known theorists of ethno-symbolism (Smith, 1986, 1991, 2008a; Hutchinson, 1994, 2005). Given that the ethno-symbolist account of nations and nationalism emphasizes the role of symbols, the perspective should provide an ideal context in which the role of food in forming or maintaining nations and in nationalism is examined. However, apart from the works on the role of cookbooks, which tend to follow the modernist account, there is not much work done on food and nationalism from an explicitly ethno-symbolic viewpoint. Some of the approaches which have affinity with ethnosymbolism would be the everyday nationhood approach or a bottom-up approach to nations and nationalism. Although inspired by Michael Billig’s banal nationalism thesis (1995) in that Billig has drawn attention to the workings of nationalism which are taken for granted in “advanced” democracies, those who look into everyday nationhood are interested in investigating the ways in which ordinary people—not the state or the elite—subjectively engage with the nation by selecting from an existing reservoir of symbols or creating new ones and by enacting them (Fox and Miller-Idriss, 2008). Anthony Smith once expressed reservations about the focus on “here and now” of those studying everyday nationhood (Smith, 2008b) and thus, ethno-symbolism and everyday nationhood might be seen as incompatible. However, the historical dimension can be introduced in the analysis of everyday nationhood relatively easily (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016) without losing the focus on the bottom-up dynamic of nationalism. There are some other dimensions examined in the chapters assembled here which have not been addressed so far. They are geography matters, the role of modernity, and the tension between universalism and particularism.

Geography matters Some of the chapters in this volume highlight the enduring power of geography/ topography in nation-formation without alluding to the influence of Romanticism. In the age of globalization, the influence of geography/topography tends to be overlooked. As we are increasingly aware, information and communication technologies and the instantaneous financial market cannot eliminate physical distance in the twenty-first century, let alone in the nineteenth century when communication technologies were in their infancy. The invention of telegraph in the Victorian era is said to have had a more profound impact on society than that of the arrival of the Internet in terms of shortening the amount of time required for communication (Standage, 1998). Amy Trubek in this volume places the vastness of the United States as the main reason why there is no “American” cuisine. The geographical expanse as a reason for the absence of national food is also hinted in Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet’s chapter on why poutine cannot be a Canadian dish. Emma-Jayne Abbot points to a slightly different aspect of physical conditions: topography. She argues that the absence of Ecuadorian national

Introduction

9

food despite postcolonial efforts of nation-building can be attributed to the deeply entrenched regionalism underpinned by topography. The country is made up of islands, the coast, Amazonian lowlands, and Andean highlands, and each has developed its own system of symbols which cannot be easily shared; a similar claim is also advanced by Simpson-Miller with regard to Ghana and its geographically diverse regions. The size of the country or the topography are not well-integrated in the discussion of nation-formation or the development of nationalism, but these chapters show that geographical and topographical conditions need to be factored in more rigorously in the study of nations and nationalism because they shape the ways in which symbols and culture are formed and maintained. In the Catalan case described by Johannes, extensive regional variation can exist even in a fairly small area and has the potential to contradict claims to the unity of Catalan cuisine. In this instance, the issue is only sidestepped by embracing and celebrating this “unity in diversity” as a characteristic of Catalan cuisine and is another way to contrast with the “other” (i.e., Spain), which is characterized as homogenous and unaccepting of variation. In discussing the issue of geography in an investigation into food and nationalism, the concept of terroir cannot be neglected. Most prominently featured in the discussion of wine production, terroir describes an unbreakable link between the soil and the crop, and therefore the food products that are made from the crop. While the idea has been developed away from Romanticism, one can easily see affinity between terroir and the Romantic view of nations and their homeland. Though the meaning of terroir can become “all encompassing,” in recent times the term has come to represent both the unique environmental qualities of the land and the particular methods of production, reflecting “the interdependence of natural and manmade factors” (Camerlenghi, 2016: 25). The term is also used to differentiate between modern, industrial food that “favors consistency” and “foodstuff that is inherently variable in composition” and reflects that particularity of a particular locale (Abbots, 2017). Nevertheless, and with a clear link to our discussion of theories of nationalism, Trubek (2008: 22) notes that, though the term has been in use for centuries, “its association with taste, place, and quality is more recent, a reaction to changing markets, the changing organization of farming, and changing politics.”

The role of “modernity” in the emergence or non-emergence of national food According to the modernist account of nations and nationalism, nations are the product of modernity and nationalism is its function. However, the chapters in this volume paint a much more complex picture of the relationship between nations and nationalism on the one hand and modernity on the other, which could be the starting point for further exploration of the role of modernity in nationalism. For example, Nancheva’s chapter on Bulgaria presents a textbook case of affinity between nationalism and modernity in that the legitimacy of the Bulgarian nationhood has been asserted and secured by embracing various aspects of modernity, in particular, the advances in science. The authenticity of the Bulgarian nation is confirmed by a

10

The Emergence of National Food

unique bacterium which is then actively used to “sell” Bulgaria in the form of yoghurt. In this case study, a variety of modern forces—the centralizing state, the advancement in science, the development of economic and production systems and world trade— come together to define, legitimize and project Bulgarian nationhood across the world. While the chapter hints at some domestic discordance in reference to the Bulgarian-ness of the yoghurt, on the whole, it paints a clear picture of a nation being created by those in power—politically, commercially, and scientifically. In contrast, the way the idea of modernity has been dealt with in the promotion of potica in Slovenia, as examined by Tominc and Vezovnik, shows a rejection of modernity as aligned with industrialization and socialism. Potica is promoted by a variety of forces to make Slovenes unique but not to make them modern. Rather, rejection of socialist modernity and invocation of the preindustrial and rural past comes to the fore in a manner that reminds us of Romanticism. Here the essence of the Slovene nation is linked to the rurality and premodern matriarchal family life in which the grandmother kept everything together. Modernity is not what makes Slovenes Slovenes; it is their (mystical) rural past and extended families. The contrast between the two cases is interesting in that both Bulgaria and Slovenia are postcommunist countries. In the Bulgarian case study, modernity is more associated with science (which backs up the autochthonous nature of the Bulgarians) and commercial activities to sell yoghurt; in the Slovenian case study, modernity is linked to a broader idea of modernity, industrialization, in particular the socialist version of it, and the potica is presented as an antithesis to it. Another interesting chapter in discussing the relationship between modernity and nationalism is the study of Palestinian citizens of Israel by Givon. In her chapter, the modern, working young Palestinian women want to become modern by appropriating how mainstream Israelis eat. They still want to keep tradition but in their everyday practice, preparing and eating traditional Palestinian meals have been dropped from their routine so as for them and their children to be modern. It appears these women are not overtly concerned with protecting and promoting their “nation”—presumably the Palestinian nation—because Palestinian nationality does not provide means of upward social mobility in Israel, though eating like Israelis does not guarantee membership of the mainstream Israeli nation. Perhaps one of the points here is that the idea of modernity and processes of modernization have different relationship a with nations and nationalism. In order for a nation—no doubt a much larger human grouping than a local community—to be formed, tools that modernization brings such as the centralized state, mass communication and transport, the expansion of the market and so on are essential. However, the idea about what it is to be modern does not necessarily relate to nationalism.

Tension between particularism and universalism This is a tricky theme to discuss since it can be approached from various angles. If nationalism is seen as universalism, regionalism is seen as particularlism as in the case of Spanish nationalism and Catalan nationalism. However, nationalism can be seen as a movement pursuing the particular in reference to cosmopolitanism or multiculturalism.

Introduction

11

Multiculturalism is a universal principle that decrees that the particularity of every unit should be preserved and promoted, not homogenized. The point at which the regional becomes the national or why this transformation does or does not occur are interesting questions, though they lie outside the remit of this volume. The tension between nationalism as a universalizing/homogenizing force and regionalism representing particularity is examined in most of the chapters in this volume, but it is particularly salient in chapters looking into Latin American experiences and the case of Ghana in West Africa. Abbots’s examination of who claims cuy as their food sheds clear light on the tension between Ecuadorian nationalism and pan-national, Andean regionalism. Aguilera argues that in Chile efforts are made to overcome this tension in the realm of cuisine by celebrating diversity (which according to Fabien-Ouellet in his Canada case study would not work). Nikolić reports on the incongruence of perceptions of what constitutes Costa Rican cuisine depending on the region. What is interesting here is that in these “original” postcolonial societies, which arguably have had more time for nation-building than societies in Asia and Africa— after all, nationalism was born in colonial Latin America according to Benedict Anderson—regionalism has not been overcome and continues to exert influence on the cultural and symbolic systems the nation as a community have to have in order to achieve cohesion. From the modernist point of view, this is probably explained as a consequence of incomplete modernization; primordialists would focus on the artificial nature of borders in postcolonial societies. In reference to the tension between nationalism and multiculturalism, the Canadian case study by Fabien-Ouellet provides a number of fascinating insights. Fabien-Ouellet points to the inability of Canadian multiculturalism to identify/create national food. What the Canadian government has been presenting as Canadian food appears to come down to either what is produced or eaten in Canada. As FabienOuellet’s chapter demonstrates, the idea of multiculturalism cannot transform poutine from a Québécois food item to a Canadian food item, and emphasizes the particularist aspect of nationalism. Nationalism retains its power because it makes a group of people special and unique; multiculturalism values individual differences but cannot turn this into an integrating symbol. While globalization cannot be seen as an ideological movement on a par with cosmopolitanism, some of the consequences of globalization are often seen as “universalizing.” The assumption is that globalization is strongly linked to homogenization and standardization. The alleged homogenizing power of globalization has been widely challenged and this volume is no exception. In particular, Nikolić sees the efforts to construct national cuisine in Costa Rica and its impact on regional cuisines as forms of resistance to cultural globalization. Aguilera’s focus on the redefinition of Chilean cuisine as that of the urban poor shares the aspect of resistance.

A brief comment on methodology Both nationalism studies and food studies are inherently interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. As such, the chapters collected in this volume draw from a variety

12

The Emergence of National Food

of disciplines and methodology. The disciplines drawn include anthropology, cultural studies, social, political and intellectual history, political economy, and international relations. Given the question of this volume—under what circumstances does (or does not) national food emerge?—the majority of the chapters draw from some form of history but this does not indicate that history is the “master” discipline in their investigation. In other queries into food and nationalism, political economy might be more prominently featured, for instance. The point here is that an inquiry into food and nationalism requires interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches, which can be seen as lacking in methodological rigour by strict methodologists. However, the contour of such multifaceted topics as food and nationalism cannot be comprehended without contribution from various fields. As a consequence of the chapters’ drawing from a variety of disciplines, a diverse range of methods of investigation is adopted. They include established methods such as discourse analysis, archival searches, statistics, interviews, participant observation and ethnography, and also some innovative method such as netnography (see Aguilera’s chapter in the volume). Among these diverse methods, an examination of cookbooks, an established investigative method in food studies, is popular among the chapters as part of their investigation. Because cookbooks fix the idea of cuisine, it is a handy tool to look into the evolution of a cuisine or a dish. However, as Trubek in this volume observes, cookbooks do not tell if the ideas presented in them were actually practiced by people; indeed, Ranta and Prieto-Piastro provide examples of food items labeled as Israeli in cookbooks that most Israeli would not recognize. Trubek uses published diaries to gauge the extent of spread and acceptance of a certain idea about a cuisine/dish in the past. And in the contemporary era, the extent to which cookbooks reflect people’s understanding and practice of a certain cuisine/dish can be probed by various methods associated with ethnography: interviews, participant observations, and so on. Netnography is one of the new tools of investigating the reception of ideas. This volume does not claim to have defined the method of studying food and nationalism. After all, it is not the aim of this volume. However, this volume showcases what different methods and different combinations of methods can reveal. As such the current volume points to the need to accumulate more efforts to build a coherent methodology in studying multifaceted phenomena such as food and nationalism. Finally, a brief explanation as to what the volume does not cover and why. The volume assembles a variety of case studies from Europe, Americas, Israel/Palestine, and a case study from Africa. We have consciously excluded cases which have been well investigated such as French, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese in order to unearth lesser known materials. We also take the view that the current coverage of this volume justifies the exclusion of case studies of other settler societies such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. While we have actively sought to include more studies on Asia and Africa, this volume as it stands contains one chapter on Africa and none on Asia because of a number of unforeseen reasons. This is clearly a weakness of the volume in terms of representativeness, which we hope to redress one day in a different venue.

Introduction

13

Structure of the book In its attempt to address the question under what circumstances national food emerges/ does not emerge, the volume is organized in three parts: Part One: The “Template”: The “Orthodox” Emergence and Development of National Food; Part Two: Contemporary Accounts of the Emergence and Development of National Food; and Part Three: Critical Accounts of National Food. Part One assembles case studies which trace an “orthodox” emergence (or no emergence) of national food in that national food is defined, spread, and accepted as part of nation- and state-building process. Chapter 1, “Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine,” by José M. Sobral examines the processes through which salt cod has come to be regarded as representing the Portuguese nation. Adopting a longue durée approach, Sobral identifies various factors which have made cod a symbolic food for Portugal. Chapter 2, “The Cookbook in Mexico: A Founding Document of the Modern Nation,” by Sarah Bak-Geller Corona provides a historical account of the emergence of Mexican food which follows the modernist account of nationalism. Bak-Geller argues that the cookbooks, which fixed what was uniquely Mexican about food, played a fundamental role in shaping today’s Mexico. Chapter 3, “Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia,” by Andreja Vezovnik and Ana Tominc provides a more contemporary account of the trajectory potica has followed to become a food item that defines modern and postcommunist Slovenia. Chapter 4, “Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride,” by Nevena Nancheva also investigates a postcommunist nation, but the focus is the impact of the progress in science, commercialization, and tourism promotion in defining Bacillus Bulgaricus as essentially Bulgarian without reference to primordial aspects such as ethnicity. Then, Chapter 5, “Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana,” by Brandi Simpson Miller provides a case study of how national food has failed to emerge despite the state’s following of the modernist prescription of nation-building. Part Two collects critical assessment of national food that has emerged. Drawing from cultural study as well as historical analysis, Chapter 6, “Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods: From Haggis to Deep-Fried Mars Bars,” by Joy Fraser and Christine Knight examine the role of poverty in presenting national identity through an examination of haggis and deep-fried Mars bars. Here the effects of the power relationship among nations on the definition and selfdefinition of the nation is discussed and in particular how the idea of poverty can be mobilized as a way of distinguishing oneself from the other. The question of power relationship is also addressed in Chapter 7, “Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study,” by Venetia Johannes. Johannes investigates the emergence of Catalan food in the context of perceived oppression from the Spanish state right up to the present day. Then, Chapters 8 and 9 question the possibility of national food in Latin America. In Chapter 8, “National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica,” Mona Nikolić questions the authenticity of Costa Rican cuisine as promoted by the government in response to what is seen as the threat of cultural globalization, by interviewing different groups in Costa Rica. The chapter questions whether an orthodox, top-down attempt at nation-building through

14

The Emergence of National Food

food is effective or not. In a similar vein, Isabel M.  Aguilera Bornand explores the contemporary food scene in post-dictatorship Chile in Chapter 9, “Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine,” and finds that new conception of national food are being proposed from different sections of the nation including socially aware chefs, urban residents and tourists. Part Three focuses on the questioning of the idea of national food. Ronald Ranta and Claudia Raquel Prieto-Piastro argue in Chapter 10, “Does Israeli Food Exist? The Multifaceted and Complex Making of a National Food,” that while there is a food culture in Israel, in that there is some degree of agreement as to a number of dishes and food practices, there is no Israeli cuisine and that trying to construct one is complicated by the diverse nature of the state. Liora Gvion then offers a picture of national food being abandoned to become “modern” and to be part of the mainstream society in Chapter 11, “Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation.” In fact, she highlights the complexity of nationalism and national identity for young Palestinian women and chefs in Israel, which in turn facilitates the abandonment of traditional food. Here the link between food and nationalism is questioned because of the complexity of Palestinian nationalism within a majoritarian Jewish Israel. The very possibility of national food is then questioned by Amy Trubek and Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet who investigate two vast, settler societies, North America and Canada, respectively. In Chapter 12, “Nationalism, Culinary Coherence and the Case of the United States: An Empirical or Conceptual Problem?,” Trubek asks if American national cuisine exists, and if it is at all possible. She argues that there is a possibility of conceptualizing “regional” cuisine such as New England cuisine, which draws from various sources such as the shared history that frames the interpretation of one’s experience, and geographical similarities which result in similarities in produce. The absence of such integrating features for the United States of America makes it impossible to conceive of an American national cuisine. In a similar vein, Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet argues in Chapter 13, “The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy,” that the multiculturalism of Canada makes it difficult to appropriate poutine as a dish that represents Canada. Emma-Jayne Abbots also points to the influence of various forces such as regionalism and trans-Andeanism in the failure of Ecuadorian cuisine to emerge in Chapter 14, “‘They’re Always Eating Cuy’: Food Regionalism and Transnationalism in Ecuador and the Andes.” These chapters provide useful critical insight into thinking about why national food does not emerge in certain cases. In the conclusion, we offer our theoretical and conceptual reflections on our investigation into the emergence/non-emergence of national food. We, the editors, hope that the reader will enjoy an enriching journey through these case studies in exploring the relationship between food and nationalism.

Part One

The “Template”: The “Orthodox” Emergence and Development of National Food

1

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine José M. Sobral

Introduction Salt cod—bacalhau in Portuguese—is a major foodstuff in present-day Portugal. The Portuguese are its foremost consumers worldwide with more than 6 kg per capita, a situation that has been going on for a very long time (Cardoso, 2016). The most recent information on the Portuguese food balance for the 2012 to 2016 period shows a relative increase in its importance (INE, 2017). These data point to a sustained, longterm consumption of the salted and dried fish even when refrigeration and freezing enable a supply of fish in places where this has not happened in the past. Even when compared with other large consumers of salt cod, like the Spaniards, the Italians, or the French, the Portuguese occupy a prominent place (Parlato, 2007). Before the Second World War, the general consumption in Portugal was 7 kg per capita, but this amount would eventually grow up to almost 9 kg per capita from 1946 to 1967. Spaniards, also important consumers of salt cod, consumed 3 kg per capita at the beginning of the 1930s but only 1 kg in the 1950s. The French consumed less than 1 kg per capita in 1954 (Garrido, 2004: 307). A clear indication of its importance lies in the fact that at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, salt cod represented the second most imported foodstuff in Portugal, following cereals, the basis of that staple food, bread (Garrido, 2004). This consumption was anchored in the long run. Many writings show the importance of salt cod in Portugal since the sixteenth century (Castelo-Branco, n.d.). A description of the port of Lisbon in the first half of the eighteenth century gives it as a destination of more than 35,000 tons of cod (Freire, 1739), while half a century later, a document regarding Porto, refers to the many thousands of tons entering the city (Costa, 1789). But as significant as the quantities consumed is the fact that the number of cod recipes referred to in cookbooks is larger than that of any other food, in addition to the books specifically devoted to it. Cod is obligatory for most Portuguese people at the Christmas Eve supper, the most important meal in their Catholic country. Called the “faithful friend,” cod became a marker of the Portuguese national identity. In this essay I will present a brief analysis of the historical processes in the longue durée that led cod

18

The Emergence of National Food

to play such a relevant role in Portuguese food and culture, showing how this history relates with that of the construction of a Portuguese national cuisine. In tackling this subject, we tried to combine a bottom-up approach centered on the unique importance of salt cod in Portuguese food and cuisine, with a top-down approach that focuses on the role of the state and the politico-cultural elite in fostering culinary nationalism.

Christianity and fish consumption The reasons for the consumption of cod in Portugal are ultimately derived from the fact that the Portuguese are Roman Catholics. Christianity breaks with the dietary traditions of Judaism from which it emerges, although it maintains the Jewish association between fasting and abstinence as ways of purification and a sign of obedience to God (Albala, 2011; Notaker, 2017). Christian patterns were also influenced by other, GrecoRoman traditions, which insisted on the need to curb food consumption and drink to preserve health and maintain self-control (Albala, 2011; Laudan, 2013). As a fish, cod is associated with Christianity in many ways. Christ was compared to a fisherman and symbolically to a fish from the beginning of Christianity. As Toussaint-Samat (1994: 311–13) pointed out, “The ideogram of the fish (Greek iktus) was the emblem of the early Church, its five letters being the initials of the five Greek words describing the Savior: Iesus Khristos Theou Uios Soter (Jesus the Anointed, Son of God, Redeemer).” The monastic tradition, so influential in the early centuries of Christianity, underlines the need for fasting and abstinence from meat and fatty foods. These were considered hot foods, inducing excitement and lust, while fish, due to living in water, were considered cold, sober and pure (Toussaint-Samat, 1994). In addition, gluttony was condemned as one of the seven deadly sins (Laudan, 2013). Abstinence from consumption of meat and other animal products occurred for long periods of the year, particularly during the forty-day period of Lent and the thirty days of the Advent before Christmas, or every Friday in memory of the crucifixion (Kiple, 2007). The Protestant Reformation did not put a complete end to those requirements, which stayed in place in the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church. Among Catholics, there has been a recent relaxation of the rules, which now only require that during Lent, the faithful should abstain from meat only on Fridays and on Ash Wednesday (Jensen, 1972; Notaker, 2017).

Cod consumption in Portugal: A brief overview Cod (Gadus morhua) is found in the North Atlantic, from Norway to the East Coast of the United States. It is not found near Portugal or in Mediterranean countries where it enjoys great popularity. Fresh fish would not reach the interior of Portugal in any meaningful quantities until the twentieth century. It was expensive and freshwater fish was not plentiful enough to ensure supply. Salted sardines, or herring—a very common staple for days of abstinence in northern Europe during the Middle Ages—could be

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine

19

preserved for some time, but the oily flesh did not keep as well as cod, which is very low in fat. Cod, air-dried as “stockfish,” or dried and salted as salt cod, had an unmatched resistance to spoilage. Its abundance, making it a relatively accessible food that justified capture and trade over long distances, long storage life, and the fact that it was available to consumers in places far from fisheries, were all factors that strongly contributed to its popularity (Jensen, 1972). Cod was already the subject of considerable fishing and trade at the close of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the modern era (fifteenth to sixteenth century), and it has been argued that its fishing and trading played a relevant role in the development of the world’s capitalist economy (Braudel, 1979). It was so cheap that it was part of the diet of slaves in sugar plantations in the Caribbean islands. Along the centuries the supply was ensured by imports and Portuguese-led fishing in the North Atlantic, during some periods. It is known that the Portuguese already fished cod on the English coast in the fourteenth century, with the permission of King Edward III (Saramago, 2004). Then, arguably, at least from the beginning of the sixteenth century, they are found fishing it in the North Atlantic, in Newfoundland, and along the east coast of North America (Oliveira-Martins, 1994; Godinho, 1956). This activity was very intense until the end of the sixteenth century, when the dynastic union between the crowns of Portugal and Spain made the Portuguese boats prey to English corsairs during the reign of Elizabeth I, leading to the abandonment of fishing. The interest in capital investment in Brazilian sugar also contributed to the lack of interest in fishing in the Atlantic Northwest (Godinho, 1956). Only in the nineteenth century, especially in its last decades, was cod fishing by the Portuguese once more resumed (Moutinho, 1985), increasing especially due to protectionist policies pursued during the dictatorial nationalist regime of the Estado Novo (New State) (1933–1974). The aim was to replace imports, at least partially, by alleviating weight in the Portuguese trade deficit, as its consumption remained high across the centuries. This policy was in line with the prevailing economic nationalism in the interwar period, which was bent on achieving self-sufficiency and autarky (Notaker, 2017). It was also accompanied by a narrative establishing continuity between contemporary fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic and the great voyages of the so-called “Discoveries” of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Golden Age of Portuguese nationalism. As stated at the time by official discourse, Portuguese cod fishing was viewed as “feeding the people, bringing to the homeland the bread of the seas” (Garrido, 2008: 112). Because of the protectionist policy of this fishery, in 1958 Portugal became the world’s premier producer of salt cod, with 59,826 tons. Nevertheless, it was necessary to import 25,370 tons. Ten years later, in 1967, the production would raise to up 85,858 tons (Garrido, 2004: 297, 299). But this protectionism would be abandoned in favor of a liberal policy in 1967, and after the demise of the Estado Novo in 1974, Portuguese fishery entered a period of collapse, further accelerated by the closing of the Grand Banks by the Canadian government in 1992, with the few remaining ships reduced to fishing in the Arctic (Garrido, 2011). As the historian Toussaint-Samat (1994) states, “The poorer countries of Europe, America, the Antilles, and Africa eat it as a food of the basic diet, especially in Portugal, where bacalaó (sic) is the national dish” (p. 319). How was this achieved? In our opinion, first we have to consider its availability, that its consumption was widespread

20

The Emergence of National Food

across society, and that it was comparatively cheap. Places like the West Indies were outlets for “rejects,” or “refuse cod,” that is, cheaper salt cod rejected in other, more affluent markets (Jensen, 1972: 98; Kurlasnky, 1999; Higman, 2008). In Portugal, we think, in all probability, similar reasons applied: the fact that it was cheaper than most fresh fish, even half the price of bacon (Teles, 1904). Also, it is very likely that most of the cod being consumed was not of good quality. Salt cod was called in Portugal the “remedy of the poor” (Castelo-Branco, 1969: 170)—as in Italy it was called “the beef of the poor” (Parlato, 2007: 64, 69). And in nineteenth-century Lisbon it is stated that fresh fish, which was more expensive, was preferred among the more affluent on abstinence days, while cod was consumed by the popular classes (Cruz, 1843). This repeated association of cod to the poor and rustic persists but needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The various historical sources regarding its consumption attest to it being widespread. We can evaluate its importance by its high frequency in the diets of the army, navy, hospitals, prisons, asylums, schools, convents, and also among the peasant and urban population (Sobral and Rodrigues, 2013). Cod was so important in the diet of the Portuguese that in 1811 their British ally donated some 290 tons to help the Portuguese cope with the disruptive consequences of the Napoleonic invasions that devastated the country (Ofício do Intendente Geral da Polícia, 1811). As in other countries (Jensen, 1972: 17–18), cod appears as a character in Portuguese folk literature. And in a “chapbook” of the late eighteenth century (a type of printed popular literature, very cheap and common in early modern Europe), the association of cod with the humbler classes is brought forth in a facetious conversation between the cod and the sardine—Aventuras, ou Lograções, de D. Bacalhau Quaresma e D. Sardinha d’Espixa (The Adventures, or Ruses, of D. Cod Lent and D. Sardine of Row). The imaginary dialogue is represented as taking place in Lisbon, a seaport. According to the text, while cod would be cooked and served there in various and sophisticated ways—a thousand ways—by the somewhat more elegant classes, the latter was consumed in much simpler dishes by the common people (Anonymous, 1790). In the middle of the nineteenth century—although the practice could go back earlier—salt cod boiled with potatoes and cabbage was already the main course of Consoada (Christmas Eve supper) in Northern Portugal (Ferraz Júnior, 1866). This is the most important ritual meal of the year in Portugal, celebrating at the same time Christianity and the family, which assembles for the occasion. The presence of cod reflects the religious prescriptions, as the meal is served before midnight, a time of abstinence, the ingestion of meat only being allowed on Christmas Day. In Italy, salt cod is also served during this occasion (Parlato, 2007). As Modesto, Calvet, and Praça (1999, I) have pointed out, this habit originally came from the North of Portugal, and became dominant in the rest of the country for this throughout the twentieth century. In the South (Alentejo), as the Christmas meal traditionally took place after midnight Mass (and thus at the end of religious abstinence), the consumption of meat was the norm. As most Portuguese people come from the North, the most populated area of the country, their food customs encroached on Southern habits. This is a clear sign of the popularity of cod, which not only continued to be associated with everyday eating, but also with this unique moment of commensality. As in other places, Christmas

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine

21

in Portugal is a time for both the celebration of the family and the nation (Lupton, 1996). Through its ritual consumption on this occasion, cod becomes enshrined in the Portuguese calendar—with many Portuguese in the country or in the Diaspora consuming it in a synchronic way—which further contributed to its “nationalization.”

The popularization and “nationalization” of cod The popularity of cod is revealed to us by a plurality of expressions. One of these rests on the uses of the word in the Portuguese language. It appears as a surname, it designates the handshake—“bacalhau”—and the female sex. It even serves to qualify unfinished processes: things that stayed in “cod waters.” These kinds of uses are not exclusive to Portugal and attest the widespread popularity of the fish in some countries (Jensen, 1972). Cod also figures in the humorous criticism of the Portuguese dictator Oliveira Salazar, well known for his austerity policies and represented as stingy, through the recipe of “Bacalhau à Salazar” (Salazar Cod). This would consist of cod boiled with potatoes, but without the usual flavoring with olive oil—if the fish was fat it did not need it, and if it was lean it was not worth it (Consiglieri and Abel, 1999). An eloquent testimony of the role of cod among the Portuguese is found in popular culture in mocking rituals known as the “burials of cod” (almost gone, nowadays, but very widespread in the past), and in humorous trials of the fish printed in “chapbooks.” The burials of cod, mimicking those of humans, occurred mainly on Holy Saturday, marking the end of the abstinence of meat that characterizes Lent (Cardoso, 1982–1983). The burial was preceded by the trial of the cod. A chapbook relating a “trial” published in 1818—O Suplício do bacalhau e degredo do Judas em Sábado de Aleluia (The Punishment of Cod and Defeat of Judas on Holy Saturday)—is enlightening. Accused of several crimes, ranging from the ruin of fresh fish sellers to the deficit in Portugal’s foreign trade due to the weight of imports, cod defends itself, invoking its usefulness, claiming to be consumed by all classes, rich and poor. It claims to be the “faithful friend,” a designation that proved its popularity and its goodness. This designation is still applicable today? and points to its intimate connection with the Portuguese (Costa, 1818). And, although they feign to denigrate it, this type of literature is indeed a celebration of the fish. Salt cod would be openly praised as a source of pleasure in novels like O Primo Basílio (Cousin Bazilio), first published in 1878 by the famous Portuguese writer Eça de Queiroz (2003). In this work of fiction, a woman visiting a friend at lunch time asks her hostess for roasted cod. She loved it, but couldn’t eat the dish at home, because her husband couldn’t stand it. To fully explain how salt cod became both a favorite food of the Portuguese and a marker of national identity, besides its availability and widespread consumption through the centuries, we must notice that, in a very poor society, where most people could not afford to eat salt cod as frequently as wished, this penance food became a source of enjoyment. This is shown by its reception in folk literature and novels and, as will be mentioned later, cookbooks. And we have to take into account what happens at the level of the senses and memory, through which eating is experienced, remembered,

22

The Emergence of National Food

and reproduced (Sutton, 2014). People in any society acquire familiarity with a certain type of food through cultural socialization that includes sensory experiences (Tierney and Ohnuki-Tierney, 2012: 119–20). This familiarity is shaped through unconscious processes, a slow habituation which begins with the foods of childhood. These dishes are encapsulated in synesthetic memory, a sum of the sensory experiences that link what one eats to times and places in which they occurred (Sutton, 2001). They are the basis of lasting identifications, of memory, nostalgia, and pleasurable evocation, in which food—such as a certain type of peach evoked by a Greek in London (Seremetakis, 2005) or the cucumbers of Lebanon by an emigrant from this country in Australia— can trigger “imagined metonymies” that refer to the whole, which is the homeland (Hage, 2010). This approach can be fully articulated to others that emphasize the role of the body, habitus, and incorporation. The body is a “carrier of culture and identity,” (Edensor, 2002: 72) and through the socialization process patterns of food consumption are embodied and reproduced through the habitus which functions below consciousness (Bourdieu, 1979). The habitus is a set of historical relations ‘deposited’ within individual bodies, under the form of mental and bodily schemas of perception, appreciation, and action—what Bourdieu called “incorporated history” (Bourdieu, 1980). Also, in his opinion, the nation is at the same time “inscribed in things—in the form of objective structures, economic and spatial segregation, etc.—and in bodies in the form of likes and dislikes, of sympathies and antipathies, of attractions and repulsions, which are sometimes called visceral” (Bourdieu, 1997: 216). This converges with Lupton’s perspective on how food preferences, acquired through the everyday and banal experiences of eating are embodied, mark boundaries between groups— in this case national ones—triggering emotions due to its “sensual properties and its social meanings” (Lupton, 1996: 31). As shown by the historical record, a preference for salt cod is widely diffused among the Portuguese connected with its role as a sign of national identity. In our view, embodied food practices—like the consumption of salt cod—the product of repetition and routine taking place inside the realm of a space assumed as national, can be seen as belonging to “national worlds of meaning and action,” a “national habitus” that fosters a sense of commonality among those who share it and allows for differentiation from others (Edensor, 2006: 532–33). But it must be stressed that, when using the expression “national habitus,” we are not assuming that this is something shared by all, but only widely held common preferences and practices among the population. The identification of salt cod with the Portuguese became so powerful and commonplace that an important network of associations, initiated within the Portuguese Diaspora, promoting solidarity among the Portuguese and celebrating national identity, is called “Codfish Academies.” First created by the Portuguese migrant community in South Africa in 1968, and now spread across the world, it is an expression of long-distance nationalism (Anderson, 1998). Its main meetings take place at dinners where cod is consumed. The network’s associations are infused with a sense of egalitarianism, the use of academic or professional titles being forbidden and political and business conversations disallowed, as they could trigger divisions among

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine

23

this idealized fraternity (Consiglieri and Abel, 1998). This symbolic role of cod was described, a few decades ago, by a Portuguese novelist, when writing about a trip to California, where he visited the Portuguese migrant community. “We are certainly not at an American home, but at a Portuguese home. Over the long box where the statue of the great Cabrillo [the so-called California discoverer] lies three cods are hung. . . . The statue of Cabrillo is overtaken by a true and tasty symbol” (Castelo Branco, n.d.: 312–13).

Salt cod and Portuguese national cuisine The processes we mentioned point to how salt cod identification with the Portuguese proceeds through the bottom-up dynamics of everyday nationalism, a nationalism grounded on shared mundane habits (Edensor, 2002, 2006), or by way of the performance of everyday nationhood in the routine practices of consuming food connoted with the nation (Fox and Miller-Idriss, 2008). But, important as they are, they are not the full story. We must consider the role of nationalist ideology in the building of a national cuisine, and the place of salt cod in it. This brings us to an examination of top-down agency by members of the cultural and gastronomic elite, and by the State. They play a part in “banal nationalism” (Billig, 1995), understood as the “top-down” and “cold” processes through which the idea of nation becomes takenfor-granted (Ichijo, 2017). In this case, it is the naturalization of the idea that nations have their own, national cuisines. The link between cod and Portuguese national identity was made explicit by the famous Portuguese novelist and diplomat, Eça de Queiroz, in a letter dated 1884, addressed to a close friend: “My novels in their essence are French, as I am in almost everything a Frenchman—except for a certain sincere background of lyrical sadness, which is a Portuguese trait, a depraved taste for the ‘fadinho’ [fado], and a fair love of cod with onions” (Eça de Queiroz, 2008: 331). In this essentialist representation, a taste for cod is hence identified with being Portuguese. To properly understand the meaning of the words of Eça de Queiroz, it is necessary to consider the context in which the letter was written, which is that of nationalist exaltation at a global level that marks the end of the nineteenth century (Hayes, 1963). In Portugal, where a sense of decadence had spread since the independence of Brazil in 1822, almost reducing the Portuguese state to its European territory, this was the time for an appeal to a national resurgence worthy of the Golden Age of their fifteenth-andsixteenth-century empire. The construction of a new colonial empire in Africa from the late nineteenth century on, in competition with other empires, the British in particular, is one of its main manifestations. And, accompanying the political nationalism, there is a strong cultural one bent on the examination, “objectification” (Handler, 1988) and cultivation of what was perceived to be authentically “national,” which animates all kind of ventures, from history and archeology to physical anthropology, psychology, ethnography, literature, the arts, architecture, and music. The defense and extolling of the national certainly also applies to food, as well as the arts, as a way of making the idea of nation “palpable, tangible, and accessible to

24

The Emergence of National Food

all,” that is, “real” (Smith, 2013: 171). As in other places—such as Catalonia (Congdon, 2015)—we find the first signs of defense of a Portuguese cuisine with romanticism, already connected to the study and valuation of national traditions, in the first half of the nineteenth century. But this only intensified in the last decades of the century, with calls to fight culinary denationalization (Sobral, 2014a, 2014b). The culinary hegemony of cosmopolitan haute cuisine dominated by French influence (Notaker, 2017) is contested, and with the spread of this culinary nationalism there was an increase of recipes featuring salt cod in cookbooks. Another famous Portuguese novelist, Fialho de Almeida, wrote at the end of the nineteenth century: The denationalization of cuisine is for me, perhaps . . . the first advance indicative of the demise of peoples. The ethnic cohesion of a race is revealed mainly by three things, literature, history, and food: novels and poems providing lyrical and affective character, history supplying heroic character, and finally, national dishes giving it physical character—the latter, as it is known, sustaining the other two. (Fialho de Almeida, 1992: 218)

In a comic vein, and in a discourse that reflects characteristics of nationalist discourse of the time, like the influence of tropes infused with race, the author points to the connections between several dimensions of nationalism, including cuisine. This shows clearly how culinary nationalism (Ferguson, 2004: 81) or “gastronationalism” (DeSoucey, 2010) is linked to a broader nationalism. The examination of cookbooks allows us to observe how a Portuguese national cuisine is constructed. The role of these books in the construction of national cuisines, by means of selection, reification, essentialization, and the building of culinary canons, has been widely noted (Smith, 2012; Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). For some centuries the Portuguese books had no nationalistic intent. As has been stated, and this applies to Portugal, although there was an awareness of the differences between cuisine and dishes used in distinct places and countries, this did not equate to having “a consciousness of national identity through national dishes and national cuisine” (Notaker, 2017: 247). As in other cases, in Portugal “this type of identity had a real breakthrough only with the nationalism of the nineteenth century” (Notaker, 2017: 247). For a long time, salt cod was either absent, or played a very marginal role in cookbooks. The association between cod, penance, and humble food (Davidson, 2002: 242) until the threshold of the twentieth century naturally contributed to its removal from the books that shaped the cuisines of royals and aristocratic and bourgeois elites. The analysis of more recent cookbooks, such as those published at the very beginning of the twentieth century, tells us that, unlike those meant mainly for the elite, which are dominated by a cosmopolitan cuisine where French hegemony is affirmed, the books intended for a wider audience but still restricted to the literate minority reserve an increasingly larger space for a vernacular cuisine and salt cod. In a cookery book published at the beginning of the twentieth century, and significantly titled O Cosinheiro Popular dos Pobres e dos Ricos (The People’s Cook of the Poor and the Rich), whose content, notwithstanding the title, does not really have the poor in mind, twenty-two cod recipes can be found (Carneiro, 1901). There are twenty-six cod recipes in O Tratado Completo da Cozinha

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine

25

e Copa (The Complete Treaty of the Kitchen and Pantry), a book that offers both international and Portuguese recipes. And it is also the first book identifying dishes with the Portuguese regions and localities where they were being cooked (Maia, 1904). The first cookbook claiming explicitly its national character—Cozinha Portuguesa ou Arte Culinária Nacional (The Portuguese Cuisine or National Culinary Art) was published in 1902 by a “group of ladies” (sic) from Coimbra, a town in central Portugal, which housed the only Portuguese university at the time. There we can find praise of homeland cuisine and an appeal to culinary patriotism: “The Portuguese cuisine of our grandparents was simple but substantial and good. . . . We should therefore be patriots in this specialty, which is so important to us” (Anonymous, 1902: X). Certainly not by chance, we find in this book thirty-seven cod recipes, among which the very popular and iconic boiled cod eaten on Christmas Eve—of which it is said to be good cod cooked with potatoes that is ‘very substantial and healthy’ (1902: 55). We find the same nationalistic concerns in a cookbook first published probably around the 1920s or 1930s, titled A Cozinheira das Cozinheiras (The Cook of Cooks, in the feminine), that features more than one hundred recipes of cod (Maria, 1941). Then came a consecration of cod in the culinary literature with the nearly fifty recipes devoted to it in the Culinária Portuguesa (Portuguese Culinary), a cookbook by António Maria de Oliveira Bello (Olleboma), published in 1936. Bello was an important industrialist and a supporter of the Estado Novo (The New State) (1933–1934), the conservative, anti-liberal, and antidemocratic nationalist regime that encouraged Portuguese cod fishing in northwestern Atlantic, and, as said earlier, infused it with nationalist ideology. He was also a connoisseur of international cuisine, particularly the French, and well-connected personally to French gastronomic networks, like the elitist Club des Cent. This was a very restricted and politically conservative circle of gastronomes recruited within the upper-classes and among journalists, who were influential in the development of automobile tourism in connection with the promotion of national and regional food in the interwar period (Rauch, 2008). Bello was an affiliate of the Sociedade de Propaganda de Portugal (Society for the Propaganda of Portugal), also known as the Touring Club of Portugal, founded in 1906, and dedicated to the development of tourism in the country (Matos et al., 2012). He was a founder and main figure of the short-lived Sociedade Portuguesa de Gastronomia (Portuguese Society of Gastronomy), directly inspired by the French gastronomic circles of the time, bent on the promotion of the excellence of Portuguese cuisine and foods. Bello was aware of the current extolling of national cuisines, even considering their regional and local variety as proof of their richness, in places like France (Mennell, 1996: 276–77; Csergo, 1996; Ferguson, 2004) or even Spain (Anderson, 2013; Turmo, 2013) and Italy (Montanari, 2010), and his cookbook clearly reflects this. This was part of a more global culinary nationalism, spread around the world, from Mexico (Pilcher, 1998) to Catalonia (Congdon, 2015) or Russia (Smith, 2012), for example. In what concerns salt cod, it must be underlined that this book makes it a food primed to a nationalized high cuisine and consumption by the higher classes. The book is also meaningful in what it reveals of the Portuguese official national-colonial ideology of the Estado Novo. It claims recipes coming from the colonies in Africa

26

The Emergence of National Food

and Asia as pertaining to the nation. The Estado Novo conceived the colonies as an integral part of the Portuguese nation, and they only became independent after the demise of the Portuguese regime in 1974, triggered by the anti-colonial wars. The Estado Novo, meanwhile, played an important role in the consecration of Portuguese cuisine, for instance through the establishment in 1942 of a prestigious hotel chain owned by the state, Pousadas de Portugal (Inns of Portugal), following probably the steps of the Spanish “Paradores,” first created in the late twenties. Some were installed in monuments, like castles, but others were built for the purpose, allegedly inspired by vernacular architectural patterns. The Pousadas were to serve the regional cuisine of its several locations (Melo, 2001). Among the cookery books that proliferated in recent decades, we shall consider only some, connected with the exaltation of Portuguese cuisine and where cod figures. Arguably the most influential is A Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa (Portuguese Traditional Cuisine) (1999), authored by Maria de Lurdes Modesto, who inaugurated cooking programs on Portuguese television in the 1960s. Cod is the main ingredient in a few dozen dishes in this book, which exhibits the explicit nationalist concerns we find in cookbooks since the beginning of the twentieth century. The book is an emphatic defense of Portuguese “traditional cuisine” represented as being menaced by the “insidious invasion” of an “international cuisine” deemed to be “impersonal, dull, and monotonous.” So, in a different context, dominated by worries associated with the internationalism of contemporary globalization and with the preservation of culinary heritage, this book retains the nationalist endeavor we saw before. It purports to show “the gastronomic image of the old Nation we are” (Modesto, 1999 [1981]: 6). And having been published in postcolonial times, the nation was now reduced to Portugal and the Atlantic Islands of Azores and Madeira. This defense of national culinary traditions in the face of globalization echoed a similar reaction in other countries (Ferguson, 2004), as is the example of Catalonia (Congdon, 2015). But, as it has been argued, globalization cannot be reduced to homogenization, because it has also led to a reappraisal of the ‘particular’, like the certification of products by the EU, or the inscription of foods as heritage by the UNESCO. These are made by countries, supported by a “nation-centric ideology,” thus contributing to the reproduction of national identifications (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). Indeed, in this so-called “era of globalization” we have seen a renewed interest in national and local cuisines (Poulain, 2005), and in the proliferation of cookbooks introducing national or regional cuisines (Notaker, 2017), which also applies to Portugal. Other contemporary books share the nationalistic endeavor shown by Modesto, like Tesouros da Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa (Treasures of Traditional Portuguese Cuisine) (Ferrão et al., 1984), or Cortes-Valente’s A Cozinha Portuguesa (Portuguese Cuisine) (Cortes-Valente, 1998), the widest inventory of Portuguese regional cuisine. And cod is central in all these books. Indeed, not only has the presence of salt cod been exponentially greater in cookbooks since the late nineteenth century, the twentieth century has also seen the appearance of cookbooks solely dedicated to it, giving it a unique status. With the passage of time, it passed from the Cem Maneiras de Cozinhar Bacalhau (One Hundred Ways of Cooking Cod) (1919), by Febrónia

Salt Cod and the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine

27

Mimoso (a pseudonym), to the anonymous Mil e um Modos de Cozinhar Bacalhau (A Thousand and One Ways of Cooking Cod) (1967), and recently to As Minhas Receitas de Bacalhau: 500 Receitas (My Cod Recipes: 500 recipes) (Sobral, 2012). But, it should be noted that this idea of the numerous ways of cooking cod is far from being new; more than two hundred years ago, a popular booklet claimed there were thousand ways of doing it (Aventuras, 1790)!

Conclusion The Portuguese people are the premier consumers of salt cod per capita worldwide today. Besides, cod has an unrivaled status among food in Portugal. It is essential for the most part at dinner on Christmas Eve, the most important meal for the Portuguese, and is also a marker of national identity. We tried to portray how this was achieved, pointing to historical processes that began some centuries ago. We signaled the importance of religion in the fostering of cod consumption in connection with fasting and abstinence from meat and animal fat as way of purification. The Roman Catholic calendar was divided by times when the faithful could ingest meat and others when that was forbidden—more than a hundred days a year. As the local fish population could not ensure the supply, especially in areas far from the sea, salt cod became a relatively accessible food either imported or fished by the Portuguese. The historical record shows that this food, associated with penance, became also associated with pleasurable eating as well, as it was a rare source of animal protein that most of the population could access, even if some would not consume it frequently. Cod did not retain an exclusive connection with the poor, as it seemed to be also present in the diets of the well-off and upper classes. At the same time, cod goes through processes of nationalization, being embodied in the culinary habitus and becoming known as “the faithful friend” (of the Portuguese) at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a designation that it retains to this day, and that marks its unique symbolic role among all foods consumed by the Portuguese. Besides these bottom-up dynamics, there were other, top-down processes at play in closely associating cod with national identity. These were linked to culinary nationalism, or gastronationalism. This began in the nineteenth century, propelled by intellectual elites and state agencies that promoted and codified a Portuguese national cuisine, reacting against foreign, mainly French, high cuisine. It was intimately linked with other expressions of nationalism, political, economic, and cultural. Gastronationalism would be consolidated during the New State which was inspired by nationalism and fascism (1933–1974), when cod dishes figured prominently in cookery books, and in public policies promoting “Portuguese cuisine,” which strongly contributed to the reproduction of the status of cod as a quintessential national food, a place it retains until now.

2

The Cookbook in Mexico: A Founding Document of the Modern Nation Sarah Bak-Geller Corona

Introduction The language of food played a pioneering role in forming national identities, and even anticipated political and legislative language in reference to the concept mexicano. It is worth noting that the modern concept of mexicano was first defined in culinary language. The way the concept is employed in some recipes published during the first decade of the nineteenth century allows us to view a rupture with prior meanings of the political community; new elements of cohesion arose among inhabitants which were now united not only by language, religion, government, and territory, but also by a shared cuisine. In the 1830s, El Cocinero Mexicano and the Novísimo arte de cocinar presented the first expression of mexicanidad, many years before other national, political, and cultural manifestations. Three aspects allow us to consider the earliest Mexican recipe collections as among the boldest and most innovative designs for building the idea of “Mexicanness”: in the first place the way the country’s native products were valued; secondly, the legitimization of vernacular Spanish and implementation of a national culinary language; and lastly, the emergence of a new way of conceiving historic time, starting with the appropriation and reinvention of prehispanic culinary practices.

Reinvention of the concept of “Mexican” through culinary language Starting in the sixteenth century and up to the end of the 1850s, the word Mexican referred to two different groups of individuals. Inhabitants of the capital of New Spain were called Mexicans, as were Indians of the central high plains, the Altiplano. The first meaning relates to the grandeur of Mexico City, considered the most important city within Spain’s empire in America. This is the sense Francisco Cervantes de Salazar employs in his works Civitas Mexicus interior, Mexicus exterior and Academia mexicana,

The Cookbook in Mexico

29

published in the 1550s. In these the author praises the city and its environs, as well as the University recently founded in the viceregal capital. In this same sense Bernardo de Balbuena entitled his poem La Grandeza Mexicana (1604), which describes the opulence of the city as it contrasts all too vividly with the misery of villages in the provinces. The second definition was coined by Spaniards in the sixteenth century to designate the Aztecs and their descendents, as well as the common language, Mexican, spoken by this population. With time the meaning of this definition was widened, so that by the end of the eighteenth century the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero was using mexicanos not only for referring to Indians of central Mexico, but to identify the entire Amerindian population of viceregal New Spain (Clavijero, 1987 [1780]: 44–45). This second meaning persisted until the first half of the nineteenth century, despite the term by then having come into common use for designating citizens of the newly created Mexican Republic. One of the first scholarly treatments of national history, published in 1852, illustrates this juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory meanings, in its chapter “The Mexican Empire.” While the author extols Aztec civilization and sets forth a direct genealogy between Mexican citizens and those living at the time, the Aztecs’ indigenous descendants are excluded and appear as enemies of civilization and national progress. Thus, in contrast to their ancestors, contemporary American Indians are seen as “Mexicans who’ve sunk into the most abject stupidity and degradation” (de los Ríos, 1852: 227). We may observe the first modern semantic inflection for the concept of Mexican during the last decades of the eighteenth century.1 Until then, cities and villages were the basis of the social, cultural, and jurisdictional dynamic within the Catholic monarchy, overriding other local rationales for pertinence in the American world (Guerra, 2000: 67–72; Lempérière, 2005). However, a series of social, political, and economic changes in New Spain gave way to a new way of considering colonial society: a new idea of community, intermediating between the monarchy and cities evoking a different reality when referring to the array of villages and cities within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The notion of Mexican society involved new elements of cohesion between inhabitants that now had to do not only with language, religion, and the King, but with shared culture. The first semantic mutations of the concept of “Mexican” were noted in the literary works of enlightened Jesuits, who used the term to cover everything related to the realm of New Spain. In the Biblioteca Mexicana (“Mexican Library,” 1755) of Juan José de Eguiara y Eguren, as well as Las Vidas de mexicanos ilustres (“The Lives of Illustrious Mexicans,” 1791–1793) of Juan Luis Maneiro, the concept mexicano is not exclusively applied to residents of the capital, nor only to Indians of the high plains; it alludes instead to the artistic talent of those inhabiting New Spain. There thus appears in the discourse of these thinkers a Mexican society which, while actually limited to the educated colonial elite, represents in the minds of this minority a new idea of collectivity, united now not only by language, religion, government, and territory, but also by a common history. Interestingly, it may be noted that the culinary domain, specifically cooks’ recipes, is where we find one of the first modern applications of the mexicano concept. In 1810,

30

The Emergence of National Food

a nationally distributed newspaper (Semanario económico, April 19–May 17, 1810), published a recipe called “El mexicano,” a dish based on pork, peppers, tomatoes, and spices (cloves, cinnamon, and peppercorns). Since its preparation dealt with methods common to New Spain, this el mexicano recipe, de-emphasizing older meanings (related to Mexico City and the Altiplano indigenous), established a new image of society, characterized by sharing a predilection for specific ingredients, flavors, and aromas. An even more notable development in the use of the Mexican concept is once again seen in culinary language. It deals with the Mole mexicano recipe handwritten in 1817 by María Galván de Zaragoza, from the city of Real de San Luis (Libro de cocina, 2002). Mole is a derivation of the word mulli, a prehispanic preparation based upon chilies, tomatoes, and pumpkin seeds (Sahagún, 1999: 1547–77). During the colonial era the recipe was enriched with new ingredients (spices, herbs, nuts, etc.), making it one of the most popular dishes of the time, when it was also known as chilmole and clemole. The word Mexican thus does not seem to refer to a specific region of the realm but to the idea of a gastronomic repertoire common to all New Spain. Meanwhile, María Galván includes in her recipe an unusual ingredient for preparing mole: wine. This ingredient is contraindicated when making the dish, as the predominant taste and spicy heat of the chilies, used so abundantly in the recipe, cancel out the flavor of the wine. Faced with such a culinary incongruence, product of the unfortunate Hispanization of the traditional mole recipe, how is it justified as meriting the adjective mexicano? Everything indicates that with this ingredient of European origin, associated with luxury, María Galván was aiming to dispel from her mexicano dish the indigenous connotation that still adhered to the word. Thus, while the cook promoted a refined and ennobled version of a dish characteristic of the country, she was at the same time establishing a new social and cultural meaning for the concept mexicano. This was incorporating a whole sector of the colonial population and differentiating it from contemporary indigenous reality. To analyze with greater precision the sense of this new definition of the concept of mexicano in food-associated discourse, it helps to compare the recipe for mole mexicano with another recipe recorded by María Galván: Chorizo indiano. If both dishes—mole and chorizo—were characteristic of colonial cuisine, why is only the first accompanied by the adjective mexicano? The answer has to do with Galván’s rigorous logic for classification, which consisted of distinguishing dishes originating in this country from those of Iberian descent and identifying only those as mexicanos. It is no accident that the adjective indiano—a term by which Spaniards designated criollos (those of Spanish descent born in Mexico)—was employed in a recipe for chorizo, one of the most representative products of Spanish cuisine in America. Recipes for El mexicano (1810) and Mole mexicano (1817) are among the first enunciations of mexicanidad (mexicanness), which implicitly carry the ideas of common origin, authenticity, and tradition. Culinary practice and language thus participated in building a new national community, in fact doing this earlier, and with greater acceptance, than other cultural manifestations associated with constructing the nation. Publication of the first Mexican cookbooks, and their impact on producing a national culinary canon in the decade of the 1830s, predated all other more celebrated

The Cookbook in Mexico

31

expressions of nationality, such as construction of the National Museum (1831, though it was not functional until 1859), foundation of the Letrán Academy (1836) with its program of “Mexicanizing” literature, the first compendium of national history (México a través de los siglos, 1884–1889) and even the national anthem (1854), to cite just the most noteworthy examples. The language of food took a pioneering role in forming national identities, and even anticipated political and legislative language for a modern definition of the concept mexicano. The Declaration of Independence, promulgated in 1821, did not use the word mexicano in its definition of nationality, which appeared to be conceived still in colonial terms of “Americanness” or “Northern America” (Acta de Independencia, 1821). Only in 1824, with the promulgation of the Constitution (Constitución Federal de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), did political language take up the adjective mexicano in its most modern sense—that is, the idea of a collectivity united by bonds of government, language, religion, territory, and customs, the sense which had already been formulating itself for some decades in lists of ingredients and cooking instructions. Next to be analyzed are ways in which Mexican intellectual elites, and Spanish Americans in general, made culinary language into a key vehicle for thinking about, defining, and reproducing the idea of nationhood throughout the nineteenth century.

National recipe collections in Spanish America: A pioneering cookbook genre Recipe collections in the Americas were late on the scene compared with European counterparts, which began to appear in the fifth century. Those first recipes were handwritten, with their distribution thus limited. With the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, the number of cookbooks on the Old Continent multiplied. In the nineteenth century the recipe book became popular and took on the form we know today. While professional cooks continued to compile cookbooks that skimped neither on luxury ingredients nor sophisticated techniques, there appeared at the same time cookbooks known for their “bourgeois cuisine.”2 These books promoted another sort of food, more domestic, economical, and easy to prepare. In the majority of cases, their recipes were not seeking to be representative of national taste. For example, in the case of the first Greek cookbook, published in 1828, the recipes are French, translated to Greek (Notaker, 2002). The case of French food is particularly revealing, as while French gastronomic culture had been recognized worldwide since the seventeenth century (Peterson, 1994; Poulain and Neirinck, 2000), its reputation long remained linked to the image of an international culinary art. The celebrated cookbooks of Antoine Carême, published in 1810 and 1828 respectively, were far from being nationalist revindications; on the contrary, they promoted French cooking as a “universal” art. France’s cuisine was represented as the most methodical, which should thereby be the basis for the rest of the world’s cuisines.3 It was not until the start of the twentieth century that French cookbooks associated universal values of French cuisine with the image of a modern nation.4

32

The Emergence of National Food

The history of national recipe collections arose on the American continent at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This occurred in a very particular context, during which the colonies of European empires, now independent and sovereign republics, sought national symbols. The first cookbook, American Cookery, saw the light in 1796, in the small city of Hartford, Connecticut. Its author, Amelia Simmons, adapted English recipes to New World products, such that the dishes might be made by the majority of the country’s cooks. Despite Simmons’ attempt to “nationalize” the young republic’s cuisine, American Cookery had a small printing which kept it from reaching much beyond its small community of Hartford. In 1831, with publication of El Cocinero Mexicano (The Mexican Cook), the genre of national cookbooks emerged in Latin America. A hundred years later, almost every Hispanoamerican republic had its own printed compendium of recipes, which reflected the country’s culinary richness, as well as its unique and ancestral character, often traceable back thousands of years. These first national recipe collections incorporated a very novel idea, until then little-exploited by gastronomic literature in other parts of the world. The authors and editors of Latin American cookbooks, most of them committed to republican projects in their respective countries, highlighted the direct link between diet and national idiosyncrasy, turning the culinary culture of a country into the most authentic expression of its inhabitants’ character and its national grandeur. The initiative on the part of Iberoamerican editors was bold and risky, since they had to contend with the lack of capital, suitable machinery, and ink; even paper was in short supply in the years following the wars of Independence. In spite of that, some booksellers and printers assumed the task of publishing the first national recipe collection, which contained the most representative food of the country: the local public would find it both interesting and useful. The first collections of Mexican cuisine, printed between 1828 and 1831 (the Cocinero mexicano [Mexican Cook] and Novísimo arte de cocina para sazonar al estilo de nuestro país [Newest Art of Cooking, For Seasoning in the Style of Our Country]), constituted the state of the art in the genre of national cookbooks. The notion of Mexican cuisine as explored in the first part of this work became a veritable project for social and political renewal, which involved constructing the very meaning of mexicanidad. Mexican recipe collections were followed by the first Colombian and Ecuadorian works—Manual de artes, oficios, cocina y repostería (1853), El Manual de cocina (1850–1860), Guatemalan—Nuevo Manual de cocina conforme al gusto de Guatemala (1857), Cuban and Puerto Rican5—Manual de repostería, pastelería, confitería y licorista de la cocinera catalana and del cocinero cubano (1858) and Cocinero puerto-riqueño o formulario para confeccionar toda clase de alimentos, dulces y pasteles (1859), Chilean—El cocinero chileno (1867), Peruvian—La mesa peruana (1867), Brazilian—Cozinhero Nacional (circa, 1870), and Argentine—Cocina ecléctica (1890). In the same way as American Cookery, the first Iberoamerican cookbooks took their place in the context of recent decolonization and the search for national referents. Contrary to the US recipe collection, these books were conceived by ambitious editors whose business acumen allowed their editions considerable distribution within each country, reaching many more readers.

The Cookbook in Mexico

33

“Typical” recipes did not only show specifics of the national cuisine (preferences for certain flavors, singular practices of food preparation, presentation and consumption, or particular ways of naming and classifying dishes). Culinary language became a preferred vehicle for expressing political ideas that transcended the world of cooking, and produced some of the most consistent, widespread, and lasting images of the nation. It still remains to be asked how cookbooks were able to formulate an image for a nation that was then barely coming together as a political entity. What impact did the narrative of recipes have in building a collective view of the nation in the nineteenth century? Three predominant aspects of the first Iberoamerican recipe collections offer us the necessary clues for answering these questions: firstly, the value given by products that are native to the country; secondly, legitimization of vernacular Spanish along with acceptance of a national culinary vocabulary; and lastly, the developing notion of authenticity and tradition through the appropriation and reinvention of prehispanic cuisines. Mexico, whose case was a precursor to the genre of national cookbooks, is the departure point for reflecting upon the phenomenon of national recipe collections in Latin America.

Instructions for cooking a la mexicana The principal characteristic of Mexican culinary narrative has to do with the importance the recipes’ authors gave to local ingredients. This esteem for native products, far from being something new, had been introduced by the criollos of New Spain at the end of the sixteenth century, and had reached its greatest manifestation during the eighteenth century. Praise for chili, maize, frijol, pulque, atole (gruel from rice or other grain), and other foods common to the colonial diet formed part of a scientific debate in which scholarly criollos and Europeans confronted each other’s theories about the geographic, natural, and moral attributes of the American continent. Prominent naturalists such as Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon (1707–1788), Cornelius de Paw (1739–1799) and Guillaume-Thomas François Raynal (1713–1796) contended that the poor quality of the New World climate, air and soil corrupted all manifestations of nature on the continent: from foods on up to the human beings who consumed them.6 Following the same logic, enlightened Europeans were explaining the anthropophagic practices of the Mexica as the cannibalistic impulse of a people who, when it came down to it, had nothing better to eat (Voltaire, 1994 :1759 chap. XIV; Camporesi, 1981: 43). The theory of an infertile, inhospitable, and food-poor continent that had produced degenerate and defective human beings was a true intellectual effrontery to New Spain’s scholars. Criollos then responded with a geographic and natural history counterargument exalting the diversity, vigor, and opulence of nature in America, crucial to which was the revindication of American food to European thinkers.7 Authors of the first Mexican cookbooks revived the anti-American debate, such that they transformed the eighteenth-century complaint into an opportunity for developing discourse upon the Mexican nation’s culinary riches. The Nuevo cocinero mexicano, responding to accusations that Buffon, Lineo, De Paw, Raynal, and other

34

The Emergence of National Food

European naturalists had levied against America’s nature almost a century before, argued disgustedly: There seems to be a move toward disfiguring and confusing the origin of the fruits of this country, reputing them as coming from more ‘dignified’ soil, since [they say] ours degenerates nature and among vegetables is capable of producing nothing besides thorns, and worthless and monstrous beings in the other realms. (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 645)

While terms the recipe authors used to exalt the country’s products are very similar to those of enlightened thinkers in the second half of the eighteenth century, Americanist discourse acquired new meaning and scope when appearing in the pages of the first Mexican cookbooks. America’s role was no longer as an object of patriotic consideration: now being imposed was the flavor of what was specifically Mexican. The pro-American cause turned into the standard for the new national cause. The cookbook was prolix in its praise when listing the nation’s products, headed by maize and its derivatives. Of atole it is said, for example, that it is “an extremely healthy and good food of our country,” and among its virtues is its quality of “maintaining strength without irritating the intestines, nor fatiguing the stomach” (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 44). Beans and pulque are objects of this same interest in legitimizing nature in America, and particularly in Mexico. The author of the Nuevo cocinero mexicano, after having recognized the importance of frijoles “among us” for their “flavorful and nutritious” qualities, concludes that the disdain Europeans exhibit toward these legumes can only be explained by the bad name they’ve acquired on that continent: “this legume [is] little used in Europe, which is why it has a bad taste there” (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 332). Pulque also appears as a paradigmatic product in national cuisine, this time for showing the coherence and rationality to be found in local eating habits. High pulque consumption is explained by the very nature of Mexican cooking, requiring great quantities of this beverage in order to counteract characteristically high levels of fat and chili. Wine from grapes and aguardiente (brandy), on the other hand, said the author, would be “highly damaging”: Besides, it is the only liquor that goes perfectly with chilli dishes, especially if they have a lot of their customary fat and raw onion, and it seems nature always provides Mexicans what they need, they who use chilli in so many and such tasty preparations, along with which wine and brandy would be highly damaging, and even water raises levels of fat mixed with chilli, causing the acedia, indigestion, and discomfort that are avoided when drinking pulque. (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 690–91)

Mexican cuisine is conceived as a logical system in which chili, fat, and pulque stopped being emanations of the irrationality of the country’s inhabitants, to become congruent and sensible choices that satisfied Mexicans’ specific physiological needs.8

The Cookbook in Mexico

35

On the other hand, neither did the Cocinero mexicano editor miss the chance to demystify European taste, reputed to be “delicate,” above all when it came to the good name of the country’s chili. Amid recipes for chalupas de chile colorado, tortillas enchiladas and envueltos en pipián, the editor notes with apparent irony: The palate of the Europeans being delicate, it cannot withstand chilli, which among their most exalted ones is reputed to be poison; yet with great relish they eat a thousand dishes loaded with garlic, mustard and above all very pungent peppers that cause [their] palates to suffer not as with the chilli of our country, but rather the sensation of [sharp] knives. (Cocinero mexicano, 1831, t. I: 149)

A second characteristic of the first Iberoamerican recipe collections has to do with efforts by their authors to legitimize spelling and vernacular forms, which even led them to confront the authority of the Academia Española de la Lengua. Relevant to this is the initiative by the Cocinero mexicano to legitimize and standardize Mexicanisms, particularly if we consider that its editor anticipated labors the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua itself carried out, beginning in 1875, nearly fifty years after the cookbook was published. We find the principal argument in defence of vernacular language as opposed to foreign usage in the caveat that appears in this book’s first pages. There the author promotes the authority of tradition over written conventions: “We use the masculine for the noun sartén (skillet), which is feminine but none of us takes it as such, and general usage is the director and master of locution” (Cocinero mexicano, 1831: prologue). Following this same logic, the words xitomate and mexicano were written in characteristic Mexican style, consisting of applying the letter x in place of the Spanish j.9 The defense was even more stringent when the author emphasized, with apparent disgust, the fact that the Diccionario de la Academia left the word frijol off the long list of names by which this legume is known: In castellano (Spanish) beans are known by many names, such as alubias, habichuelas, judías, judihuelos, fasoles, frejoles, frisoles, and frisuelos; and only that of frijoles, by which we generally call this legume, is not to be found in the Dictionary of our language. (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 332)

On the other hand, we note an interest on the part of authors to standardize the country’s culinary vocabulary. Publishing cookbooks in large print runs that would from now on be distributed throughout the country implied, among other aspects, the need to establish equivalencies for ingredients that were known by different names from one region to another. With this idea in mind the author of the Nuevo y sencillo arte de cocina (1836) explains that the chili she calls “chile gordo” had other names according to regions: “It is necessary to say that these chilies are known by various names. Here in the capital they are poblanos, and in other settings they may be chiles verdes grandes, and in others chiles verdes gordos” (14). Along the same lines the author considers the taxonomic diversity of chicharrón, which “according to the location is called esponjado, de espuma, or duro (spongy, foamy, or hard)”

36

The Emergence of National Food

(118); and also that of frijoles gordos, which are used in one of her chosen dishes: “These frijoles which here in the capital are known as ayecotes, in other towns are called gordos or patoles” (157). In this same spirit of systematizing culinary knowledge, the Nuevo y sencillo arte de cocina and Nuevo cocinero mexicano proposed the generic name of clemole to denote all stews known in Mexico that were based upon chili. Regrouping these dishes in categories that were uniform and common to all Mexicans was a novelty, as explained by the author of the Nuevo y sencillo arte de cocina: As several of these stews have distinct names, because in some places they are called mole, in others clemole, in others tlemole or temole, and in others chimole, so that in each they are given their customary name, I advise you that as long as they are not adobo, manchamanteles, chanfainas, etc., etc., those of this type [stews with chile] will carry the name of clemole. (178)

Lastly, mention should be made of how cookbook authors and editors established their idea of national community, based on a genealogy of flavors that associated Mexican recipes with an origin that was unique, remote, and glorious. This mythic origin for the national cuisine corresponded to the prehispanic era, as may be noted in recipe titles like “mole tarasco,” “sopa de Calzonzí,”—Caltzontzi was the name for designating monarchs of the Tarascan empire—“Cuauhtémoc salad,” “indigenous tápacua” (sauce from the Tarascan region) (Torres de Rubio, 2004 :1896), among others. By selecting prehispanic names and using náhuatl in recipe ingredients and titles, promoters of Mexican recetarios “Aztec-ized” local recipes: that is, they established a direct link between national cuisine and the most powerful civilization in America prior to the Spaniards’ arrival. Mexicans’ incontestable origins remained at the same time seated in the use of Spanish words that came from the “Mexican language,” such as xoconoxles (cactus fruit), quiltoniles (edible weed), mezclapiques (freshwater fish), chicozapote (variety of sapodilla fruit), ahuahutle (edible insects), and guazoncles (weed of the genus Chenopodium). In contrast, adjectives that made reference to the colonial period—“criollo style,” “Americana,” “Gachupín”—are limited. Mexican cuisine marked the temporal pace of the nation: through cooking recipes it forged a long continuity between the present and an idyllic past, wherein three centuries of Spanish domination were annulled from Mexicans’ history and their palates. If prehispanic cuisines were considered synonymous with authenticity, tradition, and prestige, just the opposite happened for food associated with contemporary groups of indigenous people, from “barbarous tribes” (Nuevo cocinero mexicano, 1888: 172). The case of tamales is illustrative: the Nuevo cocinero mexicano defines them as “a tasty and delicate bread eaten by ancient inhabitants of this continent,” which was later incorporated into the diet of Spanish descendants (813). Through this venerable image of the tamale’s “heritage,” the cookbook author devises one of the first formulations of tradition in Mexican cuisine. The said tradition, however, excluded culinary practices of contemporary indigenous people, as the author shows when later recommending that readers abstain from preparing varieties eaten by the Indians as

The Cookbook in Mexico

37

they are not appropriate for “decent tables” (813) and adds: if by some “caprice” young ladies wish to eat them, they are exhorted to buy them from the Indians and under no circumstance to prepare them at home (813).

Conclusion This chapter shows that the first recipe collections printed in Iberoamerica were vehicles preferred by intellectual elites for building and promoting national identities. In a context of recent decolonization and creation of independent republics, recipe collections introduced the novel idea of a human collectivity differentiating itself from others not only through its own territory, language, and government, but also by sharing the same culinary repertoire, with ingredients, techniques, utensils, and names for dishes all alluding to a common origin and history. The first national recipe collections promoted one of the most concrete and dynamic experiences of mexicanidad (what it is to be Mexican). Prehispanic evocations in the national cuisine, far from representing a bygone and inert past, are constantly given new meaning via the practice of cooking. This era in the new nation also anticipated a promising future, which is savored and ingested with inarguably republican appetite: recipes “à la federation,” “republican,” and “lovely union” marked the direction of Mexican cuisine, and of the country.

Notes The author would like to thank Lucinda Mayo for the translation. 1 In this sense it becomes pertinent to compare the evolution of the concept “Mexican” with those of nation and homeland (patria), which suffered much the same transformations toward the end of the eighteenth century. Regarding the role of food for the rise of political modernity in Mexico, see Bak-Geller (2015a, 2015b). 2 Regarding the characteristic techniques and social discourse for bourgeois cooking, see Toussaint-Samat (2001). For the origin and evolution of bourgeois culinary literature in France, there is an excellent article by Girard (1977: 497–523). 3 We find this argument on numerous occasions in the work of Brillat-Savarin, a pioneer in gastronomical criticism (2011:1825). 4 In 1926 a French cookbook for the first time identified “pot-au-feu” as “our French pot-au-feu.” This was one of the era’s most popular cookbooks: La Cuisine de madame Saint-Ange. 5 At the time the two cookbooks were printed, neither Cuba nor Puerto Rico were independent nations. This fact is highly evocative as it allows us to see cuisine as a powerful vehicle to nationality, which managed to transcend political circumstances adverse to the creation of nation-states. 6 Upon the subject of the exceptional and inferior geography of non-European continents as a principle for legitimizing the colonial system, see discussion by P. Chatterjee regarding his concept of the “rule of colonial difference” (Chatterjee, 1993: 18).

38

The Emergence of National Food

7 The main American exponent was Francisco Xavier Clavijero, author of the Historia antigua de México (1780). We may also mention Alzate Ramírez (1780–1792) and the lesser-known Juan De Cárdenas (1591). Detailed analysis of the quarrel over American nature can be found in Gerbi (1982) and Earle (2012). 8 The relativist position of the Cocinero mexicano editor is probably linked to the ideas of Spanish thinker Jerónimo Feijóo, one of the authors most read in America throughout the eighteenth century and a good part of the nineteenth. According to Feijóo, the various preferences for food tastes in the world depended upon needs—natural and social—specific to each population (Feijoo 1779 [1726–39]: 229). 9 If we consider that the word “mexicano” in the recipe for “jamón a la mexicana” appears written in two different ways, with j on page 104 and x in the index, it may be supposed that Mexicanist spelling responded more to the editor’s nationalist will than to any real generalized use of the language in Mexico. It bears mentioning that in editions after 1845 the j would once again be employed in the terms “mejicano” and “a la mejicana.”

3

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia Andreja Vezovnik and Ana Tominc

What do you feed him? Potica! When the American president Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania visited the Vatican in May 2017, the Pope asked Trump’s Slovene wife, who had moved to the United States in her twenties to pursue her modeling career, what she feeds her husband. “Potica?,” asked the Pope smilingly, to which Melania, looking rather surprised, quickly replied: “Potica? Yes!” This seemingly innocent joke, through which the Pope signaled his appreciation of this quintessentially Slovene leavened bread, immediately captured the attention of the media and audiences worldwide. It was at first at the center of a confusion which was later called “Pizzagate,” as the majority of the world media thought the Pope was enquiring about pizza, but it soon emerged that the dish was something much more unknown and even exotic. The media, including newspapers such as the British daily The Guardian, wrote about its origins and provided recipes. The American media in particular, however, were also quick to pick up on the joke that the pontifex was seemingly making: by choosing to comment on potica, the Pope was essentially making a comment on President Trump’s weight, since eating potica, which is normally a heavy, nut-filled bread, full of calories, was considered a non-everyday, festive treat. The Slovene media, on the other hand, proudly reported on how the Pope himself knows all about “Slovene potica” since it was the Slovenian community in Argentina, the Pope’s home country, that had often gifted it to him before he became the Pope (Štok, 2017). The media storm in Slovenia, in the middle of which potica has found itself thanks to an innocent personal remark at this center-stage political meeting, brought out all the national pride that potica as a Slovene national culinary symbol can possibly encapsulate: from its place on the Slovene festive table to the questions raised about its originality and protection, all underlined with anxious commentaries about its “correct” recipe. However, the media attention surrounding potica was not surprising given the centrality of potica to the national identity of the Slovenes. Given the distinct regionality of Slovene cuisine, which is located at the crossroads of Mediterranean, Central European, and Ottoman gastronomic influences, potica is the only dish that can be found in all regions of ethnically Slovene territory (Bogataj, 2014).

40

The Emergence of National Food

Despite this centrality of the dish, very little, if anything, has been written about it academically, which may be explained by the low academic interest in such topics until very recently (but see Bogataj, 2014). What little academic literature exists generally highlights and even celebrates potica, by providing it with the patriotic historical narrative it requires to be constructed as a national dish, often uncritically echoing (or supplementing) the narratives found in the media and elsewhere. In this chapter, we therefore aim to fill some of this gap by exploring critically how this filled leavened bread has emerged as one of the key culinary symbols of Slovene national identity. By relying on data from cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers, we show how (supported by the media) potica was constructed as one of the definite cornerstones of national self-differentiation during the times of Slovenia’s transformation from a Yugoslav federal state to an independent nation between 1984 and 2004, when Slovene nationalism was particularly in resurgence. This construction can be seen for the first time in the late 1980s, as the country was heading towards an exit from Yugoslavia, and, after finally declaring independence in 1991, as it was establishing itself as a sovereign nation in the 1990s; and for a second time, as it prepared to enter the European Union (EU) together with a number of other Central and Eastern European countries in 2004. Throughout this period potica re-emerged in the national media, and was linked to discourses surrounding tradition, rurality, gender, religion, and class that proved to be crucial in re-framing Slovene national identity from the mid-1980s onwards, often repositioning the national narrative in terms of the reemerging premodern ideas of family and femininity.

Method and data The analysis presented in this paper is mainly based on primary data from Delo— the Slovene daily quality newspaper since 1959—and Jana, the most popular Slovene weekly family magazine (since, 1972). Articles featuring the key-word “potica” were searched for in Delo’s official archive (this includes the newspaper’s supplements and the special Sunday edition Nedelo), for the period 1984–2004 with the help of Delo’s Documentation Service, while Jana and its supplements were searched for the same keyword manually, focusing only on November, December, March, and April issues since during these months around the Easter and Christmas holidays the magazine is more likely to feature festive dishes. Potica was generally rarely discussed in the national media before the 1980s, leaving it to the regional, and often more rural, newspapers and magazines to write about it, often in articles related to festivities, tradition, and identity. Overall, the number of articles on potica in Delo and Jana increased after 2000 so that our sample altogether included forty-nine articles from the national media (sixteen from Delo and twenty-three from Jana, including five adverts), which were then coded so that a thematic analysis could be conducted. Apart from this, we also examined the cookbooks published during the period under examination to see whether an increase in recipes for potica could be found. The first (and apart from Bogataj, 2014, the only) cookbook that only includes recipes for

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia

41

potica was published in 2003 (Goljat, 2003), leaving potica recipes to be published as part of specialized cookbooks that discuss festive dishes in general since.

Defining and defending potica Breads similar to potica are prepared throughout Central and Eastern Europe, although with different names, and sometimes variations in recipe and final appearance. In essence, these are leavened, sometimes sweetened, sometimes savory, egg-enriched doughs, which are rolled out, and then spread with various kinds of fillings, such as walnuts, tarragon, or poppy seeds before they are rolled, left to rise and baked, preferably in a round, bundt-like, traditionally clay mould, although this is not always strictly necessary. Discussions surrounding its name—and even origin—reveal how ideologically invested the topics surrounding potica as a national dish tend to be. Its standardized Slovene name, potica (pron. /po-TI-tsa/) arguably derives from the verb poviti, to roll, although depending on the region, historically significant language influences (such as German and Italian) and the exact procedure involved in the making of the dish, it can also be called by various other names. More commonly these are found in the regions surrounding Slovenia, such as, for example, putizza, a mere dialect (and spelling) variation of potica found in Trieste, and gubana (from gubati, to wrinkle), used in the Italian region of Friuli, both to the west of Slovenia. To the north, where Slovene dialects meet German, expressions used for similar breads are, among others, pohače and šartelj (but see also Bogataj, 2014; Kuhar in Goljat, 2003). The uneasiness that surrounds potica’s possible allegiance to “the other” is as telling as the apparent disregard for recognizing its linguistic variations. Reporting about a culinary fair in Rimini, Italy, one journalist shares his concerns about ‘our’ potica, which he encountered at the stall of a farmer from Udine/Videm, a town in Friuli in North-Eastern Italy: At the neighbouring stall, a farmer from around Udine/Videm who offered traditional Friulian walnut potica, the kind made with brown walnut ‘curves’ in the middle and sugar sprinkled on top, brought me down to Earth. If (we) Slovenes have any pride, we need to protect potica, before it will be pulled out of our hands in Europe. (Resnik, Nedelo, February 1, 2004: 14)

Here, the journalist is confronted with potica being claimed as someone else’s “traditional” dish, which he reports as a threat, since after entering the EU, potica can be taken away from “us.” Likewise, potica—this time in the form of la putizza—can be found in a Venetian patisserie, also described as a “typical” dish of the other: In the centre of Venice it is possible to read in one of the patisseries: La putizza— dolce tipico triestino, potica—a typical Trieste sweet. (Izgoršek and Jež, Nedelo, April 20, 2003: 18)

42

The Emergence of National Food

In some cases, such worries result in seeking a solution in the form of European protected status, through which potica could finally be “protected” as Slovene and, hence, its origin sealed. But, as one commentator rightly finds, there would be issues: The adjective slovenska [Slovene] would cause problems in the first place since the exact same product exists in Friuli and in the south of Austria. The Slovaks also roll walnuts and poppy in the same dough as we do! Not to talk about Croatian orehovača and makovača which could be called, without any problem and in the cold light of day, nothing else than . . . potica. Trouble would also be with product specification. Some very similar types of doughs are used to roll over eighty kinds of fillings in various combinations. We wouldn’t be able to protect them all. Does it therefore make sense to do this just for some basic ones? If we protected them following geographical characterisation, we would need to justify what is the difference and what is the influence of the environment on Gorenjska and Štajerska walnut potica. (Resnik, Nedelo, February 1, 2004: 14)

Despite these difficulties, branding potica as Slovene is seen as a step towards defending what is “ours” in contrast to what is alien. It has to do with the symbolic reinvention of a national identity that during the transformations of the 1990s had to be detached from the strings of Yugoslavia while retaining its sovereignty in relation to the EU. As we will show in this contribution, this process of re-inventing national identity was largely, but also specifically in the case of potica, based on denying socialist history on one hand, and on the other, on searching for its essence supposedly originating around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Potica, national identity, and the media The formation of Slovene identity as a distinct nation, as with many other Central European nations, can be traced to the nineteenth century when the majority of its hereditary lands formed part of the multilingual Austro-Hungarian Empire that spread across much of Central Europe. Slovene nationalism, following Herder’s romantic ideas that placed language, history, and culture (especially tradition) at the core of a nation’s soul and therefore identity, was constructed based on the ideology of Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil), where people forming a nation were considered somehow related by blood and territory (Rotar, 2007: 85). The Slovene leaders of the time aimed at first for a federal reform under the Habsburgs, while at the same time warming up to the idea of an independent Slavonic—and even specifically Slovene—state. This was achieved in 1918, following the collapse of Habsburg rule after the First World War. Then, a large part of the Slovene lands were united and incorporated into the Kingdom which became known as Yugoslavia (literally, Southern Slavia) in 1929 and was ruled by Serbian kings until 1943, when it was annexed by Hitler’s Germany. In postwar Yugoslavia, the name Slovenia was for the first time attached to a federal state that united the majority of Slovene speakers into one political unit and that retained

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia

43

considerable cultural and political independence until 1991, when it proclaimed independence (e.g., see Luthar, 2013). In this process, the formation of national identity from the nineteenth century onwards was heavily dependent on culture and, especially, as one of the cornerstones of national culture, the media, whose ability to publish and broadcast in the Slovene language (standardized “practically ex-nihilo” through the nineteenth century as Rotar (2007) remarks), formed the underlying ideological justification for a national unification that sought its foundation in linguistic distinctiveness. Throughout this process much of the preexisting multilingualism, so characteristic of Austrian provinces, was denied, and the idea of the Slovene nation as a nation of farmers was constructed by ejecting much of the earlier (although small) cultural and intellectual elite class, while replacing its intellectual institutions with the reaffirmation of Catholicism (Rotar, 2007: 264). As a result of such nineteenth century Nationbildung, anyone outside of these parameters was no longer considered an essential part of the national body. In nationalism, culture “is but a selected set of social symbols that is being favoured by ideology in power” (Rotar, 2007: 106) and distributed not only by the media, but also other ideological apparatuses of state, such as the schooling system (Althusser, 2001). In this sense, then, media discourses surrounding potica as a traditional Slovene, Catholic, and rural dish create narratives about its origin, national importance, and uniqueness that complement other similar discourses which shaped the idea of the nation in much the same way. In the years preceding Slovenia’s accession to the EU (2004), the media in general supported the narrative that framed the nation in terms of its Catholic and rural nature including the importance of women as carriers of tradition (Vezovnik, 2009: 152). Despite being a symbol for national unification, potica is also a symbol for class— including intra-class—distinction, as it also speaks for the plenty and poverty of the past Slovene population. For the predominantly Slovene-speaking and rural population, potica reflected the stratification of the seemingly egalitarian society that lacked major urban centers, a development that could be linked to the geographical reasons, but mostly the inward looking conservatism of the nineteenth century discussed above which rejected industrialization, development, and cosmopolitanism of the towns as anti-Catholic and foreign (Uršič, 2015; see also Rotar, 1985). In such context, the look of potica and similar festive foods and its ingredients did suggest the social status of its makers through subtle symbolism. Poorer farmers, as one newspaper interviewee remembers, “sweetened [potica] using honey, since there wasn’t any sugar available. In fact, there was nothing available!” Housewives from richer rural households were able to present “big and fuller” poticas during Church food blessings although even they were not able to “order a ready-made potica, as is the habit today” since this would suggest they were “very, very rich.” According to this interviewee, the rural populations were, however, still better off compared to the town dwellers, since they had basic ingredients, such as eggs, flour, and walnuts, or they were able to “plan far in advance and hide away eggs, save walnuts, especially if the harvest was not good” and mix walnuts with carob. In towns, on the other hand, “there was no money, but even if there were, there was nowhere to buy all the required ingredients” (Unknown author, Nedelo, April 20, 2003; 19).

44

The Emergence of National Food

Potica and tradition While in the Slovene national media, potica is rarely discussed before the 2000s, it was strongly linked to the identity of Slovene emigrants in the United States, Argentina, Australia, Serbia, and other countries, who had left Slovenia over the last two centuries (Godina Golija, 2014; Ilc Klun, 2006). Some of the material discussing potica before the 1980s and even earlier—although not included in our corpus—comes from the newsletters and newspapers produced by or intended for this diaspora; it often links potica to other elements also discursively associated with the Slovene community abroad, including specific genres of music, such as polka music, and other foods also deemed ‘traditional Slovene’ (e.g., Krajska sausage, see Mlekuž, 2015: 64). In Slovenia, however, potica became one of those signifiers of Slovene-ness proudly appearing on TV spots and billboards promoting tourism only from the 1980s onwards, as the pressures for and possibility of independence increased. In the 1980s, one of the first times potica appeared explicitly linked to Slovene-ness in the national media was in a famous 1983 commercial campaign entitled simply Slovenija, moja dežela (Slovenia, my country) by the leading Yugoslav marketing agency Studio Marketing targeting foreign tourists as much as the Slovene public. The campaign aimed to invent, establish, and communicate a new and much more positive self-image of the Slovene people and to nurture patriotic feelings (Repe and Kerec, 2017: 119–20). The campaign was successful in homogenizing Slovenes by constituting a national identity that worked independently from the signifiers of socialism and Yugoslavism, presenting the nation as kind and hardworking, while also introducing signifiers such as potica—the only food that appears in this iconic advert—that were being employed clearly to distinguish the nation from others. An important aspect of this reinvention of national identity from the 1980s onwards was also the process of re-traditionalization that appeared as differentiation from both socialism and Yugoslavia occurred throughout media and political discourses. As the “back to Europe” narrative went, not only is Slovenia a culturally distinct unit within Yugoslavia, it is also a European, not a Balkan nation (Velikonja, 2005; Petrović, 2009; Vezovnik, 2009). During this time, potica and similar festive breads as well as some other dishes started to be described using adjectives such as “traditional,” “homemade,” and “homebaked” but also “Slovene” and “national” (see Tivadar and Vezovnik, 2010; Kamin and Vezovnik, 2017), as for example: “Walnut potica should not be missing on the traditional Slovene festive table” (Unknown author, Jana, xiii (50), December 13, 1989: 33). On the one hand, the media were pointing out the importance of homemade dishes by contrasting them to the industrial and processed ready-made foodstuffs that were commonly promoted during the 1970s (and even earlier) as a way to national modernization (see Vezovnik and Kamin, 2016; Kamin and Vezovnik, 2017) while on the other, adjectives such as “Slovene” or “national” were being used to clearly delimit “ours” from “theirs.” During the early 2000s when Slovenia was about to join the EU, potica became an even more important signifier of “us,” meaning “Slovene” was no longer being opposed only to “Yugoslav,” but also to the EU from which “we” now needed to differentiate

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia

45

ourselves from. As Caldwell (2002) points out, the promotion of local, national, or traditional foods in such contexts might be a reaction to the fear of the growing abundance of foreign foods and a nation’s desire to be recognized as unique and distinct from other nations. This point is clearly demonstrated by the following example from Nedelo, where potica is positioned as something of “our own” and “special” that can be offered to the “spoilt” neighbors (i.e., the EU): This year, Slovenia is going to Europe and we won’t be able to charm the spoilt neighbours with salt and bread only. We will need something more Slovene, more special, more own. Why should this not be potica? (Resnik, Nedelo, January 25, 2004: 14)

The importance of potica during the Slovene accession to the EU was emphasized discursively by giving this sweet bread human characteristics; potica starts to be referred to as a person that needs to be addressed respectfully, but also taken care of well so it does not get ill: In some of our agrotourisms such poticas are being baked that one should address with the utmost respect. (Kuhar, Jana, December 1995, Special issue: 40–41) While baking potica the house needed to be silent and doors were not to be opened, since the dough could get cold. (Izgoršek and Jež, Nedelo, April 20, 2003: 18)

The re-traditionalization of national identity was also evident in an outburst of articles published by Jana promoting the celebration of Catholic festivities. Christmas and Easter were not publicly celebrated during socialist years, although people could celebrate them privately in their homes. During this time, family magazines and other media mostly followed the Yugoslav state policy, hence, special recipes for dishes consumed during Catholic festivities were less likely to appear, although around Christmas such dishes could be framed in terms of belonging to New Year festivities (Tivadar and Vezovnik, 2010: 395–96; see also Tominc, 2015). After independence in 1991, Catholic festivities became publicly legitimate again, so it was acceptable to link potica to religious holidays in the media. At this time, potica becomes strongly linked to the revival of Catholicism, clearly establishing the equation between potica and Catholic symbols. As one journalist puts it, potica can now be seen as “the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ” (Izgoršek and Jež, Nedelo, April 20, 2003: 18). Shedding light on the symbolism of potica helps one to gain understanding of the meaning of its revival at a time of political instability and retrieval of the nation’s “true” identity. Flagging potica up was therefore not restricted to an act of promoting a new Slovene dish. It became an important act of banal nationalism (Billig, 1995). In other words, potica became a signifier to which Slovenes started to relate when trying to understand the performance of the new Slovene identity as it opened the path to practices glorifying the pre-socialist and pre-Yugoslav identity, a process

46

The Emergence of National Food

closely linked to the systematic reemergence of Catholicism in Slovene society (e.g., Jogan, 2016). Church attendance and celebrating Christmas and Easter, emphasizing traditional family values, homeliness, and domesticity are only a few segments of a much broader consolidation of Catholicism during this time, and so was the emphasis on the private domain administered by women. In this vein, one of the aspects of this re-traditionalization was also the ways in which gender roles and female identities started to reshape leading to the re-traditionalization of women’s role in post-socialist Slovenia (e.g., Burcar, 2015), an aspect also clearly visible with regard to potica.

Re-traditionalization of women: Potica and femininity After the progressive 1970s, in which women in magazines were portrayed as fashionable, independent, employed, emancipated, and keen on all the novel kitchen gadgets the market had to offer (see Kamin and Vezovnik, 2017), the shift in the late 1980s and early 1990s seemed startling as articles started to feature white-aproned elderly farm wives portrayed as true experts in the art of potica making. In the media, this shift was seen as a growing number of articles on potica appeared alongside appetizing pictures of festively set tables in which potica took the center stage often portrayed as the product of every proud housewife who skilfully and affectionately bakes for her family in anticipation of the Easter and Christmas holidays. This discourse, which framed the modern, post-socialist woman in terms of rural tradition, was in line with the general construction of the Slovenes as a rural nation during the nineteenth century as discussed earlier. In it, the rural population was at the core of the selected groups within the previously multilingual and multiethnic society who were included in the nation-building exercise (at the expense of everyone else), helping form the Slovene nation as a closed and homogeneous community. The symbol of the “peasant mother” (kmečka mati) played an important role in the process of homogenization. The role of the mother was strongly present in Slovene premodern history where, especially in the nineteenth century, fathers were mostly absent due to seasonal work, military duties, and emigration. In such a context, women took over and embodied the highest ethical principles, and can be therefore seen as the most important elements in constituting and consolidating the ideology of homeliness and domesticity (for a broader discussion see Pirjevec, 1964; Žižek, 1982, 1987; Musek, 1994; Vezovnik, 2009). Therefore, when it comes to baking potica, media discourses positioned women— especially older, experienced ones—as the “subject of knowledge.” Women regained their premodern social status of family authority consolidating traditionalist ideologies of domesticity. Their role is demonstrated by several media articles claiming that baking a good potica was generally considered a special skill that grandmothers passed on to their daughters and granddaughters, who should, in turn, learn this old skill with gratitude. Detailed knowledge of the recipe is no longer sufficient since when “true experts” start preparing potica, they know how to bake potica from the centuries-old tradition, experience, and wisdom that can only be passed down

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia

47

through generations. As a result, preparation required good intuition, a skill that is traditionally also ascribed to women: You would do best if you “borrow” an elderly auntie, grandma or any other person who has considerable experience in the preparation of potica. Carefully observe how she gets on with it—if you have studied the recipe prior to this, you will be horrified, how “ad hoc” a true expert starts making potica. (Alkalaj, Delo, December 21, 1996)

Preparing potica is therefore a mystical moment; the baking skills required are not easy to acquire since the procedure is not only about ingredients, but also about the knowledge of making dough rise and baking, as the ability to bake “as per feeling” is considered superior to that of baking from a book (Alkalaj, Delo, December 21, 1996). Baking poticas is a secret every housewife keeps to herself and, hence, every potica results in a slightly different taste—unlike industrially made products that can be found on the market: Preparation of potica is the tiny secret of every housewife, each of them kneads it in her own way. (Kuhar, Jana, December 1995, Special issue: 40–41)

However, the ideal woman was not only a good baker. She had to be the social glue that brought family together; for this, she was prized and respected. As the following example demonstrates, a good and respected housewife was supposed to nurture family bonds and guarantee its cohesion. In an article appearing in Jana, the journalist quotes Sister Vendelina, a nun and a Slovene culinary authority, who wrote several cookbooks featuring “traditional” Slovene dishes (see Tominc, 2014, 2017). At home, housewives can invite all family members to a baking of potica, since this is a pleasant way of socialising, and also a good lesson of cooperation in the family. This way, they will respect her more as a housewife suggests Sister Vendelina with good intentions. (Ucman, Jana, 13, March 26, 2002: 42–43)

Women who are able to make excellent potica and at the same time engage family in the process, investing emotional labour into its making, are elevated to the status of queens and champions; they become the guardians of tradition, “a queen of potica, a guardian of traditional knowledge, the champion of our cooks” (Lupša, Jana, xxxi (13), April 1, 2003: 24–25) Investing this kind of emotional labor is paramount since cooking with love and joy is certainly one of the crucial ingredients when it comes to baking a good potica; as the following examples further demonstrate, a part of the cook herself needs to be invested in the dish, so that the self becomes part of the potica, the part that guarantees a tasty result: We need to put ourselves into food, otherwise potica will not be tasty. (Ucman, Jana, 13, March 26, 2002: 42–43)

48

The Emergence of National Food If the housewife bakes it with good will and love, it will be much tastier, even if we are trying out the recipe for the first time. (Ucman, Jana, xxxi (15), April 15, 2003: 44–45)

This exclusiveness and the status that these quotes ascribe to women can perhaps be read as an empowerment of women who bake and have access to this exclusive knowledge others have limited access to; on the other hand, however, such a role also seals the social position of women as constituents of the domestic sphere and foodwork while blocking access to men adopting the same social role. In no article is potica linked to male bakers with the exception of professional chefs, such as Goljat (2003), who published a cookbook dedicated to poticas, who advise from the position of a qualified professional with experience of working in grand hotels and restaurants where a guarantee of the superior quality of the finished product is supported by the credentials that come with such a role. Foodwork is not limited to the rational process of baking by measuring and following specific procedures but appears, rather, to be an emotional and intuitive act reserved for women who, in comparison to men, are commonly believed to have privileged access to such nonrational know-how. This clearly demonstrates how baking potica is presented as a gendered task recruiting women into essentialist discourses on femininity and gender (see DeVault, 1991). During this process of recruitment, women engage with discourses of emotion and (family) care by embracing broader media and cultural discourses associating foodwork as exclusively a women’s duty, as women only are able to cook with the socially expected emotional investment supposedly leading to good family care (Cairns and Johnston, 2015: 68). As DeVault (1991: 90–91) demonstrates, feeding produces family, and women are largely the ones doing this invisible work of social construction. Baking potica therefore becomes a way to perform femininity by caring for family members (and the nation), nurturing social ties and expressing love through food.

Toward a commodified tradition Although Delo and Jana were pushing forward the image of a loving, traditionalist woman, they were not completely detached from reality; despite the generally emancipated outlook of official socialist ideology women continued to perform two roles, in the job market as well as in the domestic sphere—a feature that continued after the 1990s (see Kamin and Vezovnik, 2017; Sitar, 2017). In the early 2000s, however, women’s employment was high so they did not always have time to spend long hours in front of the stove. In a clever marketing ploy, Zmajčkov butik, one of the leading national bakers, started selling their poticas through adverts stressing that due to busy lives, buying potica should be free from guilt and prejudice, emphasizing that such practices are becoming more and more common: Nowadays, we can find on a table, full of Easter goodies, also a bought potica, introduced without prejudice, baked with a number of others in one of the big bakeries. (Izgoršek and Jež, Nedelo, April 20, 2003: 18)

Potica: The Leavened Bread that Reinvented Slovenia

49

Often, such poticas were advertised to consumers as “homemade,” and other material, describing processes of industrial food production, have often supported such a narrative; a journalist that paid a visit to one of the main Slovene baking companies (Žito), reports that—surprisingly—the bought potica is in fact made in exactly the same way as they would have been at home: “The procedure for making potica is in its essence the same as at home at grandma’s,” says Mojca Primic, Head of Work Allocation at Žito, “only the quantities are incomparably larger.” (Izgoršek and Jež, Nedelo, April 20, 2003: 18)

During the 1990s, such a commodification of tradition—the marketization of exclusive and usually homemade traditional goods intended for mass consumption—was growing in the Slovene food market riding on the wave of the Westernized model of consumer culture (see Vezovnik and Kamin, 2017), which, while not novel, enjoyed a fresh push during this decade (e.g., Patterson, 2011, for consumerism in Yugoslavia). With the help of such a discourse, it became excusable for the doubly burdened women to seek help in what the food industry had to offer. Despite everything, it was more important that potica finds its way onto a festive table and works as a familial glue: ideally freshly baked, but almost equally good if purchased from a chain store.

Conclusion Today, potica is one of the quintessential pillars of Slovene culinary and national identity; the homogenizing discourse according to which potica is essentially the foremost traditional Slovene—“our”—sweetbread, however, covers up a much more diverse story: the origins of the dish are not clear, the name varies from region to region, the form of the dish and its filling are not unified, and the dish itself is claimed to be traditional in other countries. This is why potica’s character resembles a complex dynamic reflection of how nations and cultures evolve, by mixing, merging, influencing, adapting, and changing over time. In this chapter we have showed how a dish with obscure origins emerged as a national dish par excellence. We demonstrated that during the late 1980s potica became a national signifier to which Slovene identity started to be related more explicitly. At that time, it worked as an important symbol of premodernity and tradition originating in pre-socialist and pre-Yugoslav times. Through it, the newly formed Slovene identity was therefore affirmed through a distinctive dish that apparently had no connection to the Yugoslav past but that could at the same time function as the distinct dish of the Slovene nation in the European Union. Being positioned as a traditional dish, potica consequentially became the center of discourses promoting traditionalist approaches to gender, family, and society, bringing forward premodern conceptions of femininity. Its positioning as the national dish strongly influenced the reinvention of the Slovene woman who was suddenly invited to imitate the practices of her peasant (great)grandmother from the rural parts of the country, catering and providing for her family in the way traditional gender roles would define it. This brought readers back to

50

The Emergence of National Food

pre-socialist times where traditional ways of life, not the modernization, urbanization, and progress of Tito’s Yugoslavia, were at the core. The nation was thus reimagined in terms of its rural—rather than cosmopolitan—culture, an element in which the strengthened role of Catholicism also played a part. In this, the traditional role of women was also to play a significant role in bringing the family together in celebrating Christmas and Easter, and through this, ensuring national coherence. Here, potica took pride of place at the festive table, while at the same time also working as the unifying food of the nation.

4

Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride Nevena Nancheva

Introduction How can bacteria become the object of national pride? Plain Bulgarian yoghurt holds the answer. Available folkloric and historical evidence (references to the local Thracians and their yoghurts in Herodotus and Virgil, among others) suggests that the people living in and around what today is the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria have, since nomadic times, been preparing and consuming a peculiar dairy product: a plain type of fermented milk with grainy texture and distinctive sour taste, prepared by boiling the milk (sheep’s as well as buffalo’s, cow’s, goat’s) and adding a starter culture (a small amount of bacterial culture that produces lactic acid! and is preserved in advance). The product has been known and referred to commonly with its descriptive name, sounding similar in most Slavic languages, translated literally from the Bulgarian as “soured milk” (кисело мляко—kiselo mlyako). No national denomination is attached to the product in the folkloric and historical references that mention it: indeed, soured milk is a staple food in the region which now includes the territory of Bulgaria but is not confined to it. The Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian state, however, proudly tout the product as a traditional “national” food and take pride in it as an element of Bulgarian national identity (e.g., Chomakov, 1987). How did dairy become a Bulgarian national food: answering this question is the main focus of this chapter. Through a case study on the Bulgarization of yoghurt, built on the basis of participant observation, interviews, and historical research, the chapter will demonstrate that “nationalizing” a food product does not depend on the way people eat—which arguably is more or less stable over time, territory, and social groups—but is rather linked to projects of nationalism (political, economic, cultural). The national in Bulgarian yoghurt thus appears to be but a discursive social construction contingent upon scientific, economic, and historical vagaries. Fortunately, this does not demand from Bulgarians lesser pride in the product: kiselo mlyako is as tasty and healthy as it has always been.

52

The Emergence of National Food

Why yoghurt? Bulgarians are very fond of their yoghurt. They eat it regularly, either on its own, in fruity desserts, or in cooked dishes. There is a refreshing summer cold soup made of yoghurt, chopped cucumbers, and herbs: tarator (таратор). Yoghurt with water and salt is a ubiquitous breakfast drink (perhaps also because it doubles as a coveted hangover cure). Yoghurt with crushed garlic is sprinkled over all kinds of vegetable or meat dishes for tenderness and taste. Yoghurt with fruit or honey is the quickest and simplest dessert. But besides eating it with relish, Bulgarians are also proud of their yoghurt. They are proud because their yoghurt is made by a bacterium which is named after them: Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. This proud recognition is owed to the Bulgarian who examined and identified the bacterial contents of homemade yoghurt from his region at the turn of the twentieth century (in 1905 to be precise) and published an article about it while studying medicine in Geneva (Grigoroff, 1905): Dr Stamen Grigorov (1878–1945). The lactic acid producing bacteria, which work in a symbiosis with two other bacteria,1 apparently only thrive in the climatic conditions of Bulgaria, thus giving Bulgarian yoghurt its specific taste, texture, scent, and goodness. Taken up as an object of study by a Nobel prize laureate scientist interested in the reasons for aging, Dr Ilya Mechnikov (1845–1916), the unique qualities of Bulgarian yoghurt were touted as a source of longevity for much of the twentieth century (Borov, 1962; see also Chandan and Kilaram, 2006: 45; Foster et al., 1957, cited in Breslaw and Kleyn, 1973). Therefore, historical chance and the peculiarities of nature, supplanted by scientific research, have shaped the basis of Bulgarians’ sense of pride with their yoghurt. But there are other foods which carry as many health benefits and are not constructed as national foods: bee honey and honey products (pollen, wax, propolis, etc.) are some examples, being also quite typical for the Bulgarian climate. So how and why did yoghurt become nationally Bulgarian and an object of national pride? The purpose of the following section is to demonstrate that the Bulgarization of yoghurt is linked to specific economic, political, and cultural agendas. Pursuing them is impossible unless yoghurt is seen as ethno-nationally authentic, besides healthy. This has led to conscious efforts, on behalf of many concerned parties, to cultivate the ethnonational authenticity of yoghurt and to celebrate it as a Bulgarian product: something which has not applied in the same way to other staple foods (such as bee honey, to continue with our example). The following paragraphs will illustrate these efforts, with examples showing concerned actors from abroad (foreign dairy-producing and processing companies, political agents), local authorities and central actors sponsored by the government, as well as parties and organizations vested with personal interest to construct yoghurt as nationally Bulgarian and to celebrate it with pride.

What’s Bulgarian about Bulgarian yoghurt? There is a quaint village in the Rhodope Mountains in the southern edge of Bulgaria, large for the standards of the region with some five hundred houses today, which is well known across China for its name: Momchilovtsi. Since 2008 the Chinese company

Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride

53

Bright Dairy & Food (established in 1949), whose boss had discovered the beauty and secrets of Rhodope Mountains on a trip to Bulgaria, has been buying yoghurt cultures from Momchilovtsi, marketing its yoghurt, under the village’s name, as “authentically Bulgarian.” The company holds a 6.9 percent share of the Chinese dairy market, with Momchilovtsi yoghurt making 20 percent of its operating revenue (Euromonitor International, 2014). The company advertises Momchilovtsi yoghurt as a health product coming from ancient Bulgarian traditions of clean life and longevity: it is claimed that the village of Momchilovtsi is full of centenarians! This is not necessarily true. There were 254 centenarians in Bulgaria in 2016 (as per data from the National Statistical Institute, 2016), and they were more or less dispersed across the territory (though Pazardzhik district, including parts of the Rhodope mountain, does have the biggest number). Existing scientific research points to a variety of factors that contribute to longevity, consumption of yoghurt being but incidental. The lifestyle of the villagers in the Rhodope mountains may be seen to comprise most of the other factors: children born to young healthy mothers; living active lives and working outdoors until advanced age; eating a healthy diet of herbal teas, fruit, vegetables, and pulses, with low meat consumption and plenty of dairy. It is unsurprising then that throughout the twentieth century European publics have been fascinated, at one point or another, with stories of the long-living villagers of the Bulgarian mountains (e.g., Borov, 1962; Chazanov, 1987). Contemporary research on the health benefits of the kind of yoghurt made in Bulgaria, beyond longevity, continue (e.g., Max Planck’s Toyoda et al., 2014). But what the claims for longevity and health could mean outside the realm of gerontology and medicine is revealed in a curious fact. Since 2015, a Festival of Yoghurt has taken place in Momchilovtsi under the name Rhodope’s Traditions. It is an event that is promoted well, planned as an annual happening, whose 2017 programme featured a beauty contest, children’s drawings competition, folk dance and folk song, as well as tasting and rating of homemade yoghurts. All of this occurs under the label “Momchilovtsi” well known to Chinese consumers from the yoghurt drink sold under this name (see company website), as the sponsor and organizer of the event is the same Chinese dairy company Bright Dairy & Food. Thirty-eight Chinese representatives participated in the organization of the event in 2017, assisted by enthusiastic locals: thanks to the cultivated interest in the brand, tourists from China have flooded the village, prompting local residents to start studying Mandarin (Deutsche Welle, 2017)! The Momchilovtsi Festival of Yoghurt is a clear example of fostering traditions where previously there were none. Bulgarians do not celebrate their yoghurt (or, indeed, their food) at local festivals: those usually follow the Bulgarian ritual calendar based on a mixture of religious and old pagan traditions linked to working the land and herding animals (Stareva, 2009). And while the festival does showcase some of these traditions (folk song and dance, or traditional dress, for example), they are put to service a narrowly neoliberal agenda which sits at odds with claims of authenticity. When I looked to find similar celebrations of yoghurt in other Bulgarian regions, I could identify only one other event: the Razgrad Yoghurt Fair and Festival of National Traditions and Art Handcrafts, organized by the Municipality of Razgrad (in the north-eastern part of Bulgaria around the Ludogorie region) every year since 2002.

54

The Emergence of National Food

The festival boasts a similar focus and, apparently for the first time, has claimed to be the only festival dedicated to celebrating yoghurt. It features a similar program as the newly formed Momchilovtsi festival but differs in its ambition to include regional and international participants and is explicitly marketed as an international event. In quite a similar neoliberal fashion, the festival has been conceived as a means to spur local development through celebrating tradition. It has been financed under a European Union regional development pre-accession fund (under a 2002–12 project called “Razgrad—All the City Is a Stage”) and conceptually relies on the reclaiming of Razgrad’s place as a lively regional market of yoghurt and dairy (see Katrandzhiev, 1940 for illustrations of yoghurt sellers from the Razgrad market). The extensive national media coverage of the event relies heavily on the tradition of yoghurt-making as inherently Bulgarian (and associated images of patterned clay pots for making yoghurt, woven textiles for wrapping and decoration, and the everyday utensils used in rural households of the nineteenth century), despite the conspicuous absence of ethno-national celebrations of yoghurt in the Bulgarian folk traditions. Other examples of putting to commercial purposes the health benefits of Bulgarian yoghurt and the cleanliness of “authentic” Bulgarian rural lifestyles can be found in the years preceding the fall of Communism in 1989. In the 1970s another Asian country, Japan, became fascinated with yoghurt after a member of its political elite (a woman, at that) praised it as a healthy and time-efficient substitute to the traditional Japanese breakfast of boiled rice (Yotova, 2018). At about the same time the Japanese company Meiji (established 1906) came into contact with the Bulgarian (then led by the state) producer of yoghurt Serdika Sofia at the 1970 World Fair in Osaka. Meiji managed to negotiate with the Bulgarian state permission to use the geographical denomination (“Meiji Bulgaria Yoghurt”) in 1973, under the condition that pure cultures and approved technology will be followed in the production of yoghurt based in Japan. Blending together existing scientific research and carefully selected ethnographic images in its branding strategy, Meiji Bulgaria Yoghurt established itself as a market leader in Japan (currently holding 43.7 percent of the market according to company data) (for a fascinating case study of the strategy, see Yotova, 2018). The interest of the Japanese and the growing popularity of Bulgarian yoghurt in Japan has, in quite a similar fashion as with the recent Chinese enterprise, stirred vivid interest in the customs and traditions of Bulgaria as the “real” birth land of yoghurt. For over forty years now, Bulgarian yoghurt in Japan has held the place of a scientifically proven, authentic health product associated with the longevity of traditional Bulgarian lifestyles. This image has survived the political changes in Bulgaria (the replacement of the communist regime with democratic government in 1989), preserving the trade relationship to this day. A similar interest in the commercial significance of yoghurt can be identified among local, Bulgarian actors. Fostering awareness of yoghurt as inherently linked to the ethno-national traditions of Bulgaria and celebrating it as culturally important carries in itself a plethora of commercial opportunities. These opportunities became readily available in the first decade after the fall of communism when the restrictions of the centrally managed planned economy were lifted. Celebrating the legacy of the Bulgarian physician Dr Stamen Grigorov who identified the bacterial content of Bulgarian yoghurt appeared as one such opportunity, especially since it had not been explored fully during the years of communism. Educated in Western Europe and

Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride

55

serving in the military of the Bulgarian monarchy before communism, Dr Grigorov had not been an ideal candidate for nationalist glorification during the communist regime. Against the background of the postcommunist ideological void and rising entrepreneurial potential of the free market, interested private parties in Bulgaria began to build on his legacy. Under the aegis of the Dr Stamen Grigorov Foundation (est. 1995—see Grigorova, 2005), a carefully selected volume of contributions (edited by the foundation’s chair Ms Yuliya Grigorova, a descendant of Dr Grigorov) was published in 2005, showcasing, notably, the “national self-consciousness” of the discoverer of Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. The following year, a National Yoghurt Day was organized by the Foundation, for the first time hosted in the village of Studen Izvor (later also in the national capital Sofia). Since 2006, the event has been celebrated annually, in close cooperation with the local municipality Tran (southwestern Bulgaria), the state-sponsored company LB Bulgaricus (which, after the fall of communism, had inherited the state yoghurt plant Serdika Sofia and was now in charge of exporting Bulgarian starter cultures abroad), as well as with the Bulgarian Association of Dairy Producers. In 2007, a step further toward consolidating Bulgaria’s yoghurt heritage was taken by the Dr Stamen Grigorov Foundation: the Museum of Yoghurt opened doors in the village of Studen Izvor, housed in a small building near the birth home of Dr Grigorov. As expected, the museum aims to recreate, in its layout and exhibitions, the traditional image of Bulgarian rural authenticity. Without it, the national heritage of yoghurt would not appear plausible. Besides developing the commercial potential of this heritage at a regional and national level in terms of milk production and processing, travel and tourism, and structural development, the story of Dr Grigorov’s microbiological discovery also has a visible impact on the cultural identity of Bulgarians as Europeans. In the early days of the Bulgarian state, newly independent from the Ottoman Empire (legally in 1908 but factually since 1878), the brightest and most ambitious young people were sent to study and specialize abroad in the most prestigious educational institutions of Europe (the Bulgarian educational establishment had not yet formed). Grigorov was one of these promising young people, and the contribution he made has had an impact of international significance. So, it seems important for the national mythology to showcase his contribution as inherently linked to the Bulgarian national story. This can be seen in the recollection of his discovery carefully narrated by Ms Grigorova and the media and researchers she has come into contact with: there are no records of Dr Grigorov’s talk at the Institute Pasteur in Paris but recollections held in the family (as testified by Ms Grigorova) have been widely shared and have formed the carrying elements of the story we know today (see Stoilova, 2014: 38–45; also Grigorova, 2015). That story has acquired the standing of a national legend. On one of his trips from Bulgaria, Stamen Grigorov had brought from home a traditional clay pot (рукатка—rukatka) containing some homemade yoghurt, which he examined in the microbiological laboratory where he worked in the Medical University of Geneva. He published an article about his discovery and was invited to speak at the Institute Pasteur in Paris by the prominent Dr Ilya Mechnikov. The main bacteria used to curdle milk, which Grigorov identified for the first time, were named Lactobacillus Bulgaricus in his honor. Despite his success and scientific recognition in Europe, Dr Grigorov preferred to return to his home village after completing his studies, and practiced

56

The Emergence of National Food

medicine for the benefit of his compatriots, in times of peace and in war (he lived through the two world wars and the couple of regional wars which Bulgaria waged in the first half of the twentieth century), to the end of his days in 1945 (see accounts in Stoilova, 2014: 40–41). Retold with the inevitable hint of pride, the story of Dr Grigorov and his discovery has become firmly attached to narratives of the Bulgarian-ness of Bulgarian yoghurt and has shaped the foundation of the claim to national ownership, supplanted by scientific evidence. It has been claimed (Stoilova, 2014, among others) that Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, in its natural habitat, can only thrive in the climatic conditions in and around the territory of present-day Bulgaria. When taken abroad, it eventually mutates, thus changing the qualities of the milk curdled with cultures from it. This is why, since the discovery of the bacteria and the interest it stirred in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century as an alleged secret to youthfulness and longevity (Stoilova, 2014: 57–81), producers and purveyors of yoghurts abroad have sought to link their products with the geographical denomination Bulgaria by establishing contacts and securing exports of authentic yoghurt cultures. The name of the lactic acid producing bacterium, as well as its particular residence preferences, are at the root of Bulgaria’s claim to ownership of Bulgarian yoghurt. In 2002 at a summit of the World Trade Organization, Bulgarian representatives attempted to protect it as a geographical indication under Article 23 of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (Stoilova, 2014: 9–10). The claim was, as it happened, unsuccessful, but it illustrates both official and popular positions on the Bulgarian-ness of yoghurt. It appears from the above that yoghurt has been the object of deliberate attempts to cultivate and showcase authenticity within a carefully curated ethno-national setting. These attempts have sometimes been initiated by the Bulgarian state and its authorities (as the example of the Razgrad municipality suggests), sometimes been made by private interested parties in Bulgaria (such as the descendent of Dr Grigorov and her associates), and sometimes been undertaken by external, non-Bulgarian, parties, with or without collaboration with local actors (the Chinese Bright Dairy & Food and the municipality of Momchilovtsi, the Japanese Meiji and the Bulgarian Serdika Sofia, later LB Bulgaricus). The claim to ethno-national authenticity has served various political, economic, and cultural purposes, both in Bulgaria and beyond, firmly attaching the national denominator “Bulgarian” to a staple food which has been produced and consumed in and around the region for centuries, regardless of nationhood and statehood. Yet, the myth of Bulgarian-ness has taken root and has become part of Bulgarian national identity iterations when it comes to food. In our interrogation of yoghurt’s Bulgarian-ness, this chapter now turns to the mythical construction of yoghurt which sustains these iterations in order to find out who really makes and eats yoghurt, and where.

Debunking the ethno-national myths In this section, I address three of the most prominent ethno-national myths that have been applied to construct yoghurt as an inherently national product. The first

Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride

57

one is the myth of yoghurt as the quintessentially Bulgarian food staple with clear regional denomination. The second is the myth of yoghurt as ethno-nationally specific to Bulgarian producers. And the third is the myth of yoghurt as representative of Bulgarian-ness and Bulgarian authenticity abroad. All three myths were deployed and seen at work in the examples discussed above. The now legendary village of Student Izvor, from where Dr Grigorov took his samples of homemade yoghurt, lies in a region in Eastern Bulgaria straddled by low mountains, some few kilometres from the border with present-day Serbia. The region is part of the borderlands severely contested in the modern history of the Balkans, the object of contention between Serbia and Bulgaria since the establishment of independent Bulgarian statehood in 1878, mostly around the so-called Macedonian Question (Roudometoff, 2002). During the 1885 war between Serbia and Bulgaria, for example, one of the Serbian demands was for annexation of the whole region of Tran (among others) as it was allegedly populated by Serbs. Tran is relatively close to what are today Macedonia and Kosovo. It is conceivable to imagine that the type of bacteria responsible for the curdling of Bulgarian yoghurt has not followed closely the vagaries of national border disputes and statehood in the region: indeed, throughout the whole region “kiselo mleko,” as Grigorov pronounced it in the typical local Slavic dialect, is a staple food. There are no national myths linked to its cultivation. In a letter to Prof Mechnikov, Grigorov himself is described by his PhD supervisor as a “Bulgarian Slav” (see Professor Vincent Massol quoted in Stoilova, 2014: 40). This is to support our claim above that the peculiarities of the Bulgarian ownership narratives are not attached to the production and consumption of the food as such, but rather to the myth of its scientific “discovery.” Thus, the “nationalization” of yoghurt is revealed as a process quite independent of the foodways of the locals. When I asked about good yoghurt while traveling through the Tran region, my guide took me to a monastery nearby, above the village of Gigintsi, which sold buffalo milk products in its little shop, and later to a shop in a bigger village nearby, Breznik, which was apparently well-established in the region. Unlike the monastery shop, the latter was an entirely commercial enterprise but, despite its local renown for selling good dairy, it was not distinguished by any commercial markings or branding. It appeared like a regular corner shop but, while I was waiting, several buyers stopped in cars bearing registration plaques from elsewhere: I assumed the shop was a wellknown local stop. The yoghurt (and cheese) they sold, both at the monastery and in the shop, did not bear any of the seals of authenticity the Bulgarian supermarket buyer is by now accustomed to: “original granny’s recipe”; the “real yoghurt of old”; “a guarantee for a completely natural product”; “home made recipe”; “the true Bulgarian product”; and so on. However, by the time I took them home on a hot summer’s day, the lids had “swollen.” This, as any Bulgarian would tell you, is the true sign of authenticity: since there are no preservatives or stabilizers in the homemade product, it goes sour very quickly (compare with Stoilova, 2014: 87, who explains that commercial production relies on a much more sterile technology). Of course, this also makes it unsuitable for profitable commercial placement (see also interview with Grigorova, 2015). This is to suggest that the “authenticity” marketed as the true Bulgarian product is necessarily different (whether in contents or in production technology) from the food that has become a staple in the region.

58

The Emergence of National Food

Another way in which the Bulgarian-ness of yoghurt can come under question is through exploring the ethno-national origins of both the makers of yoghurt and the milk used for the production of yoghurt for commercial use. In the summer of 2017, following the Bulgarian path of yoghurt, I chose a route that links the mythical Rhodope mountain with another two mountains teeming with Bulgarian legends, the Rila and the Pirin: I drove from Belovo (on the very edge of Rhodope near the Maritsa valley) through Yundola (between Rila and Rhodope) to Gotse Delchev (in Pirin near the border with Greece). This is a well-traveled route popular with lorries and tourists. It leads to several well-known ski resorts, to the Belmeken National Sports Base, as well as to a border check point with Greece. It is a mountainous region traditionally inhabited by sheep herders, and as soon as the road picked up, I noticed it was lined with sellers of homemade dairy (as well as handpicked berries and honey). Barely a vehicle passed by without stopping to buy from the local produce. But the sellers, often women or accompanied by women, wore the traditional head covering that distinguished the local Muslim Pomaks from the (traditionally Christian) titular Bulgarians. The region is controversial in Bulgarian nationalist narratives as it is associated with dangerous proximity to the historical nemesis Turkey, the heir of the Ottomans (see Stoyanov, 1998), and cinematically and fictionally retold stories of forcible conversion and national treason (e.g., the mythical communist-era film Time of Violence, Staikov, 1988). It seemed then that the Bulgarians hurried to buy “real yoghurt” (the sample taken by Grigorov to Geneva was reportedly from sheep’s milk) from the very people they often othered as non-Bulgarians or not real Bulgarians (see Stoyanov, 1998, for details on the anti-Pomak campaigns of the final communist decade). The yoghurt sold commercially in the supermarket chains is also problematically “Bulgarian.” Several processes of restructuring in the Bulgarian dairy industry (including privatization of the big producer owned by the state; lack of agricultural subsidies for the milk producers; reduction in the livestocks; low technologization of the production; fragmentation of the processing industry into more than 250 milk processing companies) led to a gradual increase in the buying price of milk from producers (Kostov, 1998; Georgieva, 2010; also Georgieva, 2015). As a result, it became cheaper to import milk from technically more efficient and more well-subsidized European producers (prominently Hungary and Germany—Valkanov, 2014), rather than to buy locally. Besides milk, the milk processors admit to widely using milk substitutes (until 2010 when an updated Bulgarian National Standard of yoghurt production codified into legislation disallowed it). Thus the “authentically Bulgarian” yoghurt appears to contain not much Bulgarian beyond the bacteria carrying the national name. The controversies in the national public space about allowing other producers in Europe since Bulgaria’s EU accession in 2007 to freely use the denomination “Bulgaria” to describe their yoghurt (see domestic legislative proposal on the Law on the Labels and Geographical Indications, 2017) thus appear to lose solid ground. Finally, we come to address the myth of yoghurt as the one authentic Bulgarian product that represents the country abroad. An application of this myth to the international legal framework was at the root of the Bulgarian representatives’ claims for protection at the WTO (mentioned above), as well as in heated domestic debates about lifting national legal protection in compliance with EU regulations (Regulation No 1151/2012—also mentioned in the above paragraph). Besides the two examples with

Bacillus Bulgaricus: The Breeding of National Pride

59

Asian dairy companies using a targeted advertising strategy to market their products in Japan and China, branding traditional clean and healthy lifestyles and ethno-national authenticity, Bulgarian diasporas’ consumption abroad offers a good case of the same mythologizing. A forthcoming study carried out in 2017–2018 of Bulgarian foodshops and restaurants in the United Kingdom (Ranta and Nancheva, 2019 forthcoming) unveiled an interesting dairy product range. Some smaller display fridges in Bulgarian foodshops in the United Kingdom featured the familiar range of choice of yoghurt pots which one can find in any corner shop in Bulgaria. But the more well-developed foodshops featured dairy products which cannot be found widely at home2 but nevertheless claimed on their label to be “authentic.” The national and international certification of quality that these products carry (e.g, under the Bulgarian National Standard or the BRC-IS Global Standard for Food Safety), together with their targeted and consistent branding strategies, have opened diaspora markets which consume the products as “Bulgarian,” rather than dairy. But the discovery of these products abroad clearly indicates that their vision of Bulgarian-ness is one carefully crafted and marketed to certain audiences. Just as the fascination of the Chinese and the Japanese with “authentic” Bulgarian yoghurt led to sponsorship of “traditional” fairs of the yoghurt and scientific research expounding the longevity benefits of Bulgarian yoghurt, the fascination of Bulgarian diaspora consumers with all good things Bulgarian recreates a vision of the ethno-national that is not necessarily “authentic.” This section provided a brief overview of three visible myths applied in the construction of yoghurt as a quintessentially Bulgarian national product: the myth of regionally delineated staple, the myth of ethno-national origin, and the myth of authentic ethno-national representation abroad. It aimed to challenge the construction of Bulgarian-ness that is sustained by narratives mythologizing the ethno-national character of yoghurt. This challenge is not meant to devalue the importance of the construction but to demonstrate its contingent nature. Yoghurt is an important and, in many ways, unique staple food in the Balkans. But its transformation into a Bulgarian national staple food is due as much to chance, as it is to the demands of political, economic, and cultural agendas.

But what of national pride then? I often reflected on my positionality while researching this chapter and writing it: as an ethnic Bulgarian, I speak of national pride in the third person. With a view of my fellow Bulgarian readers, I thought I should cultivate my national heritage rather than question its credibility. And I do like Bulgarian yoghurt: as a matter of fact, I only ever have that (the texture of other yoghurts is different)! Yet, I have argued in this chapter that the Bulgarian-ness of yoghurt should be understood as separate from the production and consumption of yoghurt. While people in the region have always enjoyed yoghurt, they have only comparatively recently started to speak of it as nationally Bulgarian: over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, and perhaps more visibly in the years after the fall of communism and the opening up of the previously controlled Bulgarian economy. This Bulgarization is partially linked to the nationality of the person who examined and identified what turns milk

60

The Emergence of National Food

into yoghurt: the main lactic acid producing bacterium officially named Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, discovered in 1905, apparently only thrives in the climate of Bulgaria. But beyond historical and geographical chance, the Bulgarization of yoghurt is also linked to concrete economic, political, and cultural agendas which can only be pursued if yoghurt is understood as “authentically” Bulgarian. This desired authenticity is a myth. The lactic bacteria probably have not followed the frequent border changes in the Balkans over the past centuries to choose the territory of Bulgaria, so immediate neighbors such as Serbia and Macedonia could make similarly plausible claims of ownership. Instead, they just enjoy “kiselo mleko.” Moreover, the product being marketed as authentically Bulgarian nowadays is very different from the one that the eponymous bacteria came from: technologies applied for commercial production and health and safety reasons have changed both its content and qualities. Furthermore, the national authenticity of the product could be challenged both on the grounds of the ethno-national background of its makers (often not titular ethnic Bulgarians) and on the grounds of the origins of its main ingredient, milk (ever more frequently imported from outside Bulgaria). Finally, the yoghurt sold abroad to represent authentic Bulgaria is often especially created for specific audiences (Bulgarian diaspora consumers abroad or foreign consumers) and thus not “authentic” in the true sense of the word. Yet, the mythological ethno-national authenticity does not mean there is no reason for pride. Yoghurt is a delicious food with numerous health benefits, linked to Bulgaria and the Balkans in unique ways. Its preindustrial preparation symbolizes the home, land, and domesticity: fresh milk from sheep grazing on beautiful mountainous pastures, boiled in a patterned pot, and wrapped in red woven textile near the fire. This imagery draws postindustrial consumers looking for clean and healthy living and romanticizing about their national identity in an era of globalization close to their traditional heritage. Thus, many young Bulgarian families today have taken to preparing their own yoghurt at home, using certified starter cultures that are increasingly available on the online market (the demand for these is growing within the rising “foodie” culture). Defining who they are through what they consume, these new Bulgarians carefully foster an image of themselves as cosmopolitan Europeans in touch with their traditions and conscious of their choices: foodwise and otherwise. This fosters a kind of national identity which transcends the constraints of the ethno-national and is adaptable to a connected world. Traditional homemade yoghurt can become a national business card for such an identity, and this is no small reason for pride.

Notes 1 Streptobacillus and Streptoccus thermophilus. 2 Vedrare (established 2008) https://www.facebook.com/vedrare/.

5

Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana Brandi Simpson Miller

Introduction The modern nation of Ghana in West Africa was conceived in a food fight. In January 1948, the Ga Chief Nii Kwabena Bonne III organized a campaign to boycott European alimentary and textile goods. The Ga, part of the Ga–Dangme ethnolinguistic group, lived primarily in the Greater Accra Region of the Gold Coast. Due to their proximity to the coast, they have had many years of trade and contact with Europeans. Among the disputed items boycotted by the residents of the Gold Coast colony were tinned meat and wheat flour biscuits. Chiefs of the different, mostly coastal towns pledged their support and involvement in the shopper’s boycott. The boycotters were guided by the slogan “We cannot buy; your prices are too high. If you don’t cut down your prices, then close down your stores; and take away your goods to your own country” (Pyo, 2014). On February 28, the last day of the boycott, former Second World War servicemen from the Gold Coast began a march from the capital Accra, to the British governor at Fort Christiansborg to present him with a petition. They were fired upon by police, leaving several leaders of the group dead. This in turn led to rioting and became the precursor to the 1949–1951 campaign for independence. Kwame Nkrumah, soon to become the first president of an independent Ghana, used this event as a catalyst to break away from his role as the general secretary of the first independence party, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). Composed of merchants, educated elites, chiefs, and prominent farmers, the UGCC had a conservative agenda. Nkrumah and members of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), composed of young people he successfully mobilized, then began to campaign for Ghana’s independence from British rule, and rapidly became the leading independence party. The shopper’s boycott, where leaders were shot and killed was considered “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” It marked the beginning of the process of independence for the Gold Coast, as Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African colony to achieve independence (Austin, 1970: 72–5, 254). It also marked the beginning of the long struggle for Ghana to become independent of its reliance on the imported staple foods that initiated the unrest in 1948 (Alata and Oyokohene, 1948: ARG 1-1-254).

62

The Emergence of National Food

The central problem of the colony was that it produced what it did not consume and consumed what it did not produce. This economic framework contributed to a legacy of food insecurity that Ghana still struggles with today. Chronic food insecurity in the cities, formed by the changeable political economy of colonial cocoa production—the country’s main exporting commodity—shaped the adoption of acceptable national food symbols. The inclusion of a cuisine in the construction of the national narrative would highlight the failure to stabilize food prices that were tied to volatile cocoa prices and a poor colonial transportation system. Moreover, attempts at secession from the young nation of Ghana by the Asante ethnic group would work to discourage the development of a cuisine as a national symbol. As leaders of a former empire in the central forest, the Asante were the main producers of cocoa at the time. A national cuisine would inevitably include foodways of the historically significant Asante and would serve to promote the central role their region played in cocoa production, further reinforcing their claims to political and economic autonomy. Finally, Nkrumah’s initiation of the National Cultural Policy, fashioned to restore the legitimacy of rural cultural practices after their denigration during the colonial period, firmly silenced any mention of foodways (foreign or local) to divert attention away from food insecurity issues faced by the young nation. Ghana’s inherited extractive industries and poor transportation and food distribution networks, competing political claims of different regional ethnic groups, and Nkrumah’s strategic suppression of any focus on food—imported or regional—all came together to discourage the symbolic adoption of regional cuisines that would represent the nation. This chapter explores the social, cultural, and political implications of the cocoa economy as it relates to Ghanaian national cuisine in the period leading up to and directly after Gold Coast independence in 1957. It concentrates specifically upon the macroeconomic volatility of the cocoa export economy. Using colonial and postcolonial records, in addition to data gathered from interviews, I attempt to understand how structural factors and political tensions discouraged the adoption of a national cuisine. Jack Goody asserted that industrial production and mass communication erased many boundaries of food consumption and internal class and regional differences for industrialized countries. This has come at the expense of producer nations like Ghana, whose gaps in consumption and regional boundaries have been reinforced by global industrial production and trade structures (Goody, 1982: 3 and 193). This chapter examines how boundaries and gaps in food consumption structured by the political economy in Ghana drove the crafting of a national identity that—up until 2004—consciously excluded cuisine.

Colonial distribution systems The key word to describe nineteenth-century Gold Coast food is cuisines, not cuisine. Climatically diverse, few foods were available throughout the region without the intercession of trade to redistribute them. The diet of Gold Coast inhabitants in the nineteenth century was shaped by the ecological zones in West Africa—long narrow bands that extend east to west. These bands featured different animals and plants due

Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana

63

to zonally distinct rainfall patterns and were formed by the global system of wind currents which, along with the rotation of the earth on its axis, affected the amount and location of rain. The Coastal Region, in which the modern-day city of Accra is located, is situated in the Dahomey Gap. This gap is one of the ecological east-west bands that extend as far as the coast in Benin and Badagry in modern-day Nigeria. Dryer than the forest zone that it traverses, the rainfall in Accra can average from 28 to just 10 inches per year. The terrain is constituted of open grasslands in which tree crops, such as palm oil, fail to thrive. This ecological situation encouraged the trade of fish and salt to the interior in exchange for other essentials (Parker, 2001: 2–5). A lush landscape that is home to the sacred Lake Bosomtwe (the region’s only lake) and intersected by the Prah, Offin, and Afram Rivers, the Asante Empire in the central forested region began its rapid expansion in the seventeenth century thanks in part to the gold and slave trade. With its lush jungle intersected by rivers, the region produced much fruit, fish, kola, yams, and gold. In the seventeenth century maize became a transportable forest-based food supply for the military and was integral to later Asante expansion into the northern savannah (McCann, 2007: 49). North of the central forested region and composed of the transitional savannah border land, the Northern Region stretched all the way to the border of Burkina Faso. Foods typical of the Northern Region would have been grain based, composed of both millet and sorghum. Pastoralism and mixed farming being prevalent in this region, most of the population would have had access to meat, offal, and milk (Austin et al., 2012). To a degree, these ecological bands limited the diet of most people in the different regions to what was seasonally and locally available. However, this extreme ecological diversity also meant that historically, inter-ecological trade of foodstuffs was a prominent feature of the history of the Gold Coast (Akyeampong, 2006: 36). This situation, in turn, produced a thriving internal trade of items such as maize, fish, yams, and millet. Understandably, transportation across ecological zones increased the cost of local and imported foods significantly. Distribution problems and volatile prices plagued the colonial government, compromising their ability to keep order. In 1941 the British colonial director of supplies, Captain A. C. Duncan Johnstone, held a meeting to discuss the control of imported food prices, which were being adversely affected by the high cost of transport. To facilitate control over the price of imports, the colonial government required foreign traders to declare their wholesale stocks of “controlled commodities.” Stocks included items such as flour, rice, salt, sugar, milk, lard, tinned fish, tinned meat, tea, tinned butter, and tinned cheese. The cost of transportation was not assumed by the government but passed along to trading firms. Firms reacted with a reluctance to operate in outstations far from the coast. Administrators quickly realized that if prices for foods—which were published in a monthly gazette—varied from say Kumasi (the former capital of the Asante Empire in the forested center) to the colonial capital of Accra, people would travel to Accra to purchase items at a lower price and resell them in Kumasi (Duncan Johnstone, 1941: ARG 1-1-67). These distribution issues presented a constant threat to the preservation of the prices of imported goods that the colonial government was attempting to establish.

64

The Emergence of National Food

The poor design of the colonial transport system not only affected the supply of imported foods to the central forested region and dry northern regions from the coast but hampered the ability to provision towns where wealth was being extracted. In port boom towns such as Sekondi-Takoradi, it became prohibitively expensive to transport local food into the city owing to the organization of the rail lines. Farms were located on poorly maintained feeder roads, far from rail spurs. This increased the cost of the transport of local foodstuffs considerably. The city then became dependent upon imports whose prices continued to rise over time. Children in Sekondi-Takoradi were caught up into this economy by the need to work selling imported biscuits, breads, and snack foods to supplement the family food budget (Busia, 1950).

Food security and political stability As demonstrated by the 1948 boycott, the failure of the colonial state to manage imported staple food prices adversely affected its ability to govern the colony. During and after the colonial period, the main source of revenue was derived from duties on goods that entered and left the ports. Cocoa earnings accounted for 84 percent of the colony’s total exports by 1927 (Kolavalli and Vigneri, 2011: 201–217). This had the effect of concentrating all the economic power at the ports, and on the administration’s ability to tax incoming and outgoing goods (Cooper, 2002). This did not provide the basis of a strong national economy for Ghana and fostered regional tensions that will be discussed later in this chapter. The existing economic base and transportation systems meant that long term food security issues inevitably had a higher priority than the creation of a national cuisine. During the transitional period when Nkrumah was made prime minister, he became the architect of the National Food Board. Inaugurated in January 1953, the board’s purpose was to advise the government on “the construction of feeder roads to facilitate the provision of supplies for labour engaged on the construction of Tema Harbour and the proposed Volta River Project, on guaranteed prices, food reserves, and other matter” (Nkrumah, 1953: ARG 2-8-27). The National Food Board represented a head-on attempt to resolve these inherited food distribution issues and demonstrated an appreciation for the impact food security had on Ghana’s ability to transition from an export economy, to one that was diversifi ed and included manufacturing and services. These attempts to address food security issues were met with little success and were seized upon by those who opposed Nkrumah and the CCP’s handling of the issue. On the eve of independence in the spring of 1954, Nkrumah and the CPP were facing considerable tension surrounding farm productivity and food security. On May 12, 1954, Ghana’s only daily newspaper The Daily Echo published a commentary entitled “Grow More Flags”: The C.P.P. government’s campaign for the growing of more food failed and Government reports show no concrete increase in food production during the three years of Nkrumah’s reign. The Housewife found things gone worse. Hence, the

Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana

65

average reflective person can rightly term the present hoisting of C.P.P. flags as the Government’s understanding of grow more food. (The Daily Echo, 1954: 12)

Naturally, this was damaging press on the eve of Nkrumah’s transition from prime minister to president of an independent Ghana. Nevertheless, he pressed on with programs that prioritized food security over national cuisine. The 1962 Program for Work and Happiness and the 1964 Seven Year Development Plan were designed to eradicate the colonial export structure by increasing the internal production of foodstuffs and consumer goods. Policies included agricultural diversification, import substitution, and bans and subsidies on imported staples. According to Nkrumah, Ghana was to develop a self-sustaining economy balanced between industry and agriculture, “providing a sufficiency of food for the people and supporting secondary industries based on the products of our agriculture” (Milne, 2006: 107). Agriculture was diversified and mechanized wherever possible, and state farms produced rubber, palm oil, banana, citrus, cereals, and vegetables. Nkrumah’s agricultural policies proved to be disastrous. Starting as one of the most prosperous African economies at the time of independence, by 1965 Ghana was virtually bankrupt. Independence came amid an economic boom when the international market value of cash crops such as cocoa, minerals, and ground nuts was high. Rainfall was also good during those years. West African economies grew between 4 percent and 6 percent per year (Meredith, 2013: 41). However, Ghana was to experience an unanticipated plummeting in the price of cocoa: The world price for cocoa, the backbone of the country’s economy at the time, either due to international manipulation to subvert the economic programs of the Nkrumah government or due to an inter-play of market forces, plummeted so sharply that the country needed a large dose of external support to maintain financial solvency. By 1960, a ton of cocoa beans on the London Exchange was estimated at 240 pounds on average; by August 1965, it dropped to an unprecedented low of 91 pounds. (Gebe, 2008: 176)

In addition to the crash of the price of cocoa, between 1959 and 1964, Ghana spent 430 million pounds on development projects, financed mostly by the Cocoa Marketing Board, a body controlled by the government. In place of the prosperity experienced just after independence in 1957, food shortages, higher taxes, and foreign debt became the norm in the late 1960s (Meredith, 2013: 186). Furthermore, a shortage of food supplies to the cities made it more profitable for farmers to switch to food crops such as maize, millet, and yams (Brydon and Legge, 1996: 12). Chronic food insecurity in urban areas and a retrenchment of local food stuffs in rural areas became the model. Although it may have seemed that Nkrumah’s failed policies were directly responsible for the retrenchment of local foodways and the neglect of the development of a national cuisine, it was the inherited structural food distribution problems and single export crop macroeconomic issues that undermined the evolution of a national cuisine. How can a new nation focus upon the development of a cuisine, when the very real problems of the production and distribution of foods across ecological zones had never been solved?

66

The Emergence of National Food

The power of the Asante The lush ecological zone the Asante inhabited made food security less of an issue in the central forested region. The more prescient problem was the control of the wealth that cocoa production generated. The limited availability of cocoa wealth led to tensions between the Asante and first prime minister and president, Kwame Nkrumah, and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP). Much historical ethnic tension in the Gold Coast was related to the cultural dominance of the Asante. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the forested region was the central province of the Akan-speaking Asante Empire and the location of its capital, Kumasi. Including areas at the edge of the coastal plain, the Asante Empire expanded south from the central forested region to include the present-day Brong-Ahafo Region, and parts of the Central Region, Eastern Region, Greater Accra Region, and Western Region of Ghana. In the newly formed Ghanaian state, the Asante Region held 10 percent of the total land area of Ghana, and had the highest population (Arhin, 1970: 363–73). The celebrated economic and cultural dominance of the Asante precluded the selection of a national cuisine in the 1950s, as the new nation was struggling to bring the rebellious Asante into the national fold. Following the second election in 1954, the new Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) increased the export tax while the producer tax remained fixed for the next four years. The government received loans from the CMB for their development projects. These loans made it obvious that the CMB was an instrument of public finance (Kolavali and Vigneri, 2011). This caused considerable unrest and fueled growing agitation for Asante independence. Agitation produced by the loss of the control of the marketing of cocoa led to the formation of what was to become the Asante National Liberation Movement (NLM), among Nkrumah’s staunchest opposition. On September 19, 1954, the Asante leadership swore the Great Oath of Asante, and the new flag of the NLM was unfurled (Austin, 1970: 254–59). In the center of the flag stood a large cocoa tree; beneath the tree were a cocoa pod and a porcupine. The graphic was powerful, and its symbolism misinterpreted by none. The cocoa pod represented the major source of wealth in Asante and the porcupine (kotoko) stood as the age-old symbol of the Asante war machine. Like the quills of a porcupine, “wokum apem a, apem be ba”—”if you kill a thousand, a thousand more will come.” (Allman, 1990: 264)

This slogan was an allusion to regional loyalties and the awareness that Asante federalism could be funded by their cocoa production just as easily as it could fund the greed of the CPP. This flag unmistakably asserted the primacy of cocoa production and appropriated it as an Asante national symbol. Although cocoa was a regional food produced for export, it has never been a part of any regional cuisine. Even to the present day, chocolate has not been adopted as a local food, making it difficult to find a locally produced chocolate bar in Ghana. Chocolate was and is produced in Ghana solely for the generation of state revenue. The Asante bid for independence using the symbolism behind cocoa production would ultimately fail. The CPP responded to Asante demands for independence

Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana

67

by abolishing regional assemblies in favor of concentrating power in the National Assembly. Additionally, the Asante Region was halved by the formation of the BrongAhafo Region north of Kumasi, the capital city of the Asante. The discourse between the CPP government and the Asante represented the early processes of dialogue over the use and symbolism of cocoa in the crafting of national identity. The Asante used a commodified food to focus their individual national identity upon, marking their place in the global economy. Nkrumah’s desire to be free of the inherited colonial export structure of cocoa would, in addition to its association with Asante secession, prevent him from using this food as part of his crafting of the national identity in its cuisine or in its other symbols. It is not only the issue of avoiding using cocoa as a national symbol but also a national cuisine without the inclusion of Asante elements would have been unthinkable. Flags (absent the use of the cocoa pod), a currency that featured national heroes, literature, and a national football team were all strategically adopted by Kwame Nkrumah as neutral symbols of the new nation of Ghana. A national cuisine was conspicuously absent, as any discussion of food would necessarily have led to a discussion of the inclusion of Asante cuisine and loud criticism of the food scarcity the young nation was still wrestling with. The crafting of a national cuisine would have highlighted regional tensions in a way that cloth or a new flag would not.

Foodways and identity Over time, and as reflected in changes in the official national cultural policy, the regional character of foodways in Ghana came to be regarded as a source of national strength. Beginning with a policy that was wholly directed by the national government to deliberately exclude any mention of food, the more recent cultural policies highlight pride in a diverse nation that includes recognition of cuisines from different regions and those of other African nations. The study of cuisine as an aspect of Ghana’s material history reflects a national cultural complexity that is a reaction to the forces of the colonial participation in global capitalism. “When we use the term material life, it implies at once not only long-term processes of work and domestic life but also the way those processes are conditioned at higher levels by the market economy and capitalism” (Blair, 1988: 5). The regional quality of foodways in Ghana is a legacy and a rejoinder to the inherited colonial economic and transportation systems that served to reinforce gaps in consumption and regional food boundaries. Utilizing state support to develop the arts in the service of nation building, Nkrumah decreed the creation of councils, organizations, and centers to forge a common national identity and culture. Nkrumah’s goal was to incorporate various disparate artistic traditions into a common Ghanaian identity based upon a uniquely Ghanaian sensibility. His goal was also to elevate a uniquely Ghanaian rural identity he believed had been denigrated by the effects of colonialism and missionary work. The Arts Council organized various festivals whose venue changed annually among the regional capitals, thus promoting a sense of nationhood (Greene, 1998: 2). Tellingly, the first incarnation of the cultural policy did not mention food of any kind.

68

The Emergence of National Food

This omission of foodways in the first cultural policy was a strategic and deliberate choice by Nkrumah. He wanted to avoid any mention of cuisine whilst he was working on addressing the food distribution issues he inherited. Artists found it difficult to grow and to incorporate the experiences of being part of the modern global economy under this model. The following poem by Joe De Graft uses food to illustrate the frustration artists like him felt over national cultural patronage: I like to eat tasty Chinese and Mexican food when I can get it to eat, even though I have never been to China or Mexico; and I prefer the smell and tang of garlic to that of stinking fish, which most Ghanaians simply adore but which I detest. (Fraser, 1986: 141)

Consumption of different foods highlighted the urbanization and increasing global influences on the food repertoire in an independent Ghana. Artists’ need to reflect what they experienced often came into conflict with the objectives of the national project, which was firmly focused upon the eradication of foreign influences and the promotion of Ghanaian consciousness. It was not until 2004 that the cultural policy included the mention of food. The National Cultural Policy would become a way for Ghana to mitigate the foreign debt of the 1980s via the institution of a heritage tourism marketing scheme in line with IMF requirements. The heritage tourism scheme had the effect of focusing attention on Ghana’s various ethnic groups. It contributed to the conception of a national character that incorporated multiplicity and required citizens to have a role in the crafting of the national cultural policy. National and ethnic approaches of identification worked in concert to create a distinct patriotism that converged around common traits and local idiosyncrasies. This program had a momentous effect on the National Cultural Policy, addressing cuisine for the first time. What follows is a section of the 2004 Cultural Policy : 10.4 Foods 10.4.1 Ghana has a rich diversity of foods and culinary cultures from its diverse ethnic cultures. The state shall:

a. actively support research into production and preservation of local foods; and the compilation of traditional recipes and methods of preservation;

b. Encourage the consumption of Ghanaian cuisine from all parts of the country and discourage the over dependence on imported foods;

c. Explore the nutritional values of our local foodstuff and promote them; d. Encourage the introduction of cuisine from other African Cultures. 10.4.2 Ghanaian dishes shall be a predominant feature of menus at State functions and in public catering institutions. 10.4.3 Ghanaians shall be encouraged to develop a culture of producing what they eat and eating what they produce. (http://www.artsinafrica.com/uploads/2011/04/Ghana.pdf, 2014)

Food and Nationalism in an Independent Ghana

69

In contrast to the total absence of the mention of foodways, here for the first time there was an emphasis on the richness of the regional variation in foods and a recognition of migratory influences on cuisine. While locally produced food remained the focus, there was still no sign of the conscious development of a national cuisine. Elements such as an emphasis on the preservation of tradition are present. The focus was on increased agricultural production to meet the needs of Ghana’s citizens for sustenance and economic empowerment, a direct continuation of Nkrumah’s economic aims from the early 1950s. My field research for my 2014 master’s dissertation on government policy and attitudes concerning foodways and identity reinforced the concern for economic self-sufficiency present in the 2004 Cultural Policy. In 2014 I spent twelve weeks in Ghana traveling the length of the country, asking individuals what food they most often consumed, what they thought the national dish was and why, and what role they thought the government should play in promoting local food. Many stated that food was resolutely regional and a source of national strength; they commented that it brings “a blend of something extra,” provides “variety, it is healthy, and interesting” (Simpson Miller, 2014). Dr. John Kwadwo Osei-Tutu, professor of history at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and visiting professor at the University of Ghana, stated that “Ghana has no need for a national food.” As one of the respondents who felt food was regional in Ghana, he asserted that it would be divisive if one food was chosen, and that for a politician to attempt this would be disadvantageous to his or her career. OseiTutu emphatically stated, “There will be no national food of Ghana. Not in my lifetime, my children’s lifetime, or in my children’s, children’s lifetime” (Osei-Tutu, 2014). He went on to say that he felt that the football team and the national anthem were more important to the inspiration of national pride than an identifiable Ghanaian national cuisine. Ama Akoto, senior quality assurance officer at the Ghana Tourism Ministry, confided that “really, food in Ghana is not a big deal.” When asked if she believed a country needed a recognizable food or cuisine to be considered a great country, she responded by saying, “Food is not everything.” She believed that cleaning up the beaches was more important to attracting tourism than catering to the culinary tastes of tourists. She admitted that cuisine is important in so far as a tourist getting the ill tarnished reputation of a country (Akoto, 2014). The overriding issue in most responses about cuisine seemed to reflect a concern for the economy and the generation of jobs more than a concern over the marketing of a national identity with cuisine. Many respondents agreed with Ms. Akoto’s low rating in terms of importance of a recognizable national cuisine for Ghana. As many as 30 percent of those surveyed during my fieldwork believed it was not necessary to have a national cuisine, while 47 percent did. Of those who did respond positively, 21 percent believed it would benefit the tourism industry and 25 percent believed a recognizable national cuisine would boost the economy and/or employ more Ghanaians (Simpson Miller, 2014). Foreign foods seemed to be perceived as problematic for the economy,

70

The Emergence of National Food

insecure with regard to fluctuating pricing, and representative of neocolonial domination (Worlali, 2014). In later years, the Ghanaian people were expected to participate in the process of creating the national identity, demonstrating that the national conversation was as much a bottom-up exchange as a top-down phenomenon. In fact, the regional character of Ghanaian food today, first initiated by its ecological situation, and sustained by its troubled transport and economic systems, has been embraced by the citizenry as a national good, and as something that makes them unique among nations.

Conclusion: Food and the unfinished national project Nkrumah’s approach to the nation-building project was an attempt to work within the economic structure he inherited. As a political innovator, he was concerned with the codification of symbols as supports in a strategy to neutralize rival political groups. The “revival” of select cultural traits and the establishment of historical traditions was undertaken to justify and glorify the new idioms and new national identity. The crafting of a national cuisine would have crossed too many boundaries due to its figurative role of a representative good, and would have engendered a more rigorous defense, exacting a higher political price than Nkrumah was willing to bear. Emphasis upon the crafting of a national cuisine would have called attention to food security issues, challenging the tenuous claim to leadership for Nkrumah and the CPP. The national narrative was and continues to be defined by the commodities trade and regional food security, and, since independence, food has become representative of regional cultural freedom. Cocoa represented the obvious postcolonial truth that was going unaddressed in the crafting of a national cuisine. Cocoa was (and remains) a food that itself caused chronic food insecurity for those who depended upon it for revenue as a commodity. In the Gold Coast, and later in an independent Ghana, cocoa represented a potentially divisive and antinationalistic inheritance, as it was too closely associated with Asante economic power and ethnic heritage. It was regarded as a foreign food whose purpose was solely revenue generation and was never adopted as a regional food like maize and plantain were. In a nation that was a model for all African nations, the consistently evolving cultural policy, along with other indicators such as food security, clearly show that Ghana’s national project is adaptable. Notwithstanding the opportunities for forging a sense of national identity through consumption through dress and food, the ongoing structural issues did not create a welcoming environment for the development of a national cuisine.

Part Two

Contemporary Accounts of the Emergence and Development of National Food

6

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods: From Haggis to Deep-Fried Mars Bars Joy Fraser and Christine Knight

Introduction This chapter explores the emergence of Scottish national foods in relation to issues of national identity, poverty, class, and cultural representation, based on case studies of two prominent national foods—haggis and deep-fried Mars Bars. The first case study focuses on haggis—a sausage-like dish made from sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs minced with suet, oatmeal, onions, and spices, and boiled in a casing (traditionally the animal’s stomach-bag)—which is widely known today as Scotland’s national dish. We trace competing representations of Scottish poverty in cultural depictions of haggis produced in England and Scotland, respectively, in the years following the dish’s emergence as a culinary signifier of Scottish nationality in the mid-1700s. We discuss how haggis initially appeared within eighteenth-century English cultural discourse as the centerpiece of a stereotypically Scottish diet that emphasized beggarliness as a fundamentally Scottish trait. North of the Border, Scots responded by constructing a new sense of Scottish culinary nationalism that was rooted in a Burnsian ideal of honest poverty, an aspect of national identity that remains influential in Scottish food writing to this day. The second case study offers a more contemporary perspective on the complex relationship between national food, national identity, and class in Scotland through an examination of media and other public discourses surrounding the deep-fried Mars Bar (DFMB). Arguably invented in Stonehaven (near Aberdeen) and first reported in the Scottish and UK press in 1995, the DFMB is the most notorious exemplar of the “deep-fried” Scottish diet stereotype that has emerged in the United Kingdom in recent decades. We explore how both foods have been deployed as highly contested cultural signifiers within competing discourses about national identity, poverty, and class both within and beyond Scotland.

74

The Emergence of National Food

Representing Scottishness as poverty in early cultural depictions of haggis “Beggarly Scots”: The emergence of a Scottish stereotype Haggis’s role as a contested signifier of Scottish nationality was forged in the context of Scotland’s fraught relationship with its powerful neighbor to the south in the decades following the union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707, which brought Britain into being as a political entity. Prior to the mid-1700s there is little evidence that either the Scots or the English identified haggis as a distinctively Scottish dish or as embodying distinctively Scottish characteristics. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, haggis pudding was a delicacy enjoyed in wealthy English households; it appears in numerous manuscript and published recipe collections produced in England during this period and is mentioned in English literary sources from as early as the thirteenth century. While changing tastes—particularly a decline in the prestige of offal (Lloyd, 2012)—partly explain the dish’s fall from favor in England in the early eighteenth century, its decreasing cachet coincided most notably with the rise of its association with Scotland and the Scots. English references to haggis from the mid-1700s onward increasingly represented it as peculiarly Scottish: English cookery books began featuring recipes for “Scotch” haggis, while dictionaries and other sources similarly highlighted the dish’s Scottish connection and treated haggis as a dialect term likely to be unfamiliar to English readers. From this point on, haggis rapidly acquired the status of a culinary stereotype that English writers and artists could draw on as part of a larger repertoire of cultural associations when referring to Scotland and the Scots. It was one of numerous stereotypes that developed within eighteenth-century English cultural discourse pertaining to the diets and other characteristics of various nationalities (Atherton, 1974: 85–89). Such stereotypes reflected the burgeoning sense of English nationalism that arose during this period in response to the threat of military incursion from France as well as fears of corrupting foreign influence that were exacerbated by rapid social, economic, and political changes at home (Rogers, 2003: 40–55). The resultant English xenophobia found expression, in part, in the creation of stereotypes that encoded derogatory ideas about and attitudes toward other nationalities against which Englishness could be defined—most notably the French. The preeminent culinary symbols of this “mythic, isolationist Englishness” (Rounce, 2005: 26) were roast beef and plum pudding, emblems of a tradition of plain country cooking that exemplified English Protestant virtues of liberty, moral decency, and valor in opposition to the foreign luxury and corruption symbolized by extravagant yet unnourishing French cuisine, including frogs’ legs, salads, fricassees, and soups (Rogers, 2003: 56–71; Lehmann, 1999). In contrast, the stereotypically Scottish diet that emerged during this period was portrayed as barely fit for human consumption, reflecting a larger emphasis on beggarliness as a fundamentally Scottish trait. Haggis and other culinary stereotypes of Scottishness were incorporated into a cluster of existing stereotypes associating the Scots with poverty, squalor, and disease—stereotypes that are encapsulated in the

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods

75

figure of the “beggarly Scot” (Langford, 2005; Pentland, 2011). As one nineteenthcentury commentator reflected, depictions of the Scots within eighteenth-century English popular culture typically portrayed them as “long, lean, raw-boned, hungry, grey-eyed Sawney[s],1 with . . . an insatiable appetite for oaten-cakes, haggis, and singed sheep’s head; of which viands the supply usually fell very far short of the demand”2 ([Hoare] 1850: 594). The stereotype of the beggarly Scot circulated widely via a range of media, including popular literature (Carson, 1744: 37–47); theatre (Reed, 1761: 34–35; Jephson, 1980 [1783]: 17); satirical prints (Scotch Amusements, 1768); and even verbal insults hurled at Scottish immigrants by native Englishmen on the streets of eighteenth-century London (Tod, [1759: [2]). English satirists mocked the inadequate quantity, inferior quality, and monotony of the stereotypically Scottish diet, contrasting it with the wholesome nutritiousness of English roast beef and plum pudding. In denigrating the Scots’ meager diet and degraded living conditions, the stereotype of the beggarly Scot asserted England’s economic and social superiority over its northern neighbor. Yet such stereotypes proliferated in the decades following the parliamentary union of 1707 precisely because England recognized that its dominance was under threat (Pentland, 2011: 66). Though the roots of the “beggarly Scot” stereotype lay in English satirical accounts of Scotland first published in the seventeenth century (Rackwitz, 2007: 115–30), its crystallization in the mid-1700s reflected the heightened tensions between the two nations during this period and the resultant rise of anti-Scottish sentiment south of the Border. Post-1707, Scots became an increasingly prominent presence in England, especially in London, where their elevation to positions of power and influence in the newly formed British state sparked resentment among their English rivals. Anti-Scottish sentiment reached a peak during the Jacobite Rising of 1745–1746, when an army of predominantly Highland Scots led by Charles Edward Stuart, with backing from France, marched on England in an ultimately doomed attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty to the British throne (Colley, 2005: 117). The following two decades saw unprecedented levels of Scottish immigration to the south, where Scots’ highly visible success in fields such as politics, journalism, and the literary sphere earned them a reputation for unbridled ambition, sycophancy, and cronyism that often found expression in dietary and other stereotypes (Pentland, 2011). Fears of excessive Scottish influence in British public life are encoded, for example, in George Townshend’s print “The Scotch Pedlars” (1761), in which a procession of Scottish merchants through the streets of London is led by a figure holding a banner reading, “Down with English Roast Beef & Up with Croudy [i.e., oatmeal porridge] & Haggis.” Other satirists depicted the Scots’ careerism as a physical hunger that could only be satiated by leaving behind the meager diet of their native land and feasting on English plenty. A conversation between two Scottish place-seekers in another print from the early 1760s, for example, has one remark to the other, “Now Gibby we can come on for the muckle [great] Beef and Pudding,” to which the latter replies, “Aye Sawney, tis better than living on haggist [sic]” (“Exaltation of the Boot,” 1762). The prominent role played by Scottish politicians in the British state generated particularly virulent animosity among their political opponents, which that similarly found expression in anti-Scottish stereotypes. The appointment of John Stuart, third earl

76

The Emergence of National Food

of Bute, as Britain’s first Scottish-born prime minister in 1762 triggered a remarkable outpouring of over four hundred prints and other satirical material, much of which played on Bute’s Scottishness and associated notions of both meanness and beggarliness. Haggis and other Scottish dietary stereotypes featured prominently in satires critiquing key policies of the Bute administration. A satire on the administration’s cost-saving reforms to the royal household, for example, features a skinny Scotsman chasing away three plump English cooks because “You ken not how to make a Scotch haggis” (“Catalogue of the Kitchin-Furniture of John Bull,” 1762). A print satirizing the allegedly disadvantageous terms of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War with France, meanwhile, features a triumphal arch in which Scotia, the personification of Scotland, takes the place of the figure of Plenty with her cornucopia. Instead, Scotia bestows “Rich Haggist, Sheeps Heads, . . . and Crowdy” to a group of beggarly Scots waiting eagerly below (“Triumphal Arch,” 1763; cf. “Congress,” 1762). Such stereotypes were also deployed to satirize Bute’s close personal relationship with the royal family, including his widely rumored affair with the queen mother, Princess Augusta. In William Kenrick’s poem “Mary, the CookMaid’s Address to Her Fellow Artists of London and Westminster” (1768), for example, the narrator hints “that one of the greatest ladies in the kingdom sups on Scotch kale and haggis” (Kenrick, 1768: 286–87). A print entitled The Highland Seer (1762), meanwhile, depicts Bute so horrified by an apparition of the ghosts of former royal favorites that he cries out: “gin [if] I were safe in my ain [own] Country, I’se [I’d] be content to feed on Bannocks & Haggies, as I were wont to do.” Thirty years later, the same stereotypes of Scottish beggarliness were still being deployed to satirize prominent Scottish politicians. The appointment of Scotsman Sir Alexander Wedderburn as British Lord Chancellor in 1793 inspired one anonymous versifier to pen the following depiction of Wedderburn as the archetypal beggarly Scot: Whelp’d on some lare, in ruefu’ poortith bred, [bog, poverty] In early youth with aits and haggess fed, [oats] Sent hungry forth at thy lean sire’s command, To mend thy fortunes in this promised land (quoted in Franklin, 1818, 2: 402–03n; italics in original)3

In a similar way, Scots’ overwhelming dominance in the flourishing field of literary reviewing prompted disgruntled authors whose work had been unfavorably reviewed to retaliate with satirical attacks on the reviewers that mocked their alleged predilection for haggis and other stereotypically Scottish foods (Battle of the Reviews, 1760; HallStevenson, 1763; N., 1808; Review, 1809: 86). Scots’ dominance in this particular field continued until well into the nineteenth century; one contemporary observer, writing in 1811, noted the persistent tendency of “revengeful” authors and “witlings” to seek gratification in “vulgar gibes about haggis and cockyleeky [i.e., cock-a-leekie, a traditional Scottish soup]” directed against the staff of Scottish literary magazines (“Lord Byron,” 1811: 194, 197). As the nineteenth century progressed, English depictions of haggis and other stereotypically Scottish dishes became less overtly xenophobic and more “gently mocking” in tone (cf. Langford, 2005: 168), focusing less on stigmatizing discourses of Scottish beggarliness and more on comedic portrayals of the Scots’ alleged

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods

77

eccentricities. Yet many English cultural depictions of the dish throughout the 1800s and beyond continued to reflect the same combination of fascination and repulsion typical of responses to cultural otherness that characterized the earliest depictions of haggis as a food of the “beggarly Scots.”

“Haggis-fed Rustics”: The creation of a national dish North of the Border, there is little evidence that haggis was ever exclusively a food of the poor. Complicated and time-consuming to prepare and requiring a supply of fresh offal, it was more likely an occasional dish than an everyday staple for ordinary Scots (cf. Gibson and Smout, 1995: 239; Fenton, 2007; Balic, 2013: 89–90). Evidence from household accounts, bills of fare, and recipe manuscripts, meanwhile, indicates that haggis was served in some of the wealthiest households in eighteenth-century Scotland, just as it had been in England in the previous century. Nonetheless, beginning in the late 1700s, Scottish writers and artists constructed a new sense of Scottish culinary national identity—with haggis at its center—that was rooted in an idealized vision of honest poverty. Depictions of haggis within late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scottish cultural discourse typically represented it as the culinary embodiment of innate Scottish thrift and resourcefulness, upending the “beggarly” stereotype set up within English popular culture and replacing it with an alternative version of Scottish poverty as nutritionally and morally robust. In the process, the creators of such depictions effectively invented a history for haggis as a traditional food of the Scottish peasantry—a history that has remained largely unquestioned to this day. By far the best-known and most influential expression of this new sense of Scottish culinary national identity was Robert Burns’ poetic address To a Haggis (1786), in which the poet depicts the work-worn figure of “Rustic-labour” enjoying a humble yet hearty meal of haggis together with his family (Burns, 1787). As Andrew Nash points out, such “scenes of simple subsistence living and communal and familial bonding” exerted a powerful cultural authority in nineteenth-century Scotland, becoming the dominant way of representing the nation in literature, just as literature became the dominant way of understanding Scotland (Nash, 1997:  182). Indeed, Burns explicitly casts his “haggis-fed Rustics” as representatives of the nation, as the speaker in the final stanza invokes “Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care / And dish them out their bill o’ fare,” beseeching: “Auld Scotland wants a Haggis!” (Burns, 1787). Throughout the nineteenth century, Burns’ image of the Scots as haggis-fed Rustics—frugal, resourceful, and resilient—was consolidated by his editors and critics, who did much to shape the popular perception that Burns’ poetry offered a realistic and representative portrayal of Scottish rural life, largely treating it as social history while ignoring its artistic and imaginative dimensions (Nash, 1997; Radcliffe, 1998; Leask, 2010). Editorial notes to To a Haggis presented haggis as a typical dish in the rural Scotland of Burns’ lifetime and as “the triumph of poverty,” explicitly contrasting it with the “triumph of wealth” represented by iconic English dishes (Cunningham [1842]: 7). Artists who illustrated To a Haggis reinforced this nostalgic vision of a traditional

78

The Emergence of National Food

Scottish rural way of life on the brink of disappearing. The image of haggis as “honest peasant food” (Brown, 1991: 29) was further consolidated by a lively tradition of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scot vernacular poetry that presented the dish as a central feature of Scottish rustic domesticity and folk festivity. Poets working in this tradition borrowed extensively from Burns’ language and imagery, often closely replicating the entire cottage scene from To a Haggis or depicting haggis as a prominent feature of the menu at country weddings, kirn suppers (harvest homes), and new-year feasts. Indeed, such poetic depictions far outweigh any documented historical evidence that the dish was regularly consumed in these contexts. Burns’ image of the Scots as “haggis-fed Rustics” continued to influence a great deal of the popular writing on Scottish food history throughout the twentieth century and beyond. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing on Scottish food history drew primarily on literary rather than historical source material, thereby perpetuating the image of haggis as a traditional food of the Scottish peasantry and reinforcing its status as social history. Perhaps the most famous expression of this theme within Scottish food writing is F. Marian McNeill’s description of haggis, in her book The Scots Kitchen (1929), as “a testament to the national gift of making the most of small means” (132). The assumption that haggis was historically a food of the Scottish poor remains pervasive within Scottish food writing of recent decades. “The humble haggis [was] born of the ingenuity of a people perforce determined not to waste a scrap of their precious food,” writes Maisie Steven in The Good Scots Diet (1985: 57). Scottish Cookery author Catherine Brown, meanwhile, writes, “The Scots’ deeply rooted instincts, bred by centuries of surviving at poverty levels, to use up all the odds and ends of an animal [seem] . . . the best reason why we have continued to make it” (1985: 150). Even in an otherwise dispassionate scientific analysis of the country’s meat production industry, we read that “the traditional consumption of haggis exemplifies both Scottish thrift and innate nutritional wisdom” (Lawrie, 1986: 229). Arguably, popular portrayals of haggis as a traditional food of the Scottish peasantry are not really about the history of the dish itself at all, but rather about articulating a national self-image, similar to the “wistful mythology of Scottish identity” that Hugh Cheape identifies in early histories of tartan as an ancient and indigenous form of dress (2010: 14). This primordial view of ethnic identity enables Scottish food writers to present the relationship between Scotland’s “supreme national dish” and the character of its people as natural and authentic (cf. Hughes, 1995: 786–87). For these writers, haggis is the culinary embodiment of a series of virtues—thrift, resourcefulness, rugged determination—that remain rooted in a Burnsian ideal of honest poverty as a defining characteristic of Scottishness.

Deep-fried foods, Scottishness, and class disgust in contemporary Britain While haggis remains a key culinary signifier of Scottishness today, in the late twentieth century deep-fried foods came to be associated especially with Scotland in British popular culture and to be deployed as an equally contested signifier of national

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods

79

identity. This contemporary stereotype broadly associates Scotland and the Scots with indiscriminate deep-frying of foods (and non-food items), and especially ‘novelty’ or grotesque options such as deep-fried pizza, deep-fried Mars bars, and indeed deepfried haggis. While there are British media references linking Scotland with deep-fried pizza from the late 1980s (McGough, 1989), it was in 1995 that the deep-fried Mars bar “hit the headlines,” when its alleged invention in the Scottish town of Stonehaven was first reported (Dow, 1995). The deep-fried Mars bar rapidly became a controversial signifier of Scottishness in British popular discourse, and a media shorthand for Scotland’s poor public health record. Although the deep-fried Mars bar, in particular, is clearly a modern phenomenon, its associations with poverty and squalor present telling parallels with the much longer-standing Scottish food slurs involving haggis. In the second half of this chapter, we explore the emergence of the “deep-fried” stereotype and slur and the contextual factors that enabled and sustained it. These include substate national tensions between Scotland and England during the 1990s and 2000s, with the rise of Scottish nationalism, and increasing public health concerns about obesity, heart disease, and saturated fat (Knight, 2016a, 2016b). However, here we focus especially on the relationship between the Scottish “deep-fried” stereotype and the rise of stigmatizing discourses of class in Britain during the same period, exploring the class connotations of deep-fried foods and how their deployment as food slurs intersects with issues of national identity, nationalism, and substate national relations in contemporary Britain.

Class and deep-fried foods in Britain The association of deep-fried foods in Britain with the lower classes and poverty may be traced to the history of fish and chips, as detailed by Walton (1992).4 Fish and chips originated in England in the 1860s or 1870s with small traders in the backstreets and slums. Although it became increasingly respectable as the twentieth century progressed, it took many years for backstreet fryers of the poorer guise to disappear completely, and fish and chips remained a working-class institution. Its direct links with poverty and the lower classes were compounded in its early days by dubious hygiene and related health risks, as well as its peculiarly offensive smell, which led to fish and chips being officially designated an “offensive trade.” Further, chip shops were a scene for behavior ranging from working-class nightlife, drinking, and brawling, to gambling, prostitution, and a shadier underworld of crime (Walton, 1992: 139). Fish and chips also breached other, less serious, middle-class norms of respectability and propriety, notably being purchased and consumed in public, and eaten with the fingers (Walton, 1992: 165). In Scotland, chip shops sparked a degree of suspicion and moral outrage unparalleled elsewhere in Britain, with a “full-scale crusade” against late opening and Sunday trading in the early years of the twentieth century (Walton, 1992: 85). Much of this hostility may be traced to the predominance of Italian immigrants in the Scottish fish and chip trade (Walton, 1992: 37–38), who were subject to prejudice and indeed violence (Panayi, 2014: 125). In contemporary Britain, the “chippy” (chip shop) and its products retain a degree of moral and class stigma (Walton, 1992), overlaid with nutritional anxieties and

80

The Emergence of National Food

judgments emerging in the late twentieth century toward dietary fat (especially saturated fat) and fried foods (Knight, 2016b; Panayi, 2014: 85). Deep-fried food—as takeaway food and “junk” food—continues to be associated with secondary poverty, and the chip shop occupies an ambiguous position on the borderline between “proper” and “improper” lower-class food habits. Moreover, the longstanding historical associations of deep-fried foods intersected in the 1990s and 2000s with the rise of stigmatizing discourses of class in Britain. As is well documented, the word Chav “has become a ubiquitous term of abuse for white working-class subjects,” vivified and sustained by middle-class disgust (Tyler, 2008: 17). The figure of the Chav arguably represents the transformation of earlier British discourses of the social “underclass,” which “in the late 1980s and early 1990s . . . became a mainstay in media discussions about social welfare, crime and disorder, and changing values and morals” (Hayward and Yar, 2006: 10). In Scotland, the figure of the Ned corresponds to that of the Chav in England, although discourses of class disdain are not the same in Scotland as the rest of the United Kingdom (Law and Mooney, 2012). Nonetheless, these contemporary processes of class stigma and pathologization in the United Kingdom (including Scotland) include moralized disgust toward “unrestrained” eating habits (and bodies) deemed the preserve of the lower classes and closely linked to national public health concerns about obesity. The Chav brand par excellence in the realm of food is McDonald’s (Hayward and Yar, 2006: 17, citing urbandictionary.com), and the Ned stereotype is also associated with obesity, poor nutrition, and deep-fried foods. For example, the comic strip The Neds even depicts Neds as responsible for the Great Fire of London, “caused by Neds burning their chips” (Raisborough and Adams, 2008: 8.3). Another strip depicts “[a] line of salivating and overweight Neds queue[ing] up in front of a van for extra large hot dogs” (Raisborough and Adams, 2008: 9.3). As Raisborough and Adams conclude, these representations include “disgust at bodily excesses which threaten a normative self-image,” as well as associated social irresponsibility (2008: 9.7). The stereotype associating Scotland with deep-fried foods must thus be located within this “wider discourse of class pathologization” in Britain (Hollows and Jones, 2010: 308). In particular, the deep-fried Mars bar—first reported in 1995, as we have noted—arguably gained traction from cultural representations of the Scottish underclass in the 1990s and was sustained in the 2000s in part by national vitriol toward “Chavs” and “Neds.” In media and cultural representation, the deep-fried Mars bar is linked metonymically with a set of signifiers for pathologized Scottish poverty, notably in Glasgow and Dundee. These associated signifiers include (especially) Buckfast Tonic Wine—itself a key shorthand for delinquency and “Ned” culture in Scotland (Galloway et al., 2007; Young, 2012)—as well as references to drug use, crime, teenage pregnancy and promiscuity, welfare dependency, and irresponsible and antisocial behavior in general (see, for example, Shields, 2002).5 This cluster of signifiers denotes a specifically Scottish version of underclass culture, in which class and nation are inseparable. In a sense, the pathologization of the Scottish diet via the deep-fried Mars bar (and related slurs) cuts across class: rather than having “stuck” to a particular class, the deep-fried Mars bar has “stuck” to Scotland as a whole (Knight, 2016a), depicting the entire nation in pathological class terms. Sub-state national tensions between England and Scotland are thus equally key to the deep-fried Mars bar stereotype as to the historical examples

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods

81

discussed earlier in this chapter. The deep-fried Mars bar is not only a slur on Scottish culinary culture (Scots’ lack of culinary capital), but also (ultimately) on Scots’ ability to self-govern, both individually and nationally.

Culinary resistance: Reappropriating the deep-fried Mars Bar In reality, the deep-fried Mars bar is by no means a solely Scottish phenomenon. Indeed, scholarly attention to the deep-fried Mars bar and related deep-fried foods has focused on “fair foods” in the United States, where state fairs have become notorious for novel and unrestrained deep-frying. Arguably going well beyond the supposed Scottish predilection, fairs and vendors compete with one another for the most “overthe-top” deep-fried creations: “visitors [to the fair] wander up and down rows of food vendors offering any number of deep-fried, jumbo-sized, calorie-packed snacks,” such as “deep-fried Twinkies, Three Musketeers, Milky Ways, and Snickers” (Naccarato and LeBesco, 2012: 85–86). Naccarato and LeBesco interpret fair foods as a form of culinary resistance—and fairs them as “sites of resistance” (12)—to prevailing modes of assigning culinary capital, privileging dietary restraint and moderation, health and nutrition, quality, and fresh, unprocessed foods. By contrast, fair foods offer a “carnivalesque” window of indulgence, excess, and pleasure for consumers who are otherwise committed to dominant culinary and nutritional values (Naccarato and LeBesco, 2012: 90, citing Bakhtin, 1984). Although fair foods have the potential to challenge prevailing dietary norms, their cultural impact is lessened by their framing as temporary exceptions, rather than ongoing consumption patterns. The significance of the deep-fried Mars bar in Scotland has both similarities with, and differences from, its significance as “fair food” in the United States context. For visitors to Scotland who sample the deep-fried Mars bar, it represents a touristic escape from everyday eating. As de Jong and Varley argue based on their analysis of tourists’ Instagram posts, “Consumption of the deep-fried Mars bar during travel is framed as gastronomic adventure—where adventure represents a desire to consume what is different, challenging, and rare” (de Jong and Varley, 2017: 219). Touristic consumption of the deep-fried Mars bar relies on, and paradoxically reinforces, “boundary divisions between the tourist body and the Scottish working-class body,” presumed to be the domestic consumer of the deep-fried Mars bar (de Jong and Varley, 2017: 219). In other words, part of the frisson for the tourist consuming the deep-fried Mars bar is that of “slumming it”—of deliberately consuming something lower-class, unhealthy, wrong, disgusting, or even “dirty.”6 Likewise, the spin-off efforts of Scottish chip shops to concoct festive-themed deep-fried treats align readily with the timebound, carnivalesque indulgence of fair food. These include deep-fried chocolate eggs and Cadbury’s crème eggs at Easter (Parker, 2017; Patterson, 2014; Thomson, 2005), and deep-fried snowballs and clootie dumpling at Christmas (Patterson, 2011; Pease, 2014). However, much of the perceived cultural threat of the Scottish deep-fried Mars bar comes, we argue, from its being uncontained. Compared with United States fairs, which offer carefully bounded sites of “excessive” consumption both temporally and spatially, the deep-fried Mars bar in Scotland escapes and spills over into everyday life, contaminating the nation’s (food) culture and diminishing its culinary capital.

82

The Emergence of National Food

Yet visitors who embrace the deep-fried Mars bar as part of the Scottish foodscape enact a form of resistance to dominant representational norms of high-quality produce and traditional Scottish dishes—the Scottish culinary canon promoted to tourists by official bodies such as Scotland Food & Drink and Visit Scotland (de Jong and Varley, 2017). Moreover, those locals who cook or eat the deep-fried Mars bar enact an arguably even more potent form of culinary resistance, in incorporating the repudiated food into the individual and national body. The celebration and consumption of the deep-fried Mars bar in Scotland functions not just as culinary resistance in class (and nutritional) terms, but in national (political) terms. Such culinary reappropriation includes the deep-fried Mars bar’s marketing as a tourist icon and attraction, notably by the Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven, its alleged birthplace; its ironic gastronomic deployment as a high-end petit four at Edinburgh’s Hotel du Vin; and, more generally, its representation as a badge of national pride in media and popular culture. In all these cases we may see irony at work (see Knight, 2016a: 371–72; Naccarato and LeBesco, 2012: 88)—yet we may also include in this catalogue of culinary resistance the unremarkable everyday life of the deep-fried Mars bar, as an occasional order by mostly children and teenagers in chip shops around Scotland (Morrison and Petticrew, 2004).

The deep-fried Mars Bar, Scottish nationalism, and national identity in contemporary Britain If fish and chips has been “the culinary symbol of Britishness” since the 1950s (Panayi, 2014: 105, 108, italics added), we suggest here that the deep-fried Mars bar represents the “dark shadow” of fish and chips, the Jekyll-and-Hyde mutation of a British culinary institution. Thus, we argue that the deep-fried Mars bar functions symbolically as the repressed, stigmatized underbelly of British identity today: a perversion of authentic and proudly celebrated national culture and proper (working-class) values. It is important to note that fish and chips is variously associated in cultural representation, media, and advertising with either British, or specifically English, national identity.7 There is thus a curious ambivalence—and curious silence—in relation to Scotland and its association with fish and chips. There is no question of Scotland’s place in the social history of the dish, as discussed above. Yet a question certainly arises as to whether Scotland is included in the patriotic cultural association of fish and chips with national identity. Linguistic and conceptual slippages are common in the representation of nation in the United Kingdom, reflecting more general (and much deeper) ambivalence about the boundaries of the British nation. These slippages and ambivalences are also critical to the cultural significance and symbolism of the deep-fried Mars bar. That the deep-fried Mars bar is specifically Scottish is now a truism within British cultural representation (Knight, 2016a). Yet when the deep-fried Mars bar was first reported, the specific association with Scotland was by no means inevitable: the late great AA Gill, for example, described the deep-fried Mars bar in 1996 as “a quaintly British phenomenon.” Yet the deep-fried Mars bar as a perverted national symbol became rapidly and firmly attached to Scotland (Knight, 2016a). Stigmatized class elements of British culture and society in the 1990s and 2000s were thus displaced, symbolically and discursively, onto the Scottish national body, via the perverted

Signifying Poverty, Class, and Nation through Scottish Foods

83

foods that body allegedly incorporates. Haylett (2001) argues that the “underclassing processes” discussed in this chapter “have cast the poorest sections of [the white working class] as a group beyond the bounds of ‘the British nation’” (355). Here we take this argument a step further, showing that the positioning of underclass elements of British culture as specifically Scottish, via the symbol of the deep-fried Mars bar, enacts a double displacement of class and nation: situating the British underclass quite literally beyond the border, while simultaneously constructing Scotland (by association with the underclass) as beyond the bounds of British civility.

Conclusion If the deep-fried Mars bar represents the “dark shadow” of fish and chips in the contemporary British culinary iconography, then haggis arguably functions similarly in relation to the roast beef and plum pudding of eighteenth-century England. In both case studies discussed in this chapter, we can see similar cultural processes at work, in which specific, nationally coded foods are used symbolically to inscribe the contested cultural boundaries of the British nation. Both haggis and the deep-fried Mars bar emerged as symbols of Scottishness during times of tension between England and Scotland, due to Scotland’s increasing political and cultural influence and vigor— whether following the parliamentary union in 1707, or the Scottish independence movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Such culinary symbols function to diminish the perceived Scottish threat, in the first case via the stereotype of the “beggarly Scot,” in the second, the chronically unhealthy, grotesque deepfried-food addict. Moreover, both stereotypes displace undesirable elements of the British nation (poverty, squalor, and ill-health) onto the marginalized north. Our case studies are drawn from two very different historical contexts, and we by no means suggest conflating the two. Nonetheless, there are clear parallels in Scotland’s “culinary resistance” to derogatory uses of both haggis and the deep-fried Mars bar as food slurs—from the continuing Burnsian ideal of “honest poverty” in relation to Scottish cuisine, to the enthusiastic, playful uptake of the deep-fried Mars bar (and other novelty deep-fried foods) within Scotland’s culinary iconography. Drawing across both case studies, we may conclude that the signification of poverty and class via specific national foods is entangled with complex ideas of health, nutrition, and morality, as well as contemporary politics and culture—and is perhaps never more political than where the very status and boundaries of the nation are at stake.

Notes 1 Sawney was a generic nickname used to refer to the Scots within English cultural discourse during this period. 2 Singed sheep’s head was another dish that became stereotypically associated with the beggarly Scots within English cultural discourse in the mid-1700s. It was usually prepared by boiling the singed head in a broth together with the trotters as well as

84

3

4 5

6

7

The Emergence of National Food vegetables such as carrots, turnips, and onions; this dish was known in Scotland as powsowdie (McNeill, 1929: 184). Jibes about haggises are still used to satirize Scottish politicians within British media discourse. Prominent recent examples include former British prime minister Gordon Brown and former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, both of whom have been depicted as haggises in cartoons published in British newspapers. The summary in this paragraph relies generally on Walton (1992). For analysis, see also Law (2006), who discusses the same “spoof news report” which features in Shields’s (2002) piece in the Sunday Herald. Shields locates this in Glasgow, whereas the version Law discusses (from the “Dumpdee” website: www.dumpdee. co.uk) is located in Dundee. In both cases, the report’s purpose is to mock the deprived population of the place in which it is set. It is in this context that we can also understand the endorsement of the deep-fried Mars Bar and deep-fried Bounty by upper-class food writer and television presenter Nigella Lawson, known for her ironically sexualized self-presentation (Lawson, 2001; Smith, 2012). For examples of both associations, see Walton (1992: 1) and Panayi (2014: 85–102). However, the issue of sub-state national identities within Britain, and their ambivalent association with fish and chips, is not discussed by either historian.

7

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study Venetia Johannes

Introduction The Catalan Autonomous Community, in northeast Spain, provides an excellent location for the study of the complex dynamics between food and nationalism. In the last decade, independence from Spain has gone from a minority to popular viewpoint in the area, as inhabitants of Catalonia seek to reassert their national difference in language, culture, and government. At the end of 2017 increasing support for independence culminated in a political crisis following a contested referendum on October 1, and the removal of Catalonia’s regional autonomy. At the time of writing, this political crisis still saw no sign of resolution. The chapter’s aim is to demonstrate how a cuisine can be used to express and experience national identity, taking the contemporary and on-going independence movement as a backdrop. As an anthropologist, I take an ethnographic approach, based on fieldwork that I carried out while living in Vic, a town in central Catalonia, for fifteen months in 2012–2013. I have also carried out shorter research visits in the intervening years, most recently in January 2018. The focus of my research has been on “gastronationalism” in Catalonia as defined by Michaela DeSoucey (2010). More broadly, my interest has been in the lived experience of nationalisms, as I see food as a “down-to-earth way to make an otherwise abstract ideology more familiar, domestic, even palatable” (MacClancy, 2007: 68). The chapter begins with a brief history of Catalan cuisine through its cookbooks. Next, it discusses some of the national dishes and ingredients that are believed to make Catalan cuisine both distinctive and represent other aspects of national identity, such as national character and ideals. In the third section of this chapter, I consider the relationship between place, seasonality, and culinary identity, as the physical manifestation of a homeland and territory, and how food is connected to the political, pro-independence movement.

86

The Emergence of National Food

A historic overview of Catalan cuisine and its cookbooks A history of Catalan cuisine is best considered through its cookbooks. The publication of cookbooks tends to represent the “health” of Catalan cuisine as a concept. One sees this in the medieval era, and the nineteenth century, Catalonia’s two historic “golden ages” (not counting the post-Franco period). It is essential to stress the role of this history in present-day Catalan nationalism, as it is a historic nationalism (Llobera, 2004) which gains its legitimacy through claims to a separate history and identity in the past. But most importantly, cookbooks are also ideological tools, presenting ideas about nationhood to a popular audience through the medium of cuisine. It is most useful to begin with the mid-twelfth to fifteenth centuries that is often seen today as a golden age in Catalan history, when the Catalan Principality formed part of the Catalan-Aragonese Empire. It was likewise a golden age for cuisine, when the cuisine of the Catalan-Aragonese court was recognized throughout Europe. The two key cooking manuals of the period in Catalan were the Llibre de Sent Sovi (Book of Sent Sovi) in 1324 which is also called Libre de totes meneres de potatges de menjar (Book of all manner of potages/soups to eat), and the famous Libre de Coch (Book of Cooking) of 1520 by Robert de Nola, the first cookbook printed in Catalan. The clear importance of these two books as a source of pride was brought home by food writer Pau Arenòs. During our interview in summer 2013, he explained “they’re so important, because very few peoples can really say ‘our cuisine, this is when it begins’. So [the cookbooks] prove that it’s a cuisine with great antiquity.” He went on to explain how the current food innovations in Catalonia were a natural progression from the past, since then as now Catalonia was known for its gastronomic inventiveness. This reference to history to legitimize or justify current Catalan behaviors was a common theme in informant discourse. The most important edition of the Llibre de Sent Soví in recent times was the 1979 edition by Rudolf Grewe (note that it was published straight after the Franco dictatorship, part of the era’s Catalan revival). Grewe claims that with Catalan cuisine “we are sure that we can talk of a medieval Catalan cuisine with its own personality. Numerous ‘dishes a la catalana’ that figure in the foreign recipe books prove that well enough” (Grewe, 2009: 30). Even though this is historical research, one sometimes can detect a subtle pro-Catalanism throughout the text. The presence of these cookbooks was also central to the (now inactive) application for Catalan cuisine to be recognized as UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. By the sixteenth century, power in the unified Spanish state had moved to Madrid, and Catalonia declined. Few books of any note were published in Catalan, though some monastic cooking pamphlets appeared from the eighteenth century onward. The next Catalan cookbook, La Cuynera Catalana (The Catalan Cook, 1833–1835, published as a book in 1851) is seen as the bridge between medieval cuisine and that of the present day (Martí Escayol, 2004). What is unusual about this cookbook is that it is written exclusively in Catalan. Most historians date the Catalan Renaixença to 1833, the same year as the cookbook’s first instalLment. To publish a book entirely in colloquial Catalan at this time was a bold undertaking, as Catalan publications were still rare. The author admits that perhaps the choice of language is folly but states their desire to write in a language accessible to all Catalans. Like later cookbooks, it

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study

87

was aimed primarily at the Catalan bourgeoisie and their servants, who were also the earliest supporters of the incipient Catalan movement. A number of other works followed as the Catalan revival gained strength in the latter half of the nineteenth century (I do not have scope to discuss them all here). The most important work at the turn of the century was La Cuyna Catalana (Catalan Cooking, 1907) by Josep Cunill de Bosch. His main argument is that “strong races are well fed races,” and good cooking is essential for a healthy nation. By the year of its publication, the first signs of support for a separate government had started to manifest, spurred by the loss of Spain’s colonies. Another major cookbook writer and chef of the early twentieth century was Ignasi Domenech, who published several works on Catalan cuisine, including La Teca (the Grub, 1924) and Àpats (Meals, 1930). Domènech’s decision to publish in Catalan at this time may have been influenced by the atmosphere of a heightened awareness of Catalan identity. Catalonia at that time was living under the repressive, centrist, and anti-Catalan Primo dictatorship (1923–1930), a military dictatorship that was almost a dress rehearsal of that of Franco. La Teca is a practical compendium of Catalan recipes and some international dishes, and most households I know today have their own copy. In Àpats however one can see one of the first instances where recipes are contextualized within a Catalan culinary culture, with sections describing food traditions, festival foods, and history of Barcelona restaurants. The Year 1928 saw the publication of Llibre de la Cuina Catalana, written purely with the intention of glorifying cuisine as a rallying point of Catalan nationalism. The author, Ferran Agulló, was a well-respected member of the intelligentsia and political elite. In his own words, the first lines of the book, “Catalonia, just as it has a language, a right, customs, its own history, and a political ideal, so it has a cuisine” (Agulló, 1999: 11). His work is about promoting Catalan identity through an important cultural element, namely cuisine. In this vein, the first few chapters include ‘anthropological’ descriptions of Catalonia’s food habits. This heyday was not to last, as the Spanish Civil War soon followed the euphoria of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). After the war, the combined efforts of Francoist repression of Catalonia, and postwar food shortages meant few cookbooks were published, and none on Catalan cuisine. Some Catalan cookbooks were published in the 1960s, because of their supposedly nonpolitical nature (Hall, 2001). Preexisting cookbooks also took on a greater significance, as representatives of a now-threatened Catalan language. For instance, for Jordi, a university lecturer in Barcelona, his mother’s copy of La Teca was kept in pride of place in the family kitchen during his Franco-era childhood, as a focus of Catalan identity in the domestic environment. With the transition to democracy in 1978, Catalan language and identity was now celebrated in popular media. There had already been some tentative attempts at promoting Catalan culinary identity, for example with a small food festival in 1975 (year of Franco’s death). In 1977, the journalist Manuel Vázquez Montalbán published L’art del menjar a Catalunya (The art of eating in Catalonia). Its subtitle, “A chronicle of the resistance of signs of gastronomic Catalan identity,” demonstrates how food is an essential part of the Catalan nation and identity, just as Ferran Agulló had done forty years earlier.

88

The Emergence of National Food

In recent years, the Catalan cookbook market has exploded. This is in part of a general international trend of increased interest in food subjects and publications. The rise of the celebrity chef has also contributed to this development, as most now publish their own cookbook. Ferran Adrià, the head chef of the former El Bulli restaurant and father of molecular gastronomy, placed Catalonia on the map as a center of gastronomic experimentation. His legacy continues to inspire the current generation of chefs, and Catalonia now has fifty Michelin-starred establishments. Yet there has been a noticeable proliferation of “Catalan” cookbooks, a reaction to the popularity of books on Catalan subjects following the rise in pro-independence sentiment. The campaign to have Catalan cuisine recognized as a UNESCO intangible heritage has led to the publication of cookbooks associated with the campaign, for instance the Corpus del Patrimoni Culinari Català (first published in 2006). Sadly, this initiative has been stymied by the current political climate. The bid needs to be presented by Spain, which is unwilling to support an initiative connected to a government and region that has acted against state interests. As Ichijo and Ranta (2016) have pointed out, designations such as UNESCO frequently promote the agendas of nation-state actors, even when they also provide the means to subvert them (as in the Catalan case). Despite this setback, the new management of the campaign are optimistic. Catalonia was also European Region of Gastronomy in 2016, a source of both pride and publicity. Food and drink remain one of Catalonia’s foremost industries, employing 17.9 percent of the region’s workforce, representing 19.8 percent of industrial turnover (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2018), and providing 12.3 percent of exports in 2016 (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2017).

National dishes and national character While there are some ingredients and culinary varieties that are unique to Catalonia (which I discuss in the next section), many are shared with surrounding cuisines and regions. It is through the act of cooking that ingredients are acculturated with significance in a national context and become bearers of national identity. The style of cooking, the techniques, and the mixing of ingredients all contribute to the catalanization of a dish. This distinctiveness begins with the foundational sauces of Catalan cuisine, the sofregit (base sauce normally consisting of onion, garlic, and occasionally tomato), the picada (a thickener, added at the end of cooking), the allioli (garlic pounded in a mortar to make a creamy sauce), and the romesco (a spicy sauce of peppers, nuts, olive oil, and tomatoes).1 These sauces were frequently the first element of Catalan cuisine that my informants would discuss in their interviews. The claims to these sauces’ distinctiveness, combined with their central place as the starting point of any Catalan dish, has guaranteed their fundamental place in Catalan culinary identity. Many Catalan cookbooks will also start with descriptions of these sauces. In his book La cuina de la meva mare (My mother’s cooking, 2004), Michelin-starred chef Joan Roca provides a sofregit as his first recipe.

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study

89

Despite the presence of tomato today, the sofregit is widely seen to connect contemporary Catalan cuisine with the medieval era, as an onion-based version appears in some of the early cookbooks such as Libre de Coch. It next appears in La Cuynera Catalana in 1830. In this way, food can act as a touchstone with a historical past, the foundation and justification of their identity. It is also distinctive, as my informants also were keen to differentiate the sofregit from a Spanish-style sofrito, in which tomato is more prominent. Linguistic distinctiveness plays a role here, as when Catalan cookbooks are translated into Spanish, the word sofrito is often used for sofregit, even though the resulting sauce is different. In the Catalan sofregit, onion is the primary ingredient. This was occasionally connected to the general prevalence of onions in Catalan cuisine (for instance, a potato tortilla with onions being in Catalan style). A popular description for someone who is a die-hard, patriotic Catalan is to be “de la ceba” (of the onion). I heard a variety of implied associations with this phrase, from its origins in the earth (thus bringing out associations of territory and land), to a rural symbol and metaphor for toughness and resilience. The picada is a grainy sauce, added at the end of the cooking process (a magazine editor I interviewed described Catalan cuisine as something that starts with a sofregit, and ends with a picada). It is a sauce thickener, and can include a variety of ingredients including garlic, parsley, saffron, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, biscuits, chocolate, chili, chicken or fish liver, pieces of bread—the list could continue. Again, there are references to similar sauces from the earliest Catalan cookbooks, and certainly they were recognized in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century cookbooks (Ignasi Domenech calls them “truly original to our land” [1930]). The Allioli (or aioli in English) describes simply what the sauce is, which is garlic (all) and (i) oil (oli), ground together into a creamy off-white paste. It was less discussed by informants as distinctive, perhaps because it has become globally recognized, and its precise origins are debatable. It is sometimes used to emphasize unity with other Catalan-speaking areas, which also lay claim to its ownership. The romesco is also familiar beyond Catalonia’s borders, and hails from coastal Tarragona, a region south of Barcelona. The basic sauce consists of red peppers, tomatoes, nuts, and garlics, but there is huge diversity in recipes. While the allioli is associated with meat, the romesco is associated with fish, and the dipping sauce at the calçotada (when the sauce is called salvitxada), a distinctive food festival for eating spring onions. Barthes’s claim that through national foods, peoples “partake each day of the national past” (Barthes, 2013: 27) rings very true for Catalonia, and not just for the sofregit and picada. In terms of a national dish, such a thing is hard to define for Catalans, due to the wide receptari (recipe selection), a point of pride to many Catalans (much like the selection of cod recipes in Portuguese cuisine described by José Sobral in this volume). Indeed, I sometimes perceived a negative reaction when I asked this question, as to define Catalan cuisine by one dish would be reductionist and insulting. The richness of the receptari is a reflection of the richness and regional diversity of Catalonia itself. I occasionally heard an implied contrast to the cuisine of central Spain (i.e., Castille), which is characterized as heavy, monotonous, and narrow (I did not find this a widespread comment but it was present more among cooking professionals or those who considered themselves familiar with Spanish cuisine).

90

The Emergence of National Food

However, there are several popularly recognized dishes and foods, including canelons (cannelloni), fricandó amb bolets (a mushroom and veal dish), escudella i carn d’olla (a meat and vegetable stew), and pa amb tomàquet (bread rubbed with tomato). Each of these is consumed in different contexts and represents different aspects of Catalan identity. They are not unlike Mintz’s concept of “signature foods,” as they are “conditioned with meaning” (Mintz, 1996: 7) for the people who eat them, and come to represent ideas, concepts, and histories. Though not always consumed daily, informants were very familiar with them, and their consumption was an opportunity to discuss, reformulate, and consider what being Catalan means today. In November 2013, Catalonia’s foremost cooking magazine, Cuina, created an online campaign to find out what was the “best Catalan dish.” Contributors could put forward their answer on either Twitter or Facebook. In 2016, the magazine ran a similar online campaign on a much larger scale (120,000 people took part), called “The Catalans’ favorite dish.” The finalist dishes for each campaign were the same: escudella, fricandó, canelons, and pa amb tomàquet. The presence of these four dishes backs up my own experience when discussing Catalonia’s most emblematic dishes, as these four appear quickly in any conversation about Catalan cuisine. Escudella i carn d’olla is a stew of various ingredients, usually a selection of meats, a bone, sausage, vegetables like potatoes, cauliflower, beans, and anything else available. Finally, after several hours of cooking, rice, fideus (tiny pasta sticks) and/or large pasta pieces (galletes) would be cooked in the broth just before eating. This will often be served as a two-course meal, with the broth acting as first course, followed by the remaining, broth-soaked meat and vegetables as the main meal (carn d’olla literally means ‘meat of the pot’). It is widely recognized as formerly being a subsistence dish and demonstrates an idealization of subsistence cuisine. This connects the dish to a historic, and frequently rural, past. In common with other nationalist movements (Gellner, 1983; Smith, 1988; Yotova, 2014), the rural is heavily idealized in Catalan nationalism (DiGiacomo, 1987). Nowadays, the food has been converted into a festive dish, associated with Christmas Day. The escudella also represents an ideal of the Catalan character, that of seny (literally sense), a down-to-earth, sensible, thrifty approach to life. This character is credited with the development of Catalan industry and wealth, and often contrasted with the allegedly profligate character of those from southern and central Spain. Canelons take their origin from Italian cannelloni, which became popular in nineteenth-century Barcelona in Italian-run restaurants. This origin is not a problem for Catalans, as it is a culinary manifestation of the ideal that Catalan nationalism is an open nationalism (the phrase “land of migrations” is sometimes used), willing to accept multiple influences and integrate them into Catalan culture (this is also a metaphor for current immigration policy). That it is shared with another cuisine is also cleverly sidestepped: unlike Italians, so I was often told, Catalans eat the canelons on St Steven’s Day (December 26), using leftover meat from the escudella or Christmas capon the day before. I found similar arguments used for other foods that are not unique to Catalonia, namely that their use in Catalan culinary culture is the differentiator. Even when canelons are eaten at other times of the year, the ideal is to use leftover meat as a filling, rather than preparing it specially (although, in practice, the latter does happen).

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study

91

Canelons manifest another ideal of national character relating to seny, encapsulated in the phrase ens aprofita de tot (we make use of everything). This national virtue has also taken on new significance following the economic crisis in 2008. The ens aprofita de tot ideal reaches its apex in the pa amb tomàquet. The dish ideally uses hard, old bread, softened by the tomato juices. Salt and oil are usually added to conclude, but other ingredients can be added depending on individual preferences (like garlic, ham, or cured sausage). Of all the signature dishes identified by Catalans, pa amb tomàquet is the most commonly eaten. It is even recognized as distinctly Catalan within the other regions of Spain, meaning its position is recognized by insiders and outsiders. This role is particularly important in Catalan food culture, due to the inherent diversity in cuisines that has already been discussed, which could contradict a claim of culinary unity. While visiting the Ebre Delta in the extreme south of Catalonia, an area sometimes seen as more influenced by Spain, my guide Gustavo claimed the fact that they ate pa amb tomàquet proved that the delta was part of Catalonia. Its component ingredients also contribute to this position. The tomato, as both a central component of Catalan cuisine and a product from the Americas, represents the aforementioned ideal of an integratory cuisine open to new influences. Bread is a basic staple in Catalonia and has received some attention with the recognition of Pa de pagès (farmer’s bread) as a food with Protected Geographical Indication within the EU (the official PGI description explicitly states that it is ideal for pa amb tomàquet). Oil too is a point of pride as one of Catalonia’s main exports, and varies hugely from region to region, so represents regional diversity. The essential elements of a good fricandó are two characteristic components of Catalan cuisine, a good sofregit and mushrooms. Catalans often claim that mushrooms are less prevalent in other cuisines from the rest of Spain (except the Basque Country and Galicia). Come autumn there is a veritable mushroom mania throughout Catalonia. That the fricandó incorporates this ingredient is a testament to its Catalanness. During the 2013 competition, it was noted that the recipe is standardized across much of Catalonia, unlike other recipes, and therefore had much greater potential as a unifying dish. It is also a dish that does not have a Castilian translation, proving once again the role of linguistic uniqueness in Catalan gastronationalism.

Landscape in a pot A popular phrase in Catalonia is that “a cuisine is a country’s landscape put into a pot,” a phrase often (mis)attributed to the region’s foremost twentieth-century writer, Josep Pla. Regardless of the origin, it encapsulates the symbiosis between cuisine, landscape, and regionality in Catalan culinary culture. Each county (comarca) has different growing seasons and cooking styles, varying hugely from the warmer, coastal area in the south, to the cooler, mountainous regions in the center and north, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The north-eastern region or Emporà is characterized by its dramatic scenery, as the Pyrenees ends directly at the sea, allegedly giving rise to the cuisine of mar i muntanya (sea and mountain) associated with that area.

92

The Emergence of National Food

The subtle differences between Catalonia’s many regions was a frequent topic of discussion in everyday conversation and was often used by Catalans to demonstrate (even show off ) their knowledge of their nation. Basic knowledge of regional characteristics (including climate, seasonality, food products, and cuisine) expresses national knowledge about one’s own country. The regional government indirectly participates in this activity by protecting regional food varieties or promoting campaigns to have them recognized by supranational entities, such as the European Union Protected Denomination of Origin, or UNESCO (Davidson, 2007)—a topdown strategy of gastronationalism (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). I link this behavior to the ideal of “excursionisme,” or getting to know Catalonia through travel, physically experiencing the nation by visiting its different regions, and consuming regional food. Excursionisme has been a part of the Catalan nationalist movement since the nineteenth century and was related to both the idealization of the rural (in common with many Romantic nationalisms) and research into Catalan folklore and history (I discuss this relationship further in Congdon, 2017). Today, it takes the form of traveling to certain regions on daytrips, to experience a local festival, or eat a regional delicacy that is in season. For instance, I have already described the importance of mushrooms in autumn, when a popular pastime is to go foraging for mushrooms (called busca- or caça-bolets). Participating in several busca-bolets during fieldwork really brought home to me the importance of knowing the physical landscape, as families will often return to the same locations every year. Through its very nature, this activity encapsulates ideas about national identity, knowledge, territory, and food. Other instances of food-related travel activities include visits to eat rice in the Ebre Delta in spring and summer, visiting my fieldsite of Vic for its famous cured sausages (llonganissa de Vic), or traveling to areas south of Barcelona in February for the calçotada (spring-onion eating), which is centered on the city of Reus. I do not have time here to discuss the touristic ramifications here, but these activities have clearly been promoted for economic reasons. I sometimes heard doing these activities as a way of fer pais (making country), helping Catalonia through investing in its regions via tourism. As may have already become apparent, there is a seasonal nature to many of these activities. I have already said that Catalans like to show off their knowledge of Catalonia’s different regions, and at meals there will be some discussion of the possible origin of certain seasonal foods, depending on their growing season. The emphasis on seasonality has experienced a vogue in popular food circles in recent years, but in the Catalan case, it is also significant: eating seasonally, just like eating the escudella, allows contemporary Catalans to feel a connection with their past, when eating seasonally was a necessity. Another concept in Catalan cuisine that is related to seasonality is that of the gastronomic calendar, that certain foods are eaten on certain days or in certain months. It encapsulates both seasonality, and festive celebrations, as each festive day or period has its particular food(s). Many of these originally came about from the religious calendar. The culinary aspect has now been secularized, providing once more a connection with the historic past without the requirement for strong religious faith. For instance, a key part of the celebration of Lent in Catalonia has been the consumption of

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study

93

cod dishes, so much so that February to March was called the “temporada de bacalla” (cod season) in restaurants, markets, media outlets, and even in everyday interactions. The origins of this association were due to the historical prohibition on meat when the only fish available in rural areas was dried cod (see also José Sobral’s chapter on cod and Portuguese cuisine). Egg-heavy dishes began to appear from March onward to take advantage of the natural increase in egg laying, such as the crema catalana (cream custard) on St Joseph’s Day on March 19, and the Easter mona (a bread decorated with eggs in former times, now made from chocolate). A popular summer festive dish, a sweetened bread called coca decorated with sugared fruits, was originally topped with seasonal fruits and nuts such as cherries, strawberries, and almonds. Festive events act as excuses for social gatherings for the consumption of particular products. These events may take place within the home or among groups of friends or may be at large scale events where these foods are celebrated in fairs and markets. These are significant occasions in the experience of everyday nationalism, as participants both experience and practice national culture (through preparing and/or consuming national foods). They interact with other Catalans, expressing and discussing their national identity, thus allowing for it to be reformulated and developed over time. The gastronomic calendar also creates a national imagined community through food, as Catalans are aware that other Catalans are eating the same food at the same time, a culinary variation on Anderson’s (1983) imagined communities. Jane Fajans (2012) has drawn similar conclusions in her research on Brazilian cuisine, as national and familial dishes create an imagined community through food (however she does not consider the seasonal element). The gastronomic calendar has experienced interesting developments in light of the recent surge in pro-independence sentiment. Catalonia has three national days, Saint George’s Day (April 23), Saint John’s Eve (June 23–24) and the most important, the Diada (September 11). Only one of these has an associated food of long standing (St. John’s Eve), but there has been a move to develop foods for the other two, which take the form of breads and cakes emblazoned with the Catalan flag. They have received a mixed reaction: some of my informants praised the use of such a potent symbol, but others criticized these new foods as not “traditional,” taking commercial advantage of recent political sentiments (it is perhaps more an example of a “top-down” policy, as this development has been led by cake makers and bakers, and their associated guilds). Food has also developed around a new “anti-festival,” Hispanic Day on October 12. This is normally a day when Spanish identity is celebrated, but in Catalonia, this has become the day of the botifarrada, or sausage-eating. The consumption and association of sausages with this day is heavy with significance. Catalonia has a very wide variety of sausage products, many of which are specific to particular areas due to climate and local conditions. Botifarra amb mongetes (sausage and beans) is one of the main national dishes, a popular choice for familial and festive gatherings. Sausages therefore symbolize the taste of a place (Trubek, 2008), and by extension, the taste of the nation. By consuming sausages on this day, Catalans also fer la botifarra (make a sausage) to anti-Catalans, a vulgar and insulting gesture, by raising the forearm and fist. The Catalan name for this gesture is the botitfarra de pagès (farmer’s sausage). Yet the name also refers to certain types of sausage, and is profoundly associated with the countryside,

94

The Emergence of National Food

the casa de pagès (farm house), and the food produced there (again, an example of the rural current pervading Catalan nationalism). One of the most prominent signs of the September 2012 protest was a huge sign of a sausage with the words “A Catalunya, fem botifarra” (literally “in Catalonia, we make sausage”). This was a clever pun, acting all in one as cultural fact, shared symbol, and insult to opponents of Catalan nationhood. Food has also played a role in the recent political crisis from October 2017. The imprisonment of four key figures from Catalan political and civil life has sent shockwaves through the region, leading to a campaign to free them that has taken the color yellow as its symbol. A Barcelona chef, Ada Parellada, organized a charity dinner in January 2018 to support the campaign. She called it the “yellow supper” (sopar groc), serving entirely yellow foods. The move led to a harassment campaign from anti-independence activists. However, there was also an upswelling of support from the Catalan media and public, and January was the busiest month in their twenty-five-year history. This event manifests the issues surrounding the overt labeling of restaurants or products as “Catalan,” and the political alignment of chefs themselves (they are not unlike those facing Palestinian chefs in Israel, which Liora Gvion describes in this volume). Professing support for independence is difficult among chefs, to prevent alienating current and potential customers. They must tread a fine line between celebrating their Catalan heritage as part of their personal brand and avoiding the negative associations with being “Catalan” in Spain today. On a recent fieldwork trip in January 2018, I discussed this issue with Marta Amorós, director of Catalonia Gourmet Cluster. She admitted that clearly Catalan products (recognizable by their name, or emblematic of the region, such as cava sparkling wine) have suffered a decline in Spanish markets following the events of October 2017. However, products that have their main market within Catalonia have experienced a small boom, as “now more than ever” Catalans want to protect and celebrate Catalan products and businesses.

Conclusion A recurring theme has been the everyday reference to the past, be it to idealize it, or to justify contemporary norms or behavior. Yet at the same time, another aspect of contemporary Catalan national identity is that of modernity, innovation, and openness (as a “land of migrations”). This may seem contradictory, but as any student of nationalism knows, such contradictions are inherent in the reality of nationalist culture. For Catalans, a separate national history (alongside language) is the bedrock of a claim to difference. This could be in the form of the idealization of the rural past, the source of national culture (in common with other nationalisms—Gellner, 1983), or in idealizing a golden age of innovation, such as the medieval era or the nineteenth century. Food, inherently malleable in meaning, is a touchstone in both these instances. It is said that Catalan cuisine has a “tradition of innovation,” a popular concept that encapsulates both historical orientations. Much of this chapter has focused on bottom-up expressions of culinary nationalism. This is partly due to my approach and role as an ethnographer, which focuses on the lived experiences of ordinary people (bottom-up) as opposed to government structures

Catalan Culinary Nationalism: A Contemporary Case Study

95

(top-down.) With this approach however, I have come to realize that food is essential to the everyday, lived experience of Catalan nationalism. National foods allow Catalans to experience their national identity in a tangible way. Yet more than that, food also provides an opportunity to reaffirm and regenerate Catalan identity. Preparing, consuming, and interacting with Catalan food means symbols of the nation, and their manifold meanings, are continually present in Catalan life. Discussions around and centered on food provide an opportunity to discuss what the Catalan nation means today. Finally, the awareness of a shared cuisine, especially in the concept of the gastronomic calendar, creates a culinary imagined community.

Note 1 In practice, all these ingredients vary depending on individual and regional preference, and the “proper” content of many of these sauces is hotly debated.

8

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica Mona Nikolić

Introduction Debates about global influences on the local food culture in Costa Rica are currently dominated by the fear of global cultural homogenization and the loss of food culture. This fear provoked—predominantly in the political and academic context—a strong interest in rescuing the local food culture, which resulted in a rise in publications of cookbooks on the Costa Rican national cuisine. I consider this new interest in the local culinary food culture as characteristic of the current period of “cultural globalization,” which according to Richard Wilk, is characterized by processes of mass migration and mass tourism, as well as the countries’ challenge of nation building and of economic integration into the global market. Peculiar to this period of cultural globalization are also a revaluing and a revival of the local (Wilk, 2006: 25, 155–58) that can be seen in the present political and academic interest in and valuing of the Costa Rican cuisine. But instead of just aiming at reviving the local food culture, I argue that the cookbooks published in the political and academic context are linked to the process of nation building and portraying a Costa Rican national cuisine that reflects and supports the new institutional, top-down concept of the Costa Rican national identity. Identity constructions take place in a context of power relations. Manuel Castells takes these power relations into account when differentiating three forms of collective identities: legitimizing identity, resistance identity, and project identity. Legitimizing identities are a form of identity introduced by dominant institutions aimed at holding up the societal status quo. The most prominent examples of this form of identities are national identities. Resistance identities by contrast are constructed in opposition to the dominant legitimizing identities by marginalized social actors and serve to build communities. Resistance identities often turn into the third form of collective identities, project identities. Project identities are built by social actors on the basis of the cultural material that is available to them, in order to redefine their position within society and to challenge the overall social structure (Castells, 2004: 7–9). Even though concepts of identities can thus be generated by institutions, according to Castells, they only transform into identities when they are internalized by social actors (Castells, 2004: 7).

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica

97

Taking up this argument of Castells and drawing on fieldwork findings, I will analyze the debates of this top-down concept of Costa Rican national cuisine among social actors in a local context characterized by transnational relations. Before entering into the discussion, I will briefly outline the discourses on Costa Rican national identities and the current reconstruction of the national identity and cuisine.

Crisis and reconstruction of Costa Rican national identity At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the Costa Rican nation was perceived as white, homogeneous and democratic, and pacifist and rural (Sandoval García, 2004). This concept of the Costa Rican national identity helped to manifest the nation’s difference from the other Central American countries and to point out its similarity to European nations (Molina Jiménez, 2008). Precisely because of focusing on the “whiteness,” this concept of the national identity did not only exclude “external others” by distinguishing Costa Ricans from other Central Americans, but also created “internal others” (Sandoval García, 2004). Apart from the autochthonous people, it also marginalized the Afro-Caribbean population of the province of Limón and the Guanacastecan population. As Guanacaste had belonged to Nicaragua before the annexation in 1824, the inhabitants of Guanacaste were widely considered as “Nicaraguans” and as more influenced by the autochthonous Mesoamerican heritage than the Costa Ricans (Molina Jiménez, 2008: 21). This concept of the “white Costa Rican nation” thus limited Costa Rica regionally and culturally to the Costa Rican Central Valley, while ascribing a lack of civilization to the people living outside this region. From the 1980s onward, however, after the economic crisis had led to economic insecurity and growing social inequality, and cases of corruption had damaged the Costa Ricans’ trust in their political leaders, the nineteenth-century concept of the Costa Rican proved ever less aligned with the social reality lived by the Costa Rican population (Molina Jiménez, 2008; Sandoval García, 2004). Critics emerged above all from the field of the social sciences, where the old concept of the Costa Rican nation and identity was reprimanded for its exclusive character and the geographic and cultural limitation of the Costa Rican nation to the Central Valley (Sandoval García, 2004). The crisis of identity opened up a space for alternative concepts of a national identity. A significant change occurred with regard to the recognition of the cultural diversity of the Costa Rican nation. Originating from the discussion in the social and cultural sciences, the topic of cultural plurality accessed the political discourses in the 1980s, where the concept of the white and homogeneous Costa Rican nation was replaced by the insistence on the cultural diversity and equality of the Costa Rican population (Molina Jiménez, 2008; Sandoval García, 2004). With the recognition of the cultural diversity, the diverse cultural roots of the Costa Rican nation and identity were also acknowledged. The concept of the Costa Rican nation that is portrayed in the schoolbooks today is that of a population that is based on different and diverse inherited cultural elements. Instead of a concentration on the Spanish-European

98

The Emergence of National Food

influences, Costa Rican national identity is perceived as resulting from the confluence of different cultures. Apart from the European origins, the autochthonous heritage and—even though to a lesser extent—the African and Afro-Caribbean influences are now considered as the most relevant.

Reconstruction of Costa Rican national cuisine The growing interest in rescuing the Costa Rican food culture, which provoked the collection and publication of recipes of the “traditional” Costa Rican cuisine, particularly from the 2000s onward can be seen as a form of cultural nationalism, resulting from the crisis of the Costa Rican nation and identity and as an effort to create and maintain a common culture in order to sustain a national community. In what follows, I will analyze the image of the Costa Rican national cuisine portrayed in the ongoing academic and political debates. I will concentrate on the publications of Marjorie Ross (Ross González, 2001), Patricia Sedó Masís (2008), and Giselle Chang Vargas et al. (2001) as well as the recipe collections edited by Yanori Alvarez Masís in the aftermath of the Typical Food and Beverages Contests that were organized by the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports. These are the authors most engaged in the rescue of Costa Rican national cuisine, covering multidisciplinary foci, and their publications are widely known and read in Costa Rica.

The Cocina Criolla Costarricense The concept of the national Costa Rican cuisine dominating the current academic and political discourses is that of a Cocina Criolla Costarricense, of a cuisine resulting from the confluence of different and diverse culinary cultures. The culinary heritages considered most relevant are the European and the autochthonous American culinary culture, and—to a lesser extent—African culinary traditions. This image of the Cocina Criolla Costarricense is sustained by the dishes considered as emblematic of the Costa Rican national cuisine, such as the olla de carne,1 the tamales,2 or the Costa Rican national dish par excellence, gallo pinto.3 These dishes serve as examples of the amalgamation of the three different culinary traditions. The olla de carne is a popular example for illustrating the nation’s multiethnic heritage when celebrating the October 12, Día de las Culturas, in schools. Beef and the form of preparation are of European origin, corn and tubers like the potato or tiquizque are evidence of autochthonous American heritage, and plantains are the African contribution to the dish (MEP, 2005). Likewise, the gallo pinto in the discourse is depicted as the inseparable mix of autochthonous black beans and Spanish rice, brought together through an African mode of preparation (Ross González, 2001; Álvarez Masís, 2005; Sedó Masís, 2008; Vega Jiménez, 2012). The dishes mentioned as emblematic of the Costa Rican national cuisine—apart from gallo pinto, olla de carne, and tamales, the dishes most frequently named are picadillos,4 tortillas, chorreadas,5 and arroz con leche6 (Álvarez Masís, 2005;

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica

99

Ross González, 2001; Sedó Masís, 2008)—are typically Costa Rican, as they present some particularities as far as the form of preparation is concerned. But the authors also point out that Costa Rica shares these dishes with other Central American countries, which, according to them, proves Costa Rica’s belonging to the Central American cultural and culinary context (Sedó Masís, 2008).

Regional cuisines in the new discourses on Costa Rican national cuisine The image of the Cocina Criolla Costarricense harmonizes with the concept of Costa Rican national identity as based on multiple cultural heritages. And there is another accordance of both concepts with respect to the treatment of cultural differences within the country. While the silencing of these differences is a common strategy in the process of construction of national cuisines (Appadurai, 2008), the new concept of the Costa Rican national cuisine does not silence the existence of regional cuisines, but emphasizes the differences existing within Costa Rica. All authors agree that—despite the existence of a national cuisine and national dishes—one has to distinguish at least three regional cuisines: the cuisine of the Central Valley, the Guanacastecan cuisine, and the Afro-Caribbean cuisine of the Limón province (Chang Vargas, 2001a). For the exclusion of the Guanacastecans and the Afro-Caribbean population from the former concept of the national identity and culture, it is particularly interesting to look at the way these regional cuisines are portrayed in the contemporary discourses on the Costa Rican national cuisine.

Cocina Limonense as Afro-Caribbean cuisine in Costa Rica In discourses on Costa Rican national cuisine, the province of Limón obtains a special position. Due to the fact that Limón is the province where the majority of the Costa Rican Afro-Caribbean population lives and because the province and its inhabitants have long been isolated from the rest of the country for geographical, social, and political reasons, the culinary culture that evolved in Limón is taken as a unique culinary tradition that is completely distinct from the rest of the country’s cuisine. This led to the exclusion of the Cocina Limonense and its recipes from accounts on national Costa Rican cuisine in the past. Despite the fact that Limón’s cuisine is now included in the discourses on the Costa Rican national cuisine as one of the nation’s regional cuisine, it is still considered as rather “exotic,” “strange,” and completely dissimilar to the rest of the country’s culinary cultures (Chang Vargas, 2001a; Ross González, 2001). Nevertheless, it is valued for this exoticness. The proclaimed uniqueness and exoticness are apparent in Limón cuisine’s recipe section in the books. Even though this section does not ignore, and in some cases is even dominated by, a few dishes and beverages considered as emblematic of the Cocina Limonense and well known

100

The Emergence of National Food

outside of Limón, such as the rice and beans, rondón/rundown, pastries like the patí (patty), pan bon, or plantintá (plantain tart) or drinks like sorrel drink or agua de sapo7 (Álvarez Masís, 2007; Álvarez Masís, 2014; Chang Vargas, 2001a, 2001b), the majority of the recipes included are fairly unknown outside of Limón. The regional specificity and exoticness also becomes obvious in the list of ingredients claimed to be characteristic of this cuisine, which includes vegetables, leaves, and roots that are limited to the Limón food culture in the Costa Rican context and considered of African and Caribbean origin, such as callaloo, arrow root, breadfruit, okra, ackee, taro, or yams (Chang Vargas, 2001a: 134–36; Ross González, 2001: 210–25). The idea of the Cocina Limonense’s particularity, but also the “wilderness” of the AfroLimonense population is furthermore upheld by the mentioning of the consumption of wild animals, such as iguana, turtles, or sea snails (Álvarez Masís, 2007; Chang Vargas, 2001a: 137), or of the use of spices like scotch bonnet pepper for seasoning (Chang Vargas, 2001a; Ross González, 2001), that is, of meats or spices that are commonly not used in the Costa Rican national cuisine and in some cases even considered inedible by inhabitants of the Central Valley. While the Afro-Caribbean influences are considered of minor importance to the national cuisine as a whole, they are the crucial characteristic of this regional cuisine8 and when mentioning the dishes and drinks typical for this province’s cuisine, the similarities to other Caribbean countries and food cultures are also voiced, as in the case of the rice and beans, codfish fritters, or the johnny cake (Ross González, 2001). This way, the belonging of this regional cuisine to the Caribbean food cultures is affirmed, as well as its distinctness from the national Costa Rican cuisine. The Cocina Limonense is thus presented as an Afro-Caribbean food culture in Costa Rica that is limited to Limón and absolutely different from the Costa Rican national food culture, but worth preserving.

Cocina Guanacasteca as “cradle of the Costa Rican national cuisine” In current discourses on the Costa Rican national cuisine, Guanacaste is defined as an “exponent of Mesoamerica in Costa Rica” (Chang Vargas, 2001a: 124) due to the fact that the Chorotega and Nicarao, autochthonous people from Mexico settled in this region in the thirteenth century (Ross González, 2001). Guanacaste’s cuisine is considered as the regional cuisine most influenced by the Mesoamerican culinary heritage and as a “corn culture” (Álvarez Masís, 2005; Chang Vargas, 2001a). This belonging to the Mesoamerican cultural context is obvious in the dishes and beverages considered as characteristic of this cuisine: the descriptions are dominated by dishes and drinks made from corn—for example, arroz de maíz,9 rosquillas, or tanelas10— and by those strongly considered as of autochthonous origin, such as tortillas, tamales, atol,11 carne en vaho,12 or the drinks chicha or chicheme and coyol.13 The discourses reproduce the image of the Guanacastecan culinary culture as Mesoamerican. But while this cultural heritage had caused the marginalization of the Guanacastecan population in the past, it is now the means to locate the national

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica

101

culinary culture in the Mesoamerican cultural context. The authors refer to the autochthonous Mesoamerican people of Guanacaste to emphasize the parallels between the Costa Rican food culture and the culinary culture of ancient Mexican autochthonous civilizations, as does Marjorie Ross in her description of the preparation of the tamal: The Chorotega seasoned the tamales with grinded pumpkin seeds and other condiments, as well as with meat—of Xulo or mute dog, turkey, deer, or tepeizcuintle, etc.—with tomato, honey, or snails. This sauce, of tomato, pumpkin seeds, and red pepper was also extensively used in the Aztec cuisine. In Mexico and in the Costa Rican Central Valley, this sauce has preserved its purity and is used the same way as it was then, called by the same Nahuatl name: pipián.14 (Ross González, 2001: 41)

The Chorotegas’ preparation of the tamales serves to outline the similarities not of the Guanacastecan but of the Costa Rican and the Mexican food culture. Even though the Cocina Guanacasteca is still considered as the cuisine most influenced by the Mesoamerican corn culture, this cultural heritage is not considered as a distinctive characteristic anymore, but rather as a proof of the overall, Costa Rican cultural belonging. The discourses on the Costa Rican national cuisine thus reveal a change in the perception of the provinces of Guanacaste and Limón. The provinces and people that had been marginalized for their perceived cultural distinctiveness from the Costa Rican nation are now presented as part of the Costa Rican culture. But while the Cocina Limonense is maintaining the status of a distinct cuisine, the province of Guanacaste is now considered as cradle of the national food culture. Both in the efforts to do justice to the country’s cultural diversity and to integrate regional cultures, the new top-down concept of the Costa Rican national cuisine matches and supports the institutional concept of the national identity. Reconsidering Castells’ argument that institutional identity concepts only transform into identities when social actors identify with them (Castells, 2004), with regard to the question to what extent these top-down concepts of the national as well as regional cuisines serve as identity markers, it is also important to look at how local actors contest these concepts. Referring to findings from my fieldwork conducted in Costa Rica in 2011, I will now turn to the local discussion of the new concepts of the Costa Rican national cuisine.

Local contestation of the new concept of Costa Rican national cuisine When talking about Costa Rican culinary heritage and national cuisine, people in the Central Valley, and especially younger people, viewed the province of Guanacaste as crucial to national cuisine, but expressed their difficulties identifying with the AfroLimonense food culture. This is revealed in the following conversation of Jennifer

102

The Emergence of National Food

and Lilly, nutritionists working in the INA (National Institute for Apprenticeships) in Alajuela: Jennifer: Well, and I also think that a lot, or let’s say, our Costa Rican food comes from Guanacaste. Because what is the Caribbean, Limón, we, I don’t feel identified with this food, even though it is typical of our country. Lilly: Yes, the Guanacastecan influence is strong. Stronger in the Central Valley. It is that Limón has been, like, isolated.15 (Jennifer and Lilly, February 2011)

Members of the “white” Central Valley population—that is the group of people that belonged to the Costa Rican nation according to the nineteenth-century identity discourses—largely agreed with the concept of the Cocina Criolla Costarricense. For the changes that occurred with respect to the formerly marginalized provinces of Limón and Guanacaste, however, it is interesting to look at how this new concept of the national Costa Rican cuisine is debated in these provinces.

Limón: Cocina Limonense as undisputed marker of the Afro-Limonense identity Right from the start of our conversations, my Afro-Limonense interviewees used to point out that there was not one Costa Rican cuisine, but two cuisines in Costa Rica: Alright, we have a different culture from the other people in San José. We is Caribbean Cooking and when you say Costa Rica, you mean global, everything and we have two different types of cooking. (Linda, May 2011)

Linda, who owns a restaurant in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, is highlighting the significance of the Caribbean cooking for the local Afro-Caribbean identity and sense of belonging to the local population. In opposing the regional cooking and the “we” to the cooking of “the other Costa Ricans,” she is stressing the importance of the Cocina Limonense as a marker of Afro-Limonense identity. My informants are convinced of their food culture’s uniqueness in the Costa Rican cultural context, and the new national and international interest in their cuisine also enhances their pride in their own cuisine. Kelley, who used to own a restaurant in Talamanca, welcomed this interest and the writing of cookbooks as a means to rescue the local food culture and an expression of the authors’ appreciation of it: Finding people who can cook the Caribbean meals based on the grandpa times, these people are becoming less and less likely. Every year that goes by. I recently bought a book with recipes of the Caribbean. It is written by a Costa Rican woman,16 from San José. She likes the cooking so much that she’s written a book. (Kelley, May 2011)

Despite their insistence that the Cocina Limonense is distinct from the Costa Rican, my interviewees did not reject the inclusion of the Cocina Limonense in the cookbooks on Costa Rican national cuisine. From their point of view, the Cocina Limonense

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica

103

should be included in the cookbooks, as a regional cuisine of Costa Rica, as this would finally acknowledge and affirm the Cocina Limonense’s value. They do not fear an appropriation of their own cuisine by the Costa Rican state but perceive this inclusion as a way of furthering the reputation of the Cocina Limonense and the demand for Afro-Limonense food in the tourist context, where the Cocina Limonense had turned into a relevant source of income (Nikolić, 2016). My interviewees therefore agreed with the clear differentiation of Afro-Limonense and Costa Rican cuisine that was dominating the academic discourses, and their image of their regional cuisine was also in unison with the top-down concept of the Cocina Limonense. My informants named rice and beans, rondón, patí, pan bon, patacones, and escovitch fish as the most characteristic dishes of the Afro-Limonense food culture. Dishes like codfish and ackee, pigtail beans, plantintá, ginger cake, and atoles or drinks like agua de sapo and sorrel drink were added to this enumeration at times. My Afro-Limonense informants thus did not build their identity in contrast to but in accordance with the identity that was ascribed to them on an institutional level. They were not interested in challenging the status quo, but rather aimed at maintaining the separation between the regional and the national cuisine and culture that was characterizing the top-down concept of the national cuisine. With regard to the three forms of collective identities, the Afro-Caribbean identity could therefore be considered as a form of legitimate identity (Castells, 2004). But even though there is a wide acceptance of the way the national cuisine and the regional cuisine are represented in the institutional discourse, my Afro-Limonense interviewees did not at all identify with the Costa Rican national cuisine. They rather accepted the concept and the portrayal of their food culture, because it held up the distinction between their own and the national cuisine. The regional food culture that is crucial as a marker of identity is perceived as a regional cuisine in Costa Rica, but at the same time as a cuisine distinct from the Costa Rican cultural context that is affirming the AfroLimonense populations’ belonging to the cultural context of the Caribbean.

Guanacaste: Regional culinary culture as basis of a Guanacastecan resistance identity Interviews with my informants in Santa Cruz revealed their strong identification with their local cuisine as identity marker, as well as an understanding of this cuisine as mainly marked by the Mesoamerican autochthonous heritage. Mariana, housewife and third-generation cook at the civic festivals, estimated the autochthonous influence as more important than the Spanish: “I think more indigenous than Spanish, right? Because the indigenous people worked with corn, prepared corn dishes. I think more indigenous than Spanish”17 (Mariana, July 2011). The importance given to the corn as basic staple of the regional cuisine and to the autochthonous Mesoamerican heritage in the Guanacastecan culture and identity is as evident in the selection of typical dishes offered at the festivals to celebrate the anniversary of Guanacaste’s Annexation, as in the enumeration of dishes and drinks that my interviewees considered as typical Guanacastecan: Arroz de maíz, atol de maíz pujagua, rosquillas, tamales de cerdo, tortillas de queso (cheese tortilla),

104

The Emergence of National Food

sopa de albóndigas (dumpling soup), chicha or chicheme. In their enumerations, my interviewees also named gallo pinto, arroz con leche, and olla de carne, which reveals the overall conviction that the Costa Rican national dishes, like gallo pinto, were in fact Guanacastecan, appropriated by Costa Rica. If one compares the local image of the Guanacastecan culinary culture and identity with the institutional concept of the Cocina Criolla Costarricense, there are obvious similarities, above all with regard to the significance of the corn and the autochthonous Mesoamerican heritage. The local image which serves as a basis of my interviewees’ identity at first sight seems to support the institutional concept of the Guanacastecan as well as the national cuisine. But even though my interviewees take the “corn culture” as the basis for their identity, they are far from accepting the institutional concept of the national cuisine. When discussing the institutional image of the Costa Rican national cuisine, my informants constructed their own identity and culture in contrast to the culture of the Central Valley, which to them still is the Costa Rican national culture. The concept of the “corn culture” in these debates served as a means to express the Guanacastecan culture’s uniqueness in the national context and to negate the existence of a national Costa Rican cuisine. My interviewees did not perceive of their own cuisine as the cuisine most influenced by the Mesoamerican autochthonous heritage in the national context, but rather considered this heritage as limited to the culture and region of Guanacaste. The current recognition of this heritage by the Costa Rican state in their opinion was an illegitimate appropriation. Like Víctor, attorney and enthusiast of pre-Columbian Costa Rican history, my interviewees rejected the existence of a Mesoamerican national Costa Rican cuisine: They took “Cocina Costarricense,” but they have to distinguish two, the Guanacastecan cuisine and the Costa Rican cuisine. I don’t say that they [the Costa Ricans] haven’t cooked, they must have cooked, but they are very distinct. They are very different, even—they have wheat as their basic staple. We the corn. We, like Nicaragua, like Mexico, like Guatemala, the corn. They don’t. They learnt about the corn, learnt about the corn, because it was not their grain, they have learnt about it.18 (Víctor, July 2011)

With regard to the existence of dishes of autochthonous Mesoamerican heritage in the Central Valley, he points out: They put cucumbers to the tamales, hens’ eggs, boiled eggs and—they put everything to them, I don’t know what else. It is logical, because they, they are a people that do not have a cultural identity. It is a Spanish people that came to live in the mountains. So, in the end, they weren’t even Spanish anymore.19 (Víctor, July 2011)

In my interviewees’ opinion, the corn dishes are prepared in a wrong way in the Central Valley, so, instead of being a proof for the Mesoamerican heritage in the Central Valley, these dishes rather prove the absence of it, and the illegitimacy of the Costa Rican claim to be sharing the Mesoamerican cultural heritage.

National Cuisine and Regional Identities in Costa Rica

105

The local discussion of the top-down concept of the Costa Rican national cuisine reveals the significance of culinary culture as a marker of the Guanacastecan regional identity. Debating the concept of the national cuisine, my informants claimed the autochthonous heritage as unique to Guanacaste, basing their claims in the historical discourses on the national Costa Rican identity and the pre-Columbian history of Guanacaste. This way, they characterize the Costa Ricans as “Europeans” and “wheat culture,” as distinct from the own “corn culture.” The historical separation between the regional, Guanacastecan, and the national, Costa Rican, culture is maintained. This time, however, it was my Guanacastecan interviewees, that is social actors belonging to a group that was marginalized in the former concepts of Costa Rican national identity, who are interested in maintaining this separation. When locating the province of Guanacaste in the Mesoamerican cultural context, they are excluding the Costa Ricans from this context by insisting on the autochthonous Mesoamerican heritage as “exclusive property” of Guanacaste. Taking up Manuel Castells’ argument, the Guanacastecan regional identity built upon the basis of the ‘corn culture’ can be understood as a resistance identity with historically marginalized social actors taking up a historical identity concept to exclude (or try to exclude) the ones that had formerly excluded them.

Conclusion The presented case study highlights the importance of a perspective centered on actor, as well as of the consideration of the historical context in the investigation of the present processes of construction and internalization of national cuisines. In Costa Rica, the new, top-down concept of national cuisine is in accordance with the new concept of national identity. It is supporting the idea of the culturally diverse Costa Rican nation and trying to integrate the regional cuisines. Yet, as I have shown for the Cocina Limonense and the Cocina Guanacasteca, the level of integration of regional cuisines and the level of acceptance of their heritage and impact on Costa Rican national cuisine differ. The Cocina Limonense is included in the cookbooks on Costa Rican national cuisine but is considered as distinct from the rest of the country, and the Afro-Caribbean heritage that characterizes it is given little importance as an influence on national cuisine. By contrast, the Cocina Guanacasteca and above all the Mesoamerican autochthonous heritage characterizing it, are not only included but rather appropriated by the new concept of the Cocina Criolla Costarricense. As a concept of dominant institutions, however, the Cocina Criolla Costarricense provides a ground for contestation. And the way regional cuisines’ integration into cookbooks on Costa Rican national cuisine is debated differs locally and according to the level of integration, that is to the level up to which the concept challenges the role of the regional cuisines as markers of identities. While my Afro-Limonense informants agree with the portrayal of their regional cuisine in the cookbooks, as it upholds the clear distinction of Cocina Limonense and Costa Rican national cuisine and leaves the regional cuisine’s role as marker of the Afro-Limonense identity untouched, my Guanacastecan interviewees reject the new value given to Guanacastecan cuisine and

106

The Emergence of National Food

the appropriation of the Mesoamerican heritage in the construction of new Costa Rican national cuisine. Reclaiming Mesoamerican cultural heritage as exclusively Guanacastecan, my Guanacastecan informants confirm Guanacaste’s belonging to the cultural context of Mesoamerica and try to uphold the cuisine’s relevance as a marker of regional, not national identity. Despite the fact that the new concept of the Costa Rican national cuisine is a concept that acknowledges the countries cultural plurality and tries to do justice to the regional idiosyncrasies, the local discussion of this top-down concept reveals the historical relevance of regional cuisines as markers of identities that prevents the acceptance of a national cuisine. So, instead of achieving an acceptance of the institutional concepts of national cuisine and identity among all social actors, the process of nation-building in Costa Rica goes hand in hand with a revival of the regional cuisines as markers of regional identities.

Notes 1 Beef soup. 2 Also called tamales de cerdo. Corn flour paste stuffed with pork and other ingredients, wrapped in a banana leaf, and boiled in water. 3 Literally “spotted rooster.” Dish made from rice mixed with black or red beans. 4 Dish made from minced vegetables or tubers, sometimes with meat added. 5 Sweet corn pancake. 6 Rice pudding. 7 Literally toad water. Drink made from sugarcane, ginger, and lemon. 8 The prominence of the Afro-Caribbean heritage is also evident in the fact that the Cocina Limonense actually equals the Afro-Limonense food culture, as the culinary cultures of the autochthonous people of Limón as well as of the immigrants from China and India are largely ignored. 9 Literally “rice made from corn.” Dish made from ground white corn. 10 Pastries. Rosquillas are small hard rings made from corn flour, tanelas are made from corn flour mixed with sugarcane and grinded cheese. 11 A hot corn drink, atol de maíz pujagua is made from purple corn. 12 Steamed meat and vegetables. 13 Chicha or Chicheme is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented purple corn, sugar, and ginger. Coyol is an alcoholic beverage made from the Coyol palm. 14 My translation. 15 My translation. 16 He is here referring to Marjorie Ross’ work. 17 My translation. 18 My translation. 19 My translation.

9

Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine Isabel M. Aguilera Bornand

Introduction After the end of a long dictatorship, Chile began a political transition marked by the desire to build a nation inclusive of not only the political opponents openly expelled from society, but also the plurality of “cultural identities” present in the national territory. In this context, cuisine became an important showcase to display the nation in the making. It is a diverse nation which was leaving behind a foundational myth based on rurality, peasantry, and miscegenation in central Chile. Between 1994 and 2000 the State strongly supported the process known as the renewal of Chilean cuisine. This meant that multiple indigenous and regional products, unknown until then, gained a place in the domain of sophisticated and haute cuisine. At the same time, journalists and academics turned their attention to gastronomy and its relation to national culture, resulting in publications and reprintings of books dealing with Chilean cuisine. Both these publications and the discourses of the State and chefs seemed to indicate that, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the notion of Chilean cuisine had changed significantly. However, when close attention is paid to the voices of the diners, it is possible to observe that the view of the Chilean cuisine as a reflection of national diversity is not at all hegemonic. The discourse of consumers expressed on the website TripAdvisor, collected through netnographic techniques (Kozinetz, 1998; Bernard, 2004), confirms that the rural-traditional imaginary connected with central Chile does not activate a generalized identification any longer. Its replacement is not, however, an ethnicized version of Chileanness nor is it a turn toward multiculturalism. To the contrary, social class and certain aspects of urban life emerge as those elements that can represent the community. Thus, two versions of Chilean cuisine have been formulated—on the one hand, the one defined by diversity and originating in the circle of professionalized and specialized gastronomic agents; on the other, the version of the consumers which centers around popular urban culture.

108

The Emergence of National Food

In my research I have privileged the analysis of public discourses to work in accordance with the definition of cuisine as an ideological political artefact. Consequently, besides observations in restaurants and interviews with gastronomic actors, I have also resorted to multiple secondary sources. The material informing the first part of this chapter comes from the analysis of written press, television programs, and books. The second part is informed by a netnography (Ardèvol et al., 2008; Bernard, 2004; Caliandro, 2014) and the use of unobtrusive data collection techniques (Hine, 2011). In order to know the view of consumers regarding their experiences with Chilean cuisine, I have collected and analyzed textual qualitative data in the form of reviews on TripAdvisor.1 In other words, I have analyzed the interpretation consumers make of their own consumption acts, which makes up a particular type of narrative (Vásquez, 2012) that can be studied through discourse and content analysis (Scaraboto et al., 2012). A total of 533 reviews were downloaded, which referred to all those establishments labeled as “Chilean cuisine” according to the last three issues of Guía 100 de la CAV.2 The reviews were analyzed using AtlasTi and descriptive statistics.

The call of diversity: Chilean cuisine and multiculturalism The first time there was public mention of “certain young chefs” who were trying to change Chilean gastronomy was in 1986, in Hernán Eyzaguirre’s book Taste and wisdom of Chilean cuisine. In what can be regarded as a kind of call to resistance, the author warned that improving what was already good could be a grave mistake. Chile in those years, however, was destined to change. Pinochet’s dictatorship had been in power for over a decade and the demonstrations against it were increasing. Opposition leaders were organizing a new coalition of political parties (Otano, 2006), the feminist movement was demanding “democracy in the country and in the house,” and the Mapuche indigenous people had started an ethnicization cycle that continues to this day (Bengoa, 1999). Over the last decade of the twentieth century, it was necessary to reconstruct the political community and provide it with an identity. This process was strongly marked by the spirit of “neoliberal multiculturalism” (Assies, 2007; Vera et al., 2017), even though Chile has been one of the countries where this model has been less intensely adopted (Van Cott, 2000). In that effort, questions such as ‘who are we?’ and ‘how should we present ourselves to the world?’ became unusually relevant and culinary nationalism provided an answer. The interest that the chefs organized in Les Toques Blanches3 had shown for years in abandoning a Chilean cuisine they saw as confined to a limited set of emblematic dishes4 (Ivanovic, 2004) and tied to a type of folklore associated with Pinochet’s nationalism fell on fertile ground. During the political transition, Les Toques Blanches became “organic chefs” (a commited group of chefs with social democratic proposals). During Eduardo Frei-Ruiz Tagle’s presidency (1994–2000) they were the official chefs of the Presidential Palace and were responsible for showcasing Chile to the world during the Gastronomic Weeks.5 Apparently, what sealed the collaboration between the chefs and the authorities was a meeting between Marta Larraechea, First Lady of the nation

Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine

109

between 1994 and 2000, and Guillermo Rodríguez, leader of Les Toques Blanches. According to the latter, what drew them together was a common interpretation of the representation of Chileanness. Rodríguez recorded the following conversation to show this agreement: See, Guillermo, I know that you will agree with me, the time of rusticity is over—she [Marta Larraechea] told him—Chile must be presented with a certain formality, moving out from the typical, the traditional. —out of the ramadas [shelters] with paper flags and garlands—added Guillermo. —Exactly! It is necessary to refine the presentations. (Rodríguez, 2005: 41)

In order to represent Chile in keeping with the new times, Les Toques Blanches worked in three fronts: the “rescue” or “recovery” of products and preparations that they saw as “forgotten”; the renewal or updating of cooking techniques; and the creation of auteur dishes characterized by the combination of highly valued exogenous products and “humble” endogenous products (Aguilera, 2016; Ivanovic, 2004). The rescue represented a return to the roots, while the techniques and the new dishes looked to the future. But it was above all the rescue exercise that shook the grounds of what had been until then the Chilean cuisine. What was rescued included homemade dishes and drinks associated with the popular classes, products identified with the indigenous peoples, dishes and food strongly linked to small localities far from central Chile, and preparations with verifiable historical roots through the examination of recipe books. The truth is, and this is the most interesting aspect, that most of the indigenous products and dishes were not forgotten: they had simply never been part of Chilean cuisine. The foundational myth of the Chilean cuisine is the same foundational myth of the nation: the Mapuche-Spanish miscegenation taking place during the Colonial period in Central Chile.6 In his 1943 ground-breaking book Notes for a history of Chilean cuisine, historian Eugenio Pereira Salas explains the relationship between cuisine and nation, stating that in Santiago, at the beginning of colonization, the Spanish and indigenous traditions “fused” giving birth to Chilean cuisine. What he calls the “aboriginal” side would have provided the raw materials, while the Spanish side, the cooking techniques and recipes. During the colonial period the prevailing social categories were ethno-racial, but with the advent of the Republic social classes became prominent. Thus, the foundational moment of the nation state and of citizenship (beginning of the nineteenth century) was also the moment when Chilean cuisine was divided in two types: one reserved for a few and influenced by French cuisine, and the other associated with the popular classes where the original fusion was manifested. The latter, firmly rooted in the rural imaginary of central Chile and in the archetype of the “roto,” will be later known as traditional Chilean cuisine. The “roto” represents an “exceptional” mestizo7 who, by virtue of belonging to the lower class, is untainted by foreign customs (Palacios, 1904). An unruly and rebellious figure, according to Subercaseaux (2007), who would represent the mestizo “full of Indian blood” but who is mostly “poor and is in the lower order of society” (Montecino, 2007: 117–18). Thus, the “roto” is an ethno-racial and class-based category which,

110

The Emergence of National Food

like most of the characters and legends making up the national imaginary previous to the multiculturalist reestablishment, was associated with central Chile. This symbolic framework, reified and celebrated by Pinochet’s dictatorship, underwent a crisis during the transition, and the Les Toques Blanches gave it the final blow with statements such as the following: [We are working] to build from the citizens the self-recognition of Chile as a multicultural country, made up of indigenous peoples, mestizo cultures, cultures of immigrants from different parts of the world and of groups settled in and fond of our territory.8

Among the many gestures innovative chefs made to create a cuisine that represented the multicultural nation, I would like to highlight the dinner held to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the communist poet Pablo Neruda. This dinner took place on July 18, 2004, at the Presidential Palace. The 38 members of Les Toques Blanches cooked for President Ricardo Lagos and a hundred guests. The menu was the following: pisco sour and ulmo honey;9 shrimps from the Limarí River and browned salmon over fresh pebre de mote;10 ode to the Caldillo de Congrio of Pablo Neruda;11 broiled boar with baked quinces; chestnut puree and huacatay12 pesto; cake from Curicó with cola de mono13 ice cream and mote con huesillos;14 and coffee and cakes from La Ligua. The general context of the dinner spoke of an effort to remember what had been banned: Pablo Neruda and his communist political affiliation, as well as predictatorship times. Furthermore, the content of the menu reflected the new Chile. Present in the menu were the indigenous people’s Ulmo honey, mote and huacatay; products from localities never mentioned in the narrative of Chilean cuisine, such as Limarí and La Ligua; endogenous products barely known and consumed, such as fresh-water shrimps and boar, next to other highly consumed and valued exogenous products, such as salmon. There was also cola de mono, a traditional preparation renovated, and a representative of central Chile: the cake from Curicó. As can be seen, the rescue effort worked on different levels, but it was mainly the act of making the human and geographical variety of the country visible which defined the identity of the gastronomic proposal. The incorporation of ingredients strongly identified as indigenous and a rhetoric that, besides highlighting the ecological particularities of the regions, also emphasizes their cultural particularities, turned the ethnicization of the nation and the praise of diversity into the key for the public celebration of the work of Les Toques Blanches. It was not long before the gastronomic press noticed the revolution taking place in restaurants, and even those critics who were convinced that Chilean cuisine should be characterized based on the class, ended up accepting its “culturization.” This acceptance may have also been the result of the influence of academic discourse. The identification of Chilean cuisine with the ethnicized diversity was powerfully expressed in the book The Delightful Pot: Chile’s Mestizo Cuisines by anthropologist Sonia Montecino. Published in 2004, this book has been regarded as an “identity essay,” a book about Chileanness and as such, therefore, could be placed next to Nicolás Palacio’s The Chilean Race (1904) and Francisco Antonio Encina’s Our Economic Inferiority (1911), both of which convey

Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine

111

a thought close to the centenary of the national independence, whereas The Delightful Pot is close to the bicentenary. In her book, Montecino documents her travels from the north to the south of the country analyzing selected dishes from a symbolic perspective. Even though the key to the interpretation of Chileanness and cuisines is miscegenation, the approach is very different from the idea of fusion put forward by Pereira Salas (2007). Instead of using the miscegenation rhetoric to impose homogeneity, the author takes every opportunity to highlight the parts that come together to give rise to the Chilean and, most importantly, does not treat those parts as elements of the past but as constitutive elements of modern diversity. Thus, indigenous people from the Andes and the Araucania, nineteenth-century and present-day migrant communities, peasants, fishermen, and housewives intertwine their stories with the history of Chile and its kitchens. In this regard, The Delightful Pot is not a book about the past. There are no archaic elements of culture, that is to say, elements completely identified as part of the past (Williams, 1977), but a look into the present that aims to highlight diversity. It has been decades since the articulation of a discourse that seriously challenged the ideas of Central Chile and ethno-racial homogeneity as the foundations of a hegemonic narrative about the nation. Today, the spirit of rescue and diversity is present in a great number of restaurants. Every cooking school is influenced by this perspective, an increasing number of restaurants incorporate in their menus indigenous products and local specialties, the press and academy no longer doubt the existence of the Chilean cuisine, its values, and its possibilities to represent a multicultural nation. However, this version of Chileanness has not permeated everywhere and the diners have a different view.

Chilean cuisine from the perspective of consumers: The return of social class Diners’ reviews account for a significant variety of food and dishes, but this does not imply recognition of diverse cultural landscapes and traditions. Even though some reviews resort to expressions that refer to particular aspects such as “flavors of the north” or “rural food,” there are no solid and transversal narratives regarding the geographical and/or human differences within the nation as that which identifies Chileanness. Nor is there reference to indigenous people. What I observe is a set of stories in which what stands out is the evaluation of the quality of the food and the service; the description of the contents of the dishes and of the restaurant; and a general evaluation of the experience. Those reviews that explicitly highlight the relationship between cuisine and nation are a minority. Despite this, it is possible to observe three main lines of argument. The first identifies Chilean cuisine with rurality, peasantry, Central Chile (see note 6), and the past, that is to say, it is aligned with a hegemonic view. This kind of rhetoric appears next to the description of emblematic dishes or of experiences linked to restaurants with a setting that evokes the countryside or that are located in the outskirts of big cities. Even though this is an interesting finding, it does not necessarily indicate the validity of the national imaginary linked to central Chile. Rather, the constant

112

The Emergence of National Food

reference to the past seems to place this imaginary as an archaic or residual element of culture. In other words, as elements that are identified as typical of the past and are explicitly “revived” or as elements that, having an origin in the past, have remained active in the culture (Williams, 1977). In this regard, the reviewers on TripAdvisor seem to coincide with the innovative chefs in that emblematic dishes do not cover the whole range of the national. Even though these dishes are mentioned in narratives filled with nostalgia, their discursive density is not relevant and their presence is not demanded in the menus: “it makes you feel as if you were in the countryside, everything is very rustic and nice”; “it reminds me of the most typical, popular, and home-made food”; “feel at home with grandmother or grandfather.” When analyzing the total sample, it is possible to observe that traditional and rural drinks like chicha15 have given way to beer and wine, but mostly to terremoto, a drink that mixes pipeño wine16 and pineapple ice cream. This drink has a relatively recent origin (approximately 1985) and is linked to urban bohemian life (Aguilera and Alvear, 2017). Bean and corn stews which, according to the diners, remind them of their grandmothers and rural life, do not give rise to a national impetus as is the case with other dishes, such as rib cap, pork leg, or even sandwiches which, according to the reviews, show the “real Chile” and are “indispensable for tourists.” The second line of identification can be seen in relation to El Wagon restaurant, located in Iquique, a port city that was born and developed thanks to the export of saltpeter toward the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. El Wagon’s leitmotif is the saltpeter pampa.17 Hanging on its walls are photographs and objects recovered from the saltpeter offices, the dishes are named after people who lived in those places, and some of them are preparations that were eaten in the pampa and also on the coast. The experience in El Wagon is narrated as an immersion in the past18 and, at the same time, as a kind of vindication of the working-class roots of the Chilean north. According to one of the reviews, El Wagon is “welcoming and mystical, set in the saltpeter [mining] times. The menu makes reference to that time with dishes and ingredients typical of the north.” “Northernness” appears as an undervalued specificity that is little known in the country, despite the fact that the annexation of this area to Chilean territory is a fundamental milestone in the heroic story of the nation,19 and that the incomes obtained thanks to saltpeter were key to its economic development. The insistence on the particularity of the north, through expressions such as “typical food of the zone,” “excellent northern creole food,” “northern tradition,” and “local gastronomy,” seems to account for a strong regional identity (González, 1997), which, however, does not possess the metonymic power of central Chile. The reviews about El Wagon mainly emphasize the link between food, identity, and social class. Northern identity is inseparable from the history of the workers movement: the first workers organizations were born in the saltpeter mining centers of the north to fight against the precarious living and working conditions. In fact, the infamous massacre of workers in Iquique in 1907 is, to this day, an emblem of the Chilean workers movement. This relevance of the workers movement in the creation of the northern identity may explain why ethnic diversity is absent in the reviews. Despite the fact that workers from different ethnicities and nationalities participated in the

Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine

113

saltpetre cycle (Chileans from all over the country, indigenous Aymara and Quechua, citizens from Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, China, and from several European countries) (González, 1997; González, 1995), this human diversity appears unable to articulate a cohesive discourse, unlike the identification with the labor world. Thus, this historic mining proletariat becomes a subject that can activate affection and a memory, but which—as far as has been observed—can only symbolize one community: the Northern community. Class is again present with unusual force in the third and most dense line of arguments about Chileanness. In the reviews of El Hoyo restaurant, located in a crowded suburb of the city of Santiago, Chile’s capital city, it is clearly possible to observe attitudes to the nation and its formation. The opinions in the writings about El Hoyo, regarding concepts, imaginaries, and intentionalities, are similar to each other. It is a very consistent discourse. On the one hand, there is an emphasis on its rustic, popular, traditional, and classic character. On the other, the characteristically abundant drinks and dishes are highlighted. The most celebrated drink is “terremoto.” Among the dishes, those containing pork as the central ingredient draw the greatest attention. Plenty of reviews use closing phrases that are an invitation to eat in El Hoyo so foreign visitors and “Chileans from the provinces” have the opportunity to know the “real Chile.” For their part, tourists explain that they felt part of the locals and that they had the choice to really get to know the place they visited. Thus, the restaurant is linked to authenticity and truth by those who state their residence in Chile and abroad. Unlike the imaginary of rurality, now archaic, and the imaginary of the north limited to a distinctive feature, El Hoyo appears to be disputing other restaurants’ ability to represent the universal from a specific place: the urban popular guachaca. Guachaca refers to a way of life linked to poverty and vulgarity, as well as a fondness for alcohol. Although for a long time it was a pejorative term, it has been reclaimed, at least from the mid-1990s, as a desirable identity. El Hoyo is seen as a restaurant where it is possible to access “the authentic guachaca culture,” a culture which, according to the reviews, is characterized by being “true,” “Chilean,” “urban,” and “popular.” An interesting thread is that referring to the danger of the suburb where the restaurant is located, which is seen as a feature that provides authenticity. The guachacas seem to fit in a romantic and nineteenth-century definition of authenticity, found mainly in literature, and which assumes the identification of authenticity with the life of the urban lower classes, and especially with marginalized groups, bohemian life, and criminality (Zukin, 2008). In a similar vein, Subercaseaux (2007) has claimed that in the nationalist discourses of the early twentieth century in Chile, the popular classes occupied the place of authentic Chileanness because they were seen as untainted by foreign customs. In other words, they represented something akin to cultural, as well as racial, purity. Thus, the guachaca, despite being gradually incorporated into the mainstream, activates what Culler (1981) calls “symbolic authenticity,” that is to say, it can be seen as a sign of authenticity, and its consumption, therefore, can open the gate to existential authenticity (Wang, 1999). Wang explains that the search for authenticity “idealizes the ways of life in which people are supposed as freer, more innocent, more spontaneous, purer, and truer to themselves than usual”

114

The Emergence of National Food

(Wang, 1999: 360). Indeed, the guachaca discourse is based on an opposition of this kind. The antagonistic figure of the guachaca is the “cuico”: that upper class individual who lives and eats moderately, who appreciates quality before quantity, who, ultimately, and to circle back to the key metaphor in the renewal of Chilean cuisine, has adapted to current times. In contrast, the guachacas want “perfection to continue to be the boring privilege of the cuicos, we are satisfied with living each day as if it were the first and every night as if it were the last” (Universal Declaration of Guachaca Fermentation, 2014: 11). The reclaiming of the guachaca expressed in the reviews about El Hoyo is not simply a class reclamation. Similarly, the opposition “guachaca/cuico” is not reducible to the opposition proletariat/bourgeoisie. Not only because the guachaca are reminiscent of the lumpenproletariat, but also because the antagonism transcends the determination and condition of social class into the sphere of culture. What the guachaca represents is a way of life: We bear the burden of an unfair reputation of loose tongues, tramps, horny devils, meddlers, party-loving, just because we break the norm of collective resignation, because we carry the infamous virus of disobedience and do not have a certificate of compulsory old age. (Universal Declaration of Guachaca Fermentation, 2014: 10)

This way of being Chilean, characterized by excess and a rejection of the establishment, which is a manifestation of class and that simultaneously recalls a pre-Barthian ethnic group, a group with a distinctive culture and different from other cultures, is what emerges from El Hoyo as that which authentically represents the nation. It is, certainly, a way that recalls the roto, that unruly being in which race and class mix to create a national archetype.

Conclusions Chilean cuisine, as a set of symbols oriented to represent the nation, underwent an important change during the political transition. This change, expressed in the work of professional chefs, academic researchers, and food critics, tended to broaden the limits of the national and to avoid the reification of the foundational myth of Chileanness: the homogenizing miscegenation of the central zone. Through the rescue and incorporation of new dishes and products, Chilean cuisine came to be characterized by diversity, a version that is capable of representing the multicultural Chile and, as a result of the influence of references to indigenous peoples, a colored nation. This ethnicized Chilean cuisine disputed the hegemonic space of the traditional Chilean cuisine and was adopted as the “official cuisine” of the governments of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy). In parallel (or perhaps “underneath”), however, a different representation of the nation emerged, that of the diners. It is certainly a version that does not fit the traditional canon either, but which, far from celebrating the ethnic diversity of the

Ethnicity, Class, and Nation in the Chilean Cuisine

115

nation and the variability of regional products and dishes, returns to the central zone and to social class. The guachacas and their way of life emerge as a different perspective to think about an authentic representation of the nation, having a greater presence than the discourse about the rural tradition of the central zone, which seems to have become archaic, and the Northern image of El Wagon restaurant. A new Chileanness rooted in the popular neighborhoods of the capital and centered around El Hoyo, pork, “terremoto,” and the guachaca, has prevailed along the country. In practically every city there is now a guachaca “hole in the wall” where “its” culture is performed: food, dance, ways of socializing, and humor. Thus, the guachacas, as twenty-first century rotos and an ethnic-racialized class, have facilitated an imaginary return to a pre-multiculturalism logic, strongly disputing the hegemony over the representation of the nation. As is well known, national cuisines are a space in dispute. What represents Chile and what is Chile are questions that inevitably surround the space of food, and that in the case presented here, have given rise to two distinct versions. Against the modernization, aestheticization, and ethnicization of the Chilean cuisine present in the discourses of professional chefs, academics, and food critics, emerges the excess, authenticity, and the popular roots of the Chilean cuisine asserted by the diners. Can the two survive? Of course. Is it necessary that there be one version capable of unifying the whole national community? No. Nationalist thinking is not without tensions. Perhaps tension is its main feature (except in those cases of authoritarian totalitarianism) and the cuisines are a reflection and driving force of this endless dynamic of imagining communities.

Notes 1 TripAdvisor is being increasingly used in the study of the industry of restoration. (See Pantelidis, 2010; Zhang et al., 2017; Ganzaroli et al., 2017; Lei and Law, 2015.) 2 CAV in Spanish stands for Wine Lovers Club. They publish a guide with the 100 best restaurants in the country. 3 Association of Chilean chefs. 4 Dishes that can recall national belonging and trigger shared affections (Juárez, 2008; Ivanovic, 2004), working at the same time as markers of difference and specificity (Calvo, 1982). 5 Events to promote exports as part of a larger context of meetings between diplomats and Chilean and foreign businessmen in different parts of the world. 6 Even though it is possible to agree on certain spatial coordinates for Central Chile, it is more useful to think of it as a social and symbolic space that functions metonymically as Chile. From there, characters, legends, traditions, food, and preparations that make up the national imaginary have been exported to the north and south of the country (González, 1997; Montecino, 2004; Subercaseaux, 2007). 7 In this context, mestizo must be understood as a racial category referring to the descendant of Spanish and indigenous parentage. 8 http://fundacionrecomiendochile.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=37&Itemid=94 (Retrieved April 22, 2009). This link is no longer available as this Foundation is not currently operating.

116

The Emergence of National Food

9 Pisco sour is an alcoholic cocktail prepared with pisco, lemon, and sugar. It is often drunk as an aperitif and is highly valued. Ulmo honey has been publicly recognized as an indigenous product and represents the element “forgotten” and to be rescued. In this cocktail, ulmo honey is used in place of sugar. 10 Pebre is a sauce or condiment made of onions, chopped coriander, and, sometimes, tomato, with a dressing of chili pepper, salt, and lemon or vinegar. When a bit of quinoa or mote is added to this sauce, the resulting combination takes the name of the former or the latter, and acquires an ethnic character. 11 Fish-based soup or broth of conger (conger eel/genypterus chilensis). Neruda wrote an ode to this broth called Oda al Caldillo de Congrio which appeared in his book Odas Elementales. 12 Tagetes minuta. Intensely aromatic herb native to South America, used as a condiment mainly in Peruvian and Bolivian cuisines. 13 (lit. monkey’s tail) Traditional drink served around Christmas. The ingredients are agua ardiente (a distilled liquor resembling brandy), milk, coffee, and cinnamon. It is served cold. 14 Boiled husked wheat with sundried peaches. 15 A drink made from the fermentation of fruit or cereals. 16 A traditional, popular, and poorly valued wine, associated with lower classes and made with poor quality grapes. 17 The saltpetre pampa is a region in the north of Chile characterized for being the geographical space in which the nitrate offices settled during the period of the nitrate fever of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 18 Some saltpeter offices continued in operation until the 1970s, but most of them shut down in the 1930s when the saltpeter cycle ended. 19 These territories were incorporated after the Guerra del Pacífico (1879–1883), in which Chile fought Perú and Bolivia.

Part Three

Critical Accounts of National Food

10

Does Israeli Food Exist? The Multifaceted and Complex Making of a National Food Ronald Ranta and Claudia Raquel Prieto-Piastro

Introduction: What is Israeli food? In 2017, the first-ever conference was convened to answer the question of what Israeli food is, with leading food scholars and chefs (Vered, 2017). The conference and the question were in many ways a reaction to the recent global emergence of Israeli food and Israeli “style” restaurants; in recent years Israeli restaurants and chefs have won numerous awards in a number of countries.1 The most comprehensive answer the speakers could come up with was that Israeli food is an amalgamation of Jewish diaspora food, particularly Mizrahi,2 local Arab-Palestinian influences—a controversial subject of discussion at the conference and within Israel (Mendel and Ranta, 2014)— and modern European and American influences and cooking techniques. In many ways, the inability of leading scholars and chefs to provide a clear answer to this question is not surprising. Many have questioned whether Israel has an identifiable cuisine (see, for example, Avieli, 2017; Mendel and Ranta, 2014; Raviv, 2015; Zaban, 2016). Some of the conference participants argued that the establishment of the state in the mid-twentieth century meant that there was insufficient historical time for a cuisine to develop. Nevertheless, it is clear to us, the authors, from having spent considerable time in the state, that Israel, or at least its Jewish-Israeli population, has particular food traditions and practices that could be viewed as a food culture; for example, Friday dinners3 and street food. Additionally, there are a number of food items that are recognized by Jewish-Israelis and marketed and branded by Jewish-Israeli companies domestically and globally, as Israeli (Hirsch, 2011; Ranta, 2016; Raviv, 2015). However, many of these food items, such as hummus (chickpea dip), tahini (sesame dip), falafel (deep fried chick pea patties), and baba ganoush (aubergine dip with tahini), are also part and parcel of Arab-Palestinian and Middle Eastern food cultures (Mendel and Ranta, 2014). Unlike a number of well-known cuisines, such as French or Japanese, it is difficult to narrow down Israeli food to a particular culinary cannon or discourse, or for that matter to a set of ingredients, tastes, or practices. More often than not what is termed Israeli food, by Jewish-Israelis and foreign food writers, is street food, such as falafel,

120

The Emergence of National Food

sabih,4 and anything in pita bread. Additionally, while there are a number of common food items, such as hummus and cottage cheese, by and large, what Israelis eat at home and in restaurants varies considerably, and is dependent on many factors, such as class, nationality (Jewish-Israeli or Arab-Palestinian), Jewish diaspora identity, and levels of religiosity. The existence of a number of different food traditions and practices is clearly seen in the food-based cultural divisions that exist among Jewish-Israelis, for example regarding Kosher laws. Kosher laws (Kashrut) are a visible sign of Jewishness and an important part of daily life for observant Jews, from what is permissible to buy and eat; to methods of preparation; and to where and when eating is permitted. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the diverse traditions of Jewish immigrants and the founders of the state, Kosher laws and their place in Jewish-Israeli society are an ongoing issue of debate (Prieto-Piastro, 2017). For example, according to Raviv (2015), only 25 percent of restaurants in Israel are kosher and, as a direct consequence of large scale RussianJewish immigration to Israel over the past three decades, non-Kosher Russian food shops have become popular with Jewish-Israelis who do not want to keep Kosher. This chapter examines the emergence and evolution of Israeli food culture, focusing on the relationship between the Zionist5 desire to create a new Jewish identity; the Zionist encounter with the land of Palestine and Arab-Palestinians; and the impact of successive waves of migration on national foodways and food culture. It is based on the analysis of prominent Israeli cookbooks and backed up with extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted by us over a number of years independently of one another. Our ethnographic fieldwork included participant observations with Jewish-Israeli families; and nonstructured and semi-structured interviews with home cooks, leading JewishIsraeli and Arab-Palestinian chefs, scholars, and food writers. Using the evolution of Israeli cookbooks and the narratives they provide regarding Israeli food and national identity as a framework, we analyze and chart the transformation of the country’s food culture and the discourse of Israeli food. It is important to note that we do not take cookbooks to be accurate accounts of reality or mere tools for culinary indoctrination, but as illustrative of discursive desires to fashion reality and project particular notions of group identity. We argue that, starting with the Zionist establishment, then, after the establishment of the state, the Israeli government, tried to impose a new hegemonic food culture that rejected Jewish-diaspora food, was grounded in modern concepts of nutrition, inspired by European food cultures, but based on local ingredients. In this new food culture, the differences between the various immigrant communities were expected to be less visible, and Arab-Palestinians invisible, at least on the plate. This was part of a wider “melting pot” policy of integrating immigrants into a new Jewish society (Ram, 2010). However, as we demonstrate through our analysis of cookbooks, culinary identities are hard to impose from the top-down. Israeli food history illustrates how attempts to impose national food policies were negotiated and reinterpreted by those who were affected by them. Due to culinary resistance, local conditions and continuous waves of migration, the “melting pot” food policy was unsuccessful; in its place emerged a food culture and discourse based on Jewish multiculturality, diversity, appropriation, and resistance. In many ways, and perhaps not surprisingly, the story of Israel’s food culture

Does Israeli Food Exist?

121

is the story of the state itself, mirroring the claim that “the history of any nation’s diet is the history of the nation itself ” (Bell and Valentine, 1997: 168).

Writing the nation Reading through the first published Hebrew cookbooks in Palestine, and after the establishment of the state in Israel, it is apparent that they had three main aims: to help integrate new Jewish migrants; to support the emerging Jewish economy; and to help construct a new Jewish national identity (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). This new Jewish identity (the “new Jew”) highlighted the connection the Zionist settlers had with the land of Israel (their perceived old-new homeland), while simultaneously erasing centuries of diaspora traditions.6 Hundreds of years in the diaspora had meant that Jewish communities had little in common, other than Kosher laws, which were observed differently among different immigrant groups. Therefore, it was imperative for the Zionist leadership to find ways to build a new common identity that left the diaspora in the past and fostered a strong sense of belonging to and symbiosis with the new homeland (Almog, 2000). In many ways the “new Jew” was expected to be an “antithesis” to the “Old” Jew, negating the perception of diasporic Jews as physically weak and unconnected to the soil (Laqueur, 2003). The “new Jew” was expected to embody Zionist European aspirations, he was to be “healthy, muscular, a warrior, industrious, hard-working, rational, modern, Western, secular, a vernacular, accentless Hebrew speaker, educated, obedient to authorities, not intellectual. The offspring of Ashkenazi7 immigrants” (Kimmerling, 2001: 101). The “new Jew” was expected to live off the land and have an uncomplicated diet that used fresh local ingredients but based on a “European understanding of the meal structure” and “prevailing concepts of nutrition” (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016: 100; also Tene, 2002). A diet that went hand in hand with the socialist ethos of Zionism for practicality and utility as well as with the desire to prove the Jewish connection to the land of Israel (Almog, 2000; Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). Cookbooks became a fundamental tool to modify the diets of the Jewish population, and housewives were the audience at which the culinary policies were aimed. The cookbooks written during this early period reflected not only the aspirations of Zionist institutions and the ideal diet they wanted to promote, but also the way women were expected to contribute to the nation in their everyday life. The cookbooks targeted Ashkenazi and Mizrahi female audiences. On the one hand, they aimed to instruct Mizrahi Jewish women how to properly nurture their children, as their diets were perceived by Ashkenazi Jews as nutritionally deficient and unhealthy. On the other hand, Ashkenazi women were expected to learn how to cook with the local ingredients and introduce fresh vegetables to their diet (Raviv, 2015). Cookbooks became an instrument to nationalize the domestic space, to give another dimension to the home as a “multiple site” (Edensor, 2002: 5) and to transform women into agents of change. Analyzing these cookbooks provides us with a useful insight into how the Israeli food culture was born through mundane, repetitive everyday habits that were the outcome of the implicit negotiations between official and cultural impositions and domestic practices.

122

The Emergence of National Food

The emphasis attached to a new Jewish diet was not only about integrating immigrants and creating a new identity, but also based on the Zionist need to establish and build up a separate Jewish economy in the years before the state was established (the importance of the political economy to national food culture is a point also stressed by Miller in her chapter on Ghana in this volume). This need informed a number of different policy considerations: advocating a Jewish only labor force (as opposed to Arab-Palestinian); boycotting Arab-Palestinian produce; and promoting Jewish-only produce through advertisements and cookbooks (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016; Raviv, 2015). In an interview, Israeli food scholar Yahil Zaban noted that the Zionist food policies helped alter existing foodways, for example enabling a shift from goat’s milk, which was argued to be unhealthy, to cow’s milk; interestingly enough, goat’s milk has been making a comeback in Israel in recent years. Among the first cookbooks published in Palestine, How to Cook in Palestine (written in Hebrew, English, and German) illustrates the above points. The book was published in 1935 by the Women International Zionist Organization (WIZO). WIZO was founded in London in 1920 and devoted its efforts to educate and train Jewish women immigrating to Palestine to live in their new country. Written by WIZO’s domestic scientist Erna Meyer, the book explained to women how to cook with the ingredients that were available in Palestine; which techniques were better for cooking in the local conditions; and why it was best to buy only Jewish produce.8 Throughout the book, Meyer constantly reminded her readers of the disadvantages of Jewish-European diets and highlighted the benefits of cooking with local ingredients, such as aubergines, lentils, marrows, cumin, and olive oil. She affirmed that “European habits are not only injurious to the health of the family but, in addition, they burden the housewife with unnecessary work.” Meyer understood “European habits” as the use of tinned food, long cooking processes, daily consumption of meat, and the omission of fresh dairy products. By rejecting these, her intention was to “free the kitchen” from practices that she saw as unhealthy, labor intensive, and inadequate “Diaspora traditions” for the climate and circumstances of her readers. However, her intention was not to encourage her readers to try a local diet; the majority of the recipes she provided were not Middle Eastern, but European recipes adapted to the available ingredients—for example Ashkenazi recipes for chopped liver, using aubergines. She made space for recipes using staple Eastern European ingredients, such as potatoes and had recipes for goulash (central European meat stew) and sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) (Meyer, 1935). Although representing an effort to adapt Ashkenazi food culture to the new circumstances of its readers, the book neither made an effort to recognize the ethnic diversity of the Jewish communities in Palestine nor show a willingness to learn local Arab-Palestinian recipes. The book attempted to construct an Ashkenazi-European food culture based on local ingredients that preserved the Ashkenazi culture but highlighted the Jewish connection with the land. What is particularly striking is that, despite the limited recognition of ArabPalestinian food in the main cookbooks of the time, Zionist settlers adopted and adapted some local Arab-Palestinian and regional ingredients and dishes, which mirrored similar cultural processes that occurred with regard to dress, language, and dance (see Mendel and Ranta, 2016) and went in line with a general desire to

Does Israeli Food Exist?

123

become the native population in Palestine. Early settlers, in particular, were at the forefront of this cultural process, so much so that they were described by later Zionist immigrants as sabras or prickly pears (the term would later be used to refer to Jews born in Palestine/Israel). Almog (2000) explains that the term was initially used in a derogatory manner by immigrants in the 1930s to describe the existing Zionist settlers in Palestine; the term comes from the Arabic Sabr (prickly pear). “For those European Jewish immigrants, native Jewish settlers might have appeared wild, exotic, and indigenous” (Mendel and Ranta, 2016: 54) presumably resembling the local ArabPalestinian population in their dress, practices, and food culture. The question of why European Zionists settlers adopted and adapted local food is multifaceted. Israeli food scholars Liora Gvion and Dafna Hirsch mentioned in interviews with one of us the difficulty of procuring European ingredients and therefore the need to use local ones, as well as the fact that many local food items and dishes were pareve.9 It seems that Zionist settlers were also happy to abandon Ashkenazi foods that “represented exile and martyrdom” (Roden, 1999: 175) and adopt foods that were more tasty and exotic, but also in line with their Zionist-Socialist inclinations of “no frills, affordable, and satisfying food” (Raviv, 2015: 20).

The Tsena: Trying to create Israelis out of immigrants The desire to impose an Ashkenazi-European hegemonic concept of food, based on local ingredients, continued with even greater vigor in the years after the creation of the state. In the immediate period after the state was established in 1948, Israel went through immense social changes as a result of massive waves of immigration from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. In a period of only three years (1948– 1951), the population of Israel doubled, which brought about a national food security issue. In order to deal with the influx of migrants, the state rationed food, among many other things. As a result, the early 1950s is known as the Tsena (austerity) period. Food rationing was seen by authorities as a means not only of solving a food security issue, but also of shaping the population’s food habits. The cookbooks published during austerity aimed not only to teach women how to keep a healthy diet, despite the enormous limitations they were facing, but also their nationalistic duties (Segev, 1998). Food choices became a matter of high politics and not of personal preferences as authorities took control of the people’s cupboards. Additionally, in Israel’s highly centralized economy at that time the state had immediate recourse to influence its citizens’ diets through communal mess halls of public bodies, such as the army, schools and hospitals, and state conglomerates as well as the transit camps the state managed for newly arriving immigrants (Raviv, 2015). Israeli food historian Orit Rozin told us that many newly Mizrahi immigrants complained that the state was trying to Europeanize them through their diets. According to her, the Ashkenazi-Zionist leadership viewed Mizrahi food habits as deficient and that by changing their eating habits they sought to make them proper Israelis. The Tsena period also saw the emergence of the first “Lady of Israeli food,” Lilian Cornfeld. Originally from Canada, Cornfeld was a professional nutritionist, who had

124

The Emergence of National Food

worked for WIZO, the American Red Cross, and UNWRA (United Nations Work and Relief Agency tasked with supporting Arab-Palestinian refugees after the 1948 Arab–Israeli war) (Cornfeld, 1996). In 1949 she published Ma avashel mimanot tzena (What to Cook with Austerity Portions). Cornfeld’s aim was to instruct women in managing with the limited and rationed ingredients available—for example, how to substitute meat with vegetables, and bake with no eggs. To overcome the problems caused by rationing and scarcity, she suggested her readers adopt a mainly vegetarian diet (Prieto-Piastro, 2017). Cookbooks such as Cornfled’s also attempted to educate new immigrants in European eating habits and meal structure, focusing on items such as butter, white bread, jam, and tea. These products, as well as others, such as dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables, and poultry, were emphasized because they tied in with the state’s agricultural and food processing policies and initiatives. For example, food writer Ronit Vered suggested to us that schnitzel10 was popularized in order to support the local poultry industry and as a substitute for red meat. The importance of the industrialization was also apparent in the growth of other recognized ‘Israeli’ food items, such as hummus (Hirsch, 2011) and ptitim, also known as Israeli couscous, that was used during the period as a substitute for rice (Ichijo and Ranta, 2016). Cornfeld went on to write a number of bestselling cookbooks and numerous newspaper columns after the Tsena period; her food writing became a cornerstone for the shifting nature of Israeli food. Her writing career illustrates some of the changes Israeli food went through. Initially omitting Mizrahi and Middle Eastern food, Cornfeld shifted to highlighting the culinary contributions of Mizrahi Jews to the Israeli diet and showcasing Jewish women of different ethnic backgrounds in her later cookbooks (for example, Israeli Cookery, 1962). The shift from a hegemonic Ashkenazi-European food discourse to one more reflective of the Jewish-Israeli, but not Arab-Palestinian, population occurred for a number of reasons. For example, many Mizrahi migrants wanted to retain their own traditions, and much of their food culture went hand in hand with local available ingredients. This meant that for the first time some of their food was included in popular cookbooks, albeit in sections labeled “Oriental” or “Mizrahi” food. Additionally, it was also clear that some Arab-Palestinian and Mizrahi ingredients, dishes, and practices were making their way into mainstream Israeli food culture (see, for example, Mendel and Ranta, 2014; Zaban, 2016). As a result, some of the cookbooks during the period contained recipes for dishes that would later become closely associated with Israeli food, such as hummus, tahini, and falafel.

A taste for the exotic By the end of the 1960s, Cornfeld had to share her title of “First Lady of the Israeli food” with Ruth Sirkis, an Israeli cookbook writer who became one of the most important names in Israel food. Sirkis was the wife of the Israeli ambassador to the United States during the 1960s as well as one of the first authors to capture the cultural changes that were happening in Israeli society. On an ethnographic note, one is hard pressed to find an Israeli house without one of Sirkis’ cookbooks.

Does Israeli Food Exist?

125

In the 1960s and 1970s Israel’s demographic, economic, political, and cultural composition was transformed. As a result of the June 1967 war, Israel tripled in size, occupying, among other areas, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which were viewed as part of biblical Israel, as well as occupying an Arab-Palestinian population of over a million. The changes in Israel brought about a realignment in politics, shifting power from the socialist-left to the more nationalist and liberal-right and a transition in the state’s leadership from the founding generation, who spoke with an accent, were mostly in their seventies and originally from Europe, to a younger “native” Israeli born one. In this new period Israelis started perceiving themselves in a different way, no longer merely victims of history, but now also conquerors (Shlaim, 2001). They also started to develop a more consumer-based approach to food and to acquire an appetite for new, cosmopolitan tastes, and the food on their plates and in their cookbooks reflected this (Raviv, 2015). According to Israeli historian Tom Segev, this was also the beginning of the Americanization of Israeli society and culture (2002). Sirkis was born in Tel Aviv, studied social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and started working as a food writer in 1967 (Prieto-Piastro, 2017). In an interview she gave to one of us in 2015 she described her life as the wife of a diplomat as her main source of inspiration for her books: “Not just recipes, I wrote about places all over the world where you can find good food because I travel a lot with my husband. I wrote about California, New York, Las Vegas, New Orleans, about food, places, restaurants, hotels, vineyards in France, . . . I wrote about food in Japan, that I visited, as well as Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, and South Africa.” Her cookbook From the Kitchen with Love followed her aim to teach new aspiring Israeli middle-class women how to host parties. Sirkis not only included recipes for cocktail and fondue parties but also explained to housewives how to set the table and which dishes were appropriate for particular occasions (Sirkis, 1975). Sirkis’ cookbooks influenced greatly the food culture of the country, while at the same time also reflecting the new ways Israelis were thinking about food. They showed the changes in ideology and composition of the population: from the idealized Zionist-socialist pioneer living in the kibbutz11 to the cosmopolitan, middle class, and modern urbanite in Tel Aviv. Although Sirkis’ intention was to educate Israelis in the arts of foreign cuisine, she also published books that included Israeli recipes. In 1975 she published Yeladim Mevashlim (Children Cook), a book that became an Israeli classic. The book included simple recipes for children that are easy to prepare, including several dishes that became staples of the Israeli diet, such as chicken schnitzel and tahini (Sirkis, 1975). Sirkis also popularized Israeli food internationally, becoming a pioneer in using Israeli food as “soft power.” First published in 1972 as Gourmet Food from Israeli and in 1985 as Popular Food from Israel, Sirkis’ Israeli cookbook was one of the first gastro-diplomatic efforts to use food to promote a more diverse and inclusive image of Israeli food culture. It included recipes she perceived as typically Israeli: Israeli salad (chopped vegetable salad with olive oil and lemon), hummus, shakshouka (eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce), falafel, kebabs, as well as schnitzel, goulash, and Yemenite-style soup (chicken soup spiced with turmeric and fenugreek). Every recipe included an explanation of the origin of the dish, how it has been adapted, and in some cases comparisons with dishes

126

The Emergence of National Food

from other countries (Sirkis, 1985). However, her book was not an attempt to define or standardize Israeli food. She told one of us that “if you define love I will define Israeli cuisine,” though she did note that “the basic ingredients of Israeli food are: tahini, parsley, lemon, chickpeas, olive oil, maybe coriander, salt and pepper, wheat to make pita.” Sirkis’ writing on Israeli food reflected two important processes that were occurring in Israeli society. On the one hand, it reflected how the European-hegemonic food discourse gave way to one based on Jewish multiculturality. Her writing demonstrates how Mizrahi food migrated from the “oriental section” of cookbooks to be considered an essential part of Israeli food. This process was part of a slow, gradual, but also wider process in which the concept of Israeli identity and culture shifted from Ashkenazi domination to one more representative of the state’s population. On the other hand, Sirkis’ writing also reflected the invisibility of Arab-Palestinians in Israeli food culture. As explained by Mendel and Ranta (2014, 2016), Israeli food went through a long process of de-Arabization. That is to say, despite the clear influences of Arab and ArabPalestinian food on Israeli food culture, these have been by and large obscured and deliberately forgotten. Dishes that were adapted from and inspired by Arab-Palestinian food culture were either represented as belonging to an Israeli food culture, for example, the Israeli salad (now known more generally as “Arab salad,” see Mendel and Ranta, 2014), or to a Jewish Mizrahi one, for example, falafel, which became associated with Yemenite Jews, despite the fact that falafel had no historical connection to Yemen (Raviv, 2015).

Israeli food goes global As we have mentioned above, in recent years there has been growing international interest in Israeli food. From academic papers to news articles and from cookbooks to new trendy restaurants, Israeli food has become a global phenomenon. It is presented as healthy, vibrant, trendy, “a cuisine without borders” (Spector, 2016) and the chefs cooking it have become international celebrities—for example, Yotam Ottolenghi and Michael Solomonov—winning national awards, writing bestselling cookbooks, and appearing widely on TV. The global success of Israeli food has been mirrored by the growth of the country’s domestic culinary scene. Over the past three decades, as the country has shifted away from its welfare state and centralized economy model toward a neoliberal free market one, Israel’s food culture has been transformed. Side by side with rising inequality and societal divisions, a vibrant new restaurant scene has emerged, referred to by some as the “best in the world” (Abel, 2017); TV cooking programs have proliferated, and Israeli companies have dramatically expanded the range of products they sell domestically while venturing to sell Israeli food abroad. Israeli food narratives and discourse also shifted, from an emphasis on self-sufficiency, socialist moderation, and Ashkenazi hegemony, to one of new imported ingredients, celebrating innovation and choice, and recognizing Mizrahi, and to a lesser extent Arab-Palestinian, influences and contributions.

Does Israeli Food Exist?

127

Two recent cookbooks illustrate the new emerging conceptualization of Israeli food. The first, The Book of New Israeli Food: a Culinary Journey (2008), written by Janna Gur, the former editor of the influential Al Hashulchan (on the table) food magazine, and one of the first to promote Israeli food globally; and Jerusalem (2012) written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sam Tamimi, an Israeli and Palestinian chef duo, business partners, and owners of several popular London restaurants, which serve, what many term, modern Israeli food. These two books, in their own unique styles, introduce Israeli food as vibrant, dynamic, modern, and multicultural—a food culture that appreciates tradition and is connected to the land, but is not afraid to innovate, adopt, and adapt. The books demonstrate the transition Israeli food has made from the early Ashkenazi hegemonic concept to what Israeli geographer Meron Benvenisti described, with regard to Ashkenazi culture more broadly, as the end of “the dream of the white [European] sabra” (2012). It is worth noting that both books were not aimed at the Israeli domestic market. They can be seen as part of a broader gastro-diplomatic attempt to reshape the image of Israel globally. Ottolenghi and Tamimi devote their book to what they describe as “Jerusalemite” food, though one could read the book as a microcosm of Israeli food culture and society. They constantly emphasize the diversity of the city’s inhabitants, which has created an “immense tapestry of cuisines” (2012: 10). This point is also stressed by Gur, who refers to Israel as the “melting pot” and to Israeli food as combining diverse multiethnic food cultures. Nevertheless, while Gur questions whether “such a thing as Israeli cuisine” (2007: 16) exists, Ottolenghi and Tamimi argue that there are some typical elements, looser affinities, and local ingredients that bring together these diverse food cultures. What is clear from both books is that their idea of modern Israeli food represents an aspect of Israeli society that is multicultural, and which brings together diverse (and divided) religious, national, and ethnic (diasporic) communities. In many ways there seem to be clear parallels between Israel and the case studies of Canada and the United States in this volume, thus demonstrating the impact migration and internal divisions, whether ethnic, geographic, or otherwise, have on the national food culture and foodways. The books make an effort to discuss the wide range of Mizrahi and Arab-Palestinian food contributions and influences. In this regard, they mirror the transformation of Israeli society from one dominated by ideas of Europe to one more firmly rooted in the Middle East; in an interesting discursive change, Ashkenazi food is presented by Gur as [diasporic] Jewish food. Indeed, the Israeli chefs and food writers we interviewed were hard-pressed to come up with many Ashkenazi dishes that they saw as part of this concept of modern Israeli food. With regard to Arab-Palestinian food, both books recognize how relations between the two people have changed. Gur presents a chapter on Ramadan,12 which discusses the importance of “the rich delights that Muslim Arabs in Israel enjoy during the month” (2007: 274). She includes recipes for Mansaf (a lamb casserole), Qattayif, (pancakes filled with nuts or cheese), and Makroud (date and sesame cookies). Although Gur does not openly discuss the contribution of ArabPalestinians to Israeli food, she implicitly recognizes it. However, Gur also conflates Arab with Muslim and Muslim with Ramadan, eschewing the religious diversity of Arab-Palestinians in Israel. Nevertheless, this recognition is part of a wider change

128

The Emergence of National Food

in Israeli society with regard to its Arab-Palestinian citizens. Arab-Palestinians have become a much more visible presence in Israeli society and culture (see the discussion and contrasting point made by Gvion in this volume on the place and role of ArabPalestinians in Israel). In terms of food, Arab-Palestinian contributions and influences have only started to be recognized in the past two decades as Arab-Palestinian chefs and restaurants have become a regular culinary fixture, at least among some segments of the Jewish-Israeli society (see, for example, Hirsch, 2011; Ranta, 2016). Despite the recent willingness to recognize Arab-Palestinian contributions and influences, and understanding the sensitivities of labeling food traditions and cultures as Israeli, both books tread carefully on the subject of food ownership. Gur attempts to demonstrate that, while many Israeli dishes have Middle Eastern or Arab origins, the journey they have gone through in Israel makes them Israeli. Ottolenghi and Tamimi dedicate an entire page to food ownership but skirt the controversy by stating that nobody owns a dish because of the dynamic nature of food (2012: 16). The emphasis on the dynamic nature of food is one that several Jewish-Israeli chefs we interviewed also made. They recognize that some of the dishes that are termed Israeli have their origin in the kitchens of the Middle East and Palestine. Nevertheless, they argue that these dishes have been modified in how they are prepared, served, and consumed by Israelis. Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Palestinian chefs we interviewed did not share this view. They argue that what has, and is, happening is cultural appropriation. The image of Israeli food presented in these books raises a number of questions. Does the cataloguing and writing of different food traditions in cookbooks (as well as presenting them on TV programs and in restaurant menus) fuse them into national food? Into a cuisine? There is no doubt that much of what is presented as Israeli food is indeed eaten in Israel. However, with the exception of a number of dishes, mostly associated with street food, most of the food depicted in these cookbooks is not eaten regularly by the majority of the population. The deep divisions and structural inequalities13 in Israeli society naturally lead to separate food cultures, even though some food overlaps clearly exist. The existence and emergence of food divisions has been furthered by the arrival of large numbers of Russian and Ethiopian Jews over the past three decades, bringing with them their own food cultures and traditions. Additionally, some dishes that are presented in the books, from roasted aubergine and goat cheese mousse (Gur, 2007) to slow cooked veal with prunes and leek (Ottolenghi and Tamimi, 2012), while being modern, would not be recognized by most Israelis as part of their food culture. Lastly, while there is a strong emphasis in the discourse of modern Israeli food on local ingredients, very much in line with earlier Zionist ideals, as Israeli food writer Ronit Vered told us, much of these are imported, from rice and lentils to chickpeas and sesame.

So what is Israeli food? In this chapter we examined the recent international emergence of Israeli food. We took a historical view of the evolution of the narrative and discourse surrounding Israeli food, from an imposed European-Ashkenazi hegemonic concept to one claiming to

Does Israeli Food Exist?

129

represent the multiculturality of Israeli society. What we have demonstrated, more than anything else, is how difficult it is to impose a hegemonic concept or narrative with regard to food, and how complex the making of national food is. Due to its fluid and dynamic nature, food culture represents the continuous tug-of-war that exists between identities, histories, desires, fears, and tastes. Nowhere is this more so than in Israel, a state that contains deep divisions, a point recognized by Ottolenghi and Tamimi, who state that “the dialogue between Jews and Arabs, and often between Jews themselves, is almost non-existent. It is sad to note how little daily interaction there is between communities, with people sticking together in closed, homogenous groups” (2012: 12–13). The reason why the concept of Israeli food is multifaceted and contested, and why leading food writers and chefs struggle to define it, is because Israeli national identity is multifaceted and contested. This contestation mirrors the food cultural divisions we have discussed, between secular and religious; between several different concepts of national identity (Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Palestinian, and multiculturalIsraeli); and between an Israel looking toward Europe and one more rooted in the Middle East. These divisions, and indeed the continuing flows of migration, in many ways inhibit the creation of a coherent Israeli cuisine.

Notes 1 For example, the restaurants Shaya in New Orleans and Zahav in Philadelphia won the James Beard award for best American chefs; Palomar in London won restaurant of the year in the United Kingdom; and the Duchess restaurant in Amsterdam received a Michelin star. 2 The term refers to Jews of North African and Middle Eastern descent. 3 Jewish-Israeli families by and large sit down together for Friday dinners; Saturday is the Jewish day of rest. 4 A pita sandwich with aubergine, hardboiled egg, tahini, and salad, which emerged in recent years as an Israeli national dish (Vered, 2017). 5 Zionism is a Jewish national movement that arose in the late nineteenth century in Europe with the aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. 6 This is often referred to as the “negation of the Diaspora” (Raz-Krakotzkin, 1993). 7 The term refers to Jews of European descent. 8 The emphasis on buying only Jewish produce was an official policy of the Zionist leadership. 9 In Kosher laws, pareve refers to food that does not contain dairy or meat products. Observant Jews, who do not mix meat and dairy, are thus able to use pareve food in any meal. 10 Breaded and fried thin cuts of meat, which in Israel is most commonly made with chicken or turkey. 11 Collective agricultural communities. 12 The month in which Muslims fast from dawn till dusk. 13 And this is without taking into account the impact of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and people, the product of an unresolved conflict.

11

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation Liora Gvion

Introduction Every Wednesday, when Rafa, a 32-year-old nurse, gets home at 7 p.m., she feeds her family a dinner of traditional dishes prepared by her mother. During my interview with her she said she and her friends cook only what she called “modern dishes” that require little preparation time. If it were not for her mother, her family would eat traditional Palestinian food only when visiting senior family members or on holidays when she buys traditional dishes from a caterer. This chapter looks into possible explanations for the following question: how do Palestinian citizens of Israel interlink the gradual disappearance of their traditional national foods with potential acceptance into Israeli society? To answer this question I suggest looking at the changes that have taken place in Palestinian food practices in two spaces: the dwelling and the restaurant, which reveal different perspectives on cooking culture and labor. In addition to revealing the Palestinian community’s enthusiasm with modernization and detachment from their culinary tradition, these changes also testify to the community’s shifting attitudes. Palestinians citizens of Israel have begun to withdraw from their public support of the Palestinian national narrative in favor of promoting an alternative narrative that emphasizes individual upward mobility and winning acceptance in Israeli society. At the level of the dwelling, there is a gradual divorce from traditional culinary knowledge in favor of applying modern cooking technologies and industrially produced foods, which enable feeding a family with as little preparation time as possible. The women in particular see modernization as a process of discarding the traditional “Palestinian-ness” embedded in domestic food practices, as essential for entering professional and social circles and as worthy of the gains of the modernization process. At the same time, Palestinian chefs, who traditionally refrained from incorporating traditional dishes into their menus, redefine tradition as an asset that helps to distinguish their restaurants from other upscale places. They realize, however, that the professional decision to reconfigure tradition into upscale dishes is challenged by Jewish and Palestinian clients who expect their restaurants to conform to the traditional image of Palestinian restaurants.

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

131

The Palestinian restaurant and the Palestinian home The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which was not followed by the foundation of a Palestinian state, created a Palestinian community of 160,000 people who became, by law, Israeli citizens, but who were never perceived as full and legitimate partners in Israeli society (Rabinowitz and Abu Baker, 2002). They have remained, what Simmel (1950) identified as “strangers,” living inside and outside of Israeli society. Palestinian citizens of Israel were affected by modernization, which brought about professional opportunities and exposed them to new products. A Palestinian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia arose and aimed to establish itself within the Israeli economy. The exposure to democratic political apparatuses resulted in a rise in the level of education among women followed by more personal autonomy, promoted social as well as individual social mobility, raised political awareness, and stimulated organizations to achieve civil rights (Abu Saad, 2006; Blumen and Halevi, 2005; Saar, 2007; Jabareen, 2006; Kanaaneh, 2002; Rabinowitz and Abu Baker, 2002). However, while Palestinians aimed to present themselves as modern, state agencies commodified traditional Palestinian culture and presented Palestinians as a population on which modernity has skipped (Stein, 1998). The Palestinian food narrative was embodied in the narrative of the Nakba (the catastrophe), that is, the 1948 war when Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and villages by Israeli military troops. Senior females continued their culinary practices with the aim of exposing the younger generations to the ingredients that constituted the diet of the Nakba generation. Family members were called upon to remember the Nakba, developing collective national sentiments and agonizing over their non-recognized homeland (Gvion, 2012). Families visited the abandoned Palestinian villages. As they picked the herbs growing there, using them later to prepare various dishes, they embodied the landscape and the territory they associated as home in their food. These were claimed to contain the national Palestinian taste as once cooked by homemakers, and establishing the foundations for Palestinian solidarity (Ben Zeev, 2006). Traditionally, Palestinians in Israel distinguished between home food and restaurant food. The former rested on female knowledge and labor with the aim of sustaining Palestinian culinary tradition on the one hand and exposing family members to new foods and cooking technologies on the other hand, with the goal of preparing offspring to live in modern social environments (Gvion, 2009, 2012, 2014). Through their cooking, women created a domain where tradition and innovation were mixed into know-how knowledge that was preserved and transmitted from generation to generation (De Certau, 1998; Inness, 2001) and modified according to new circumstances. This culinary knowledge became a means of gaining control over the image of the community as it appeared to members as well as to individuals external to the community. In late modernity, however, the meaning of “home” has become increasingly precarious. Individuals are simultaneously “strangers” and home-comers in multiple life spheres. It becomes harder for individuals to establish identities and a sense of home on a shared normative basis (Ebert, 2017). Moreover, far from being a secure anchor of

132

The Emergence of National Food

identity, the home for marginalized groups has become the focus of neoliberal market forces and state intervention, turning into a locale in which individual and collective identities are configured (Vasta, 2017). This has implications for food knowledge and food practices. While domestic food labor testifies to the role women take in modernizing Palestinian society and preparing individuals to cope with market and state forces, restaurant food labor is a means by which Palestinians negotiate and partake in the construction of their public image and in the commodification of their culture. Professional cooking by chefs of minority groups often illuminates the connections between culinary and political processes and provides a glimpse into the prevailing web of power relations by revealing relations of trust, suspicion, and exchange between two cultures (Buettner, 2012; Gaytan, 2008; Gvion, 2014; Highmore, 2009; Ray, 2016; Ray and Srinivas, 2012). For example, Mexican haute cuisine in Tijuana is an imaginary political geography of Mexico as it interweaves conventional, nostalgic, and reinvented traditions with a labyrinthine negotiation of borders. The chefs propagate haute cuisine to differentiate the border from the idea of “Mexicanness” in southern United States and complicate conventional understanding of Mexican food (Walker, 2013). Nations, as noted by Anderson (1983), are imagined communities distinguished by the style in which they are imagined and engaged in the reproduction of nationalism. Banal nationalism, for example, is a process by which individuals are recruited into reproducing the nation by sustaining their beliefs that they have a national identity and reminding them of their nation and nationalism. This enables their identification and reproduction as “the people” (Billig, 1995). Palestinian citizens of Israel are not passive subjects who simply absorb Israeli national versions. Rather, they have used their food traditions to shape their own vision of the Israeli citizenship imposed on them. Many Palestinian men work in the restaurant business, where they learn about national ideologies and confront their less favorable images. At the same time, working in restaurants enables them to increase their visibility and turn the unfamiliar into familiar. In their decision whether to present their food in its domestic version, as novel or exotic, they contribute, as noted by Ferrero (2002), Narayan (1997), and Ray (2012) to the fabrication of ethnic dishes. They also decide whether to recapture their past or insinuate themselves into the rules of the host culture. The study of Palestinian restaurants in Israel, then, points to two allegedly incongruent identities, the ethnic and the professional. While ethnicity is taken as a sign of lack of expertise in upscale cookery and as a reproduction of unaltered native dishes, professional cooking creates expectations for novelties (Ray, 2016). The chefs are usually looked at as the outsiders who can be manipulated into filling a specific niche in the restaurant market (Brayton and Millington, 2011). Their recipes turn into means through which groups remember their histories and nurture sentiments of national belonging while also being adjusted to the tastes of their local customers (Chen, 2010; Liu, 2010; Naguib, 2006). Given the above, I suggest looking at the ways by which Palestinian citizens of Israel use cooking to communicate their version of national identity. Unlike the older generations who kept up with traditional Palestinian diet, the present generation of

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

133

chefs and homemakers intertwines their Palestinian identity with modernity. They see modernization as gradually replacing tradition. For women, food practices are a means by which they declare being modern and thereby worthy of acceptance into Israeli society. Chefs see modernity as enabling the prioritization of the professional component of their identity over the national one in the aim of gaining recognition as professionals. As part of their modern food practices, they turn Palestinian native culinary knowledge into an asset that enables marking difference in the culinary arena. However, their Jewish and Arab clients expect them to prioritize the ethnic component of their identity, which poses limitations on Palestinian chefs’ professional autonomy and ability to evolve professionally.

The cooks and the chefs In the late 1990s, when I started studying Palestinian cuisine in Israel, I recognized my interviewees’ fascination with modernity and how it impacted their understanding of tradition. Modernity, it was claimed, enabled women to prepare laborious dishes in little time. This helped sustain Palestinian traditional cookery and open up possibilities for exposing the community to new foods. Simultaneously, restaurateurs kept up with Palestinian culinary tradition by respecting the long-time distinction between home food and restaurant food and resisting attempts of Israeli culinary agents to monopolize their cuisine (Gvion, 2009). In recent years, the numbers of Palestinian female undergraduate and graduate students in my college classes have grown significantly. They knew very little about their native cuisine and claimed to do little cooking. Simultaneously, I realized that the traditional distinction between home food and restaurant food was blurred. Some Palestinians operated upscale restaurants where they incorporated sophisticated versions of domestic dishes into the menus. The changes mentioned above drove me back to Palestinian villages, homes, and restaurants. This chapter is based on data gathered in the course of 2017 when I conducted interviews with nine Palestinian chefs, who operate upscale restaurants, and fifteen professional women. The chefs, whom I tracked via two informants in the Palestinian community and articles in the press, were all professionally trained, did their internships both in Israel and abroad and opened their restaurants after working in the field. The women were in their thirties, full time professionals and mothers to young children. They were referred to me by my students, each of whom introduced me to a number of their friends. I randomly selected fifteen of them. In my meeting with both groups we spoke about the changes that have taken place in Palestinian cookery and their vision of the social position Palestinians occupy in Israel.

The domestic cook Historically, Palestinian women were in charge of the reproduction and sustainability of a distinctive Palestinian taste and its communication from one generation to the

134

The Emergence of National Food

next. Acquiring this taste was an integral part of one’s socialization. It rested on the appreciation and consumption of local and seasonal ingredients flavored with unique spices that marked Palestinian cookery. The establishment of a Jewish state in Israel generated certain changes in the Palestinian taste, up to a point where Palestinians started seeing it as one factor, among others, that interfered with their participation in Israeli society (Gvion, 2012). This, as I will show, generated among the recent generation of Palestinian women an abandonment of the traditional diet in favor of feeding their families food they see as modern. My interviewees claim that in modernizing their cuisine, they and their children acquire the taste for dishes consumed in Israeli public domains, such as universities and workplaces. Their mothers started the process by incorporating into the domestic menu dishes their husbands ate at the workplace or foods they learned of from their Jewish neighbors. The interviewees expanded their culinary repertoire to foods the previous generation would have rejected. Shirin, a 35-year-old social worker says: I always ate schnitzels and meatballs that my mother learned to prepare from our Jewish neighbor. My father insisted we eat modern dishes. I know how to prepare some of our traditional dishes and I would like my kids to love them but they want hamburgers and pizza.

Modern food practices, according to Shirin, have been part of the dwelling long enough for her generation to refrain from preparing traditional dishes. The latter signify the food of older generations, which youngsters neither wish to consume regularly nor to prepare. Previous generations of homemakers have made efforts to introduce their offspring to Palestinian culinary heritage and expected them to keep up with the tradition. Nevertheless, my interviewees cook less in general and less traditional dishes in particular. Some claim to obtain the necessary knowledge to reproduce Palestinian dishes. Others negate the expectation they expose their children to the Palestinian culinary legacy. Being modern, they argue, entitles them to focus on the means for achieving upward mobility as individuals, for instance getting an education, becoming professionals, and finding jobs that grant entry to the middle class, and redefining women’s obligations in the household. Letting go of traditional food practices is, according to my interviewees, a small price to pay for the benefits that come with modernity. Modernity, they add, further enables them to distance themselves from the Palestinian national narrative. Manar, 30, is the mother of a little girl and works in the human resources department of a big insurance company. She says: Being traditional won’t get us anywhere. It’s time we move on. Honestly, neither I nor my friends want to be part of a Palestinian state. We want to mingle, be modern. My mother insisted we ate the modern way since we were 2-years-old and exposed us to foods eaten by Israelis in order to get us used to the taste. When I get home from work, I want to play with my daughter, not cook. So we eat whatever is in the house. On the weekends we visit my parents and my mother always prepares traditional dishes for us to take home.

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

135

Rifa, 33, a physical education teacher and a mother of two, believes that traditional dishes are laborious and meant to keep women in the kitchen. We all work now and cannot afford the time to prepare them. In the old days it was essential women knew how to make use of seasonal items so nobody was hungry. Now it’s not really crucial that I recognize wild herbs or know how to make labane (strained yogurt which is turned into sour cheese).

Jamila, a math and a special education teacher, cooks traditional dishes but not in order to keep up with Palestinian tradition: I cook Palestinian dishes because they are healthy. I want my kids to be modern since I appreciate the benefits of modernity. I cook Italian or Asian because it’s trendy. We also eat out a lot in modern Arab restaurants.

Palestinian women, then, see modernity as liberating them from traditional female chores, as providing them with a way to instil new meaning to their roles as spouses and mothers and as enabling them to stress the unique concerns of Palestinian citizens of Israel, which weakens the Palestinian national narrative. Furthermore, modernity enables women to introduce their families to trendy eating and positions Palestinian cookery as one among other ethnic cuisines practiced in Israel. By reconfiguring Palestinian dishes as contributing to a healthy and multicultural discourse on food the women also define the Palestinian citizens of Israel as an ethnic group rather than a national minority. There is no point, they claim, in making an effort to see food as an essential feature of their identity. Nur, a police officer, says: I want my daughter to become a scientist or a physician. Why should she bother with cooking? I cook traditional foods because they are healthy and because I’m very efficient in the kitchen. But there are more important things in life than knowing your traditional dishes.

From a practical point of view, according to Nur, the preparation of traditional dishes implies inefficient time management and a failure to juggle between domestic chores, maternal roles, and work. Moreover, access to abundant food markets reduces the need to feed a family off seasonal items or apply traditional food knowledge because women can easily acquire a novel culinary repertoire which opens up venues for practicing a modern lifestyle. The women also argue that since traditional dishes are still prepared by senior females or caterers, they are not required to equip themselves with traditional food knowledge. This is evidenced by Rafa: My mother prepares them all the time and sends me food. On Ramadan nights, when it is customary to eat traditional foods, I buy ready-made food from a caterer. There’s no need for us to know how to prepare these dishes because they are accessible to us.

136

The Emergence of National Food

Access to women who possess traditional food knowledge is one reason why professional Palestinian women refrain from engaging in the sustainability of their culinary heritage. Their purchasing power enables them to continue serving traditional dishes whenever the circumstances call for it, thus showing their respect for tradition while simultaneously keeping up with a modern and middle-class lifestyle. Manar tells us: Cooking traditional foods takes us backwards. We must show we aren’t traditional but worthy of partaking in Israeli society. I don’t mind my daughter eating kusa mahchi (stuffed squash) or mandsaf (rice with lamb meat and pine-nuts) in a restaurant and knowing her great grandmother prepared it regularly. Giving up my tradition doesn’t bother me because I’m getting a lot in return.

The modernization of the Palestinian community, Jamila argues, enables them to detach themselves from the national Palestinian narrative and, instead, promote their acceptance in Israel: People forget that it’s also our responsibility to enter the society we live in. We cannot complain all the time about the government neglecting us. If we become modern we have a greater chance for being accepted. Israel is where I live and I don’t want to live in a Palestinian state, nor can I relate to Palestinians in the West Bank. We can manage the discrimination and strive for individual mobility.

The women then, see modernization not only as a means of winning acceptance in Israel but also as enabling the construction of a particular Palestinian narrative in Israel. One that is detached from the Palestinian national narrative, and rests on issues such as the modernization of foodways, as a means by which they can win social acceptance, which is of major concern to Palestinian citizens of Israel. Upholding traditional food practices, then, is seen as drawing Palestinians back to traditionalism and as contributing to their image as a population over which modernization has skipped. Until recently, food was viewed as the only domain over which Israeli authorities had no control and which Palestinians refrain from exposing. Hence, native food is no longer a stock of invaluable distinctive knowledge but rather a marker of traditionalism, something that prevents upward mobility and participation in Israeli society. Its abandonment, the women claim, opens up venues of winning acceptance, if not as a national minority then as individuals.

The chefs Cooking has always been a popular occupation among Palestinian men in Israel. It was a secure way of avoiding the lower-ends of the job market, winning professional autonomy, and gaining financial upward mobility. The chefs I interviewed turned to cooking after they failed to get a job in the profession for which they had been trained. However, either during their internship or when cooking for upscale restaurants in Israel or abroad, they realized the essentiality of their Palestinian native culinary

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

137

knowledge to their professional identity. The recruitment of that knowledge into a means of differing their restaurants both from other Palestinian restaurants and other upscale locales was challenged by Jewish and Palestinian customers, who expected restaurateurs to conform to the common image of Palestinian restaurants in Israel. Jews negated the idea of upscale Palestinian dishes and Palestinians defined eating out as part of a modern lifestyle of which traditional dishes were not part. Musa says: Clients refer to us as Arabs who can make good hummus (popular chickpea dip). We’re chefs and we’re entitled to plan our menus as we like. Arabs and Jews think they can tell me what to serve. This is unacceptable.

Amin tells us about clients who ask for dishes that are not on the menu and warn him against the consequences of failing to meet his clients’ expectations: Some insist I make them kebobs (ground meat on skewers). Others ask me to get them hummus from the restaurant across the street and tell me that I’m expected to serve certain dishes or else people won’t come. Last week I had enough and asked a group of 10 to leave.

Jews and Arabs, then, see the chef ’s ethnicity as limiting the menu to dishes clients identify as ‘Arab’. Expectations that the chef prepare the clients’ dishes on demand also reveal the extent to which Jews see the employer-employee relationships as embedded in Jewish-Arab interactions. Ziad notes that in addition to denying chefs the freedom of distinguishing their restaurant, customers assume that Palestinian restaurants are less profitable than local ones owned by Jews: People complain about me charging them for every dish they order. They tell me I should charge less than other upscale restaurants. These dishes are hard to prepare and require I have a large kitchen staff. All that counts for them is me being Palestinian.

Musa adds: We, too, are to blame for it. We accustomed you to Arab restaurants serving plenty of inexpensive food rather than gourmet food.

Being Palestinians, according to the chefs, implies that the cost of production should not be embedded in the price of the dish and that Palestinian food labor is not worthy of adequate return values regardless of their performance in the kitchen. Shukri argues: Ethnicity has nothing to do with making a living unless you’re a Palestinian living in Israel. I’m not taken as a professional with comparable knowledge and credentials to Jewish chefs. My cousin’s clients in his restaurant in Amsterdam appreciate his ethnicity.

Credentials cannot overrule the alleged incongruence between ethnicity and professional cooking. Rather, cooking in Israel implies that ethnicity determines the price and range of dishes. In addition, the chefs’ ethnicity also requires, in his clients’

138

The Emergence of National Food

opinion, that he suffer the consequences of terrorist attacks or political escalation, as mentioned by Amad: People stop coming. Even regulars. They punish me and tell me they don’t feel safe at my place because Palestinians are firing missiles in Gaza. I grew up here and my parents and grandparents were born here.

Amad identifies a common mode of thought in relation to Palestinian citizens of Israel. While the restaurateurs, as the women, differentiate themselves from inhabitants of the West Bank, Jews see the two groups as one and assume an immediate support for actions taken by the latter. But working and living among Jews, according to Musa, may reduce the effects political events have on the restaurant business: I’ve known most of my Jewish clients for years. They trust me and keep coming no matter what. Occasional visitors cancel during political instability.

Personal acquaintance with clients, according to Musa, minimizes the risk of being affected by political escalation and initiates relations of obligations between customers and chefs as they enable customers’ to see the chef as a trustworthy individual rather than as a representative of the Palestinian people. Zahar, who has also lived his entire life in a town where Arabs and Jews live together, mentions another consequence of long-term acquaintance: We’re all for peace here. During periods of political instability, some Jews tell us to go back to where we came from. But we’ve been here for thousands of years. It’s you who have come from various places.

Political instability causes Jews to divert the Jewish-Palestinian dialogue from a one-to-one interaction into a dialogue between two social groups by reminding Palestinians that they are “strangers” to the state. Zahar, however, suggests viewing his people as natives to the land and the Jews as “newcomers.” He claims the fragile boundary between knowing Palestinians on a personal basis and as representatives of a national entity intertwines his struggle to make a living using his native culinary knowledge with his struggle for recognition as a national minority. While clients avoid Palestinian restaurants as an act of protest against the Palestinian national struggle, the chefs wish to differentiate themselves from Palestinians in the occupied territories. They construct their restaurants as politically neutral terrains knowing that at times of political instability Jews see them as Palestinians rather than as chefs. In order to rule out the consequences of political instability, Amin believes it is essential that they promote a distinctive narrative: It’s time we stop whining about all that has happened to us, take responsibility over our lives and voice our particular needs. We no longer voice our support in the Palestinian struggle. Living in a racist state has its challenges and we need to learn to live with it. It’s time we move on, get an education and work hard rather than complain.

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

139

As with the women, Amin believes that improving the position of Palestinians in Israel is possible only via individual agency. The dream of a Palestinian nation as a community of fate has lost its power. Education, professional training, and hard work are all redefined as worthy of dissociating themselves from the Palestinian national narrative in the hopes of winning acceptance as professionals. Transforming and reconfiguring female native culinary knowledge and propagating the food knowledge via their restaurant are ways of modernizing Palestinian food by commodifying and incorporating it into the local restaurant scene. Musa explains: It’s time we take the dishes that our women have prepared and serve them to trendy and curious eaters. People can dine on Palestinian food the way they dine on Thai, Japanese, Italian, or Vietnamese food.

The growing interest in ethnic cuisines provides an opportunity for reconfiguring traditional Palestinian dishes and transforming them into marketable assets. As such, Musa suggests, Palestinian cookery in Israel turns ethnic and is positioned alongside other ethnic cuisines. Although meant to increase the visibility of Palestinian cookery, this definition also marks Palestinian restaurants as sites where chefs are simultaneously “strangers” and at home. Because of their insider-outsider position, the Palestinians in Israel are actively experienced through both, affinities and differences with the cultural others surrounding them and their restaurants. In other word, they are both integrated and marginalized. Nevertheless, the chefs feel that the nostalgic wave that brings Israeli Jews to look for dishes their grandmothers used to prepare has skipped the Palestinian population. Rif, who operates a catering business, says: The Jewish settlers were expected to give up their native dishes. You’re now eating them in restaurants or occasionally preparing them at home. The settlers did not expect us to change our food practices. Now we’re at a stage where we change them in order to be modern. It’ll take another generation or two until we can eat our traditional dishes in restaurants.

The Jews’ search for traditional food, according to Rif, emerges out of their abandonment in return for winning national recognition and also because they can add a nostalgic flare to their menus. Palestinians in diaspora can also intertwine their longing for their homeland with their yearning for its food. This, according to Shukri, accounts for the success his restaurant had in Germany: Palestinians and Arabs from various countries ate in my place. I upgraded the dishes my mother used to make. They miss their food and dine on our dishes the way they dine on French food.

Palestinian restaurateurs in the diaspora see local Palestinians as an ethnic group and ethnicity as a commodity that marks the restaurant as different. They can afford developing nostalgic feelings toward dishes to which they have little access. In Israel, Jamal says, clients claim their spouses or mothers would prepare these dishes should

140

The Emergence of National Food

they ask them to. They would not order them in restaurants for fear they will be viewed as traditionalists. Ali tells us: You made us believe that the only way of becoming modern was by abandoning our tradition. Palestinian clients want me to serve shrimps in cream sauce. They think it’s modern.

In order to avoid the traps of traditionalism and being perceived as a modernist, Ali opened an Italian restaurant, which is popular among Palestinians. Many Italian dishes, adjusted to the Palestinian taste, have entered domestic kitchens. His professional skills enable him to introduce an Italian-Arab fusion: What is for Palestinians Italian food with an Arab flavor and an opportunity to feel modern, is for Jews a different take on Italian food.

Turning to Italian food, with the aim of attracting Jews and Palestinians, is a professional decision that marks Ali as committed to constructing the image of Palestinians as modern. The enthusiasm with modernity manifested in an “Arab-Italian” fusion enables Palestinians to eat, in a welcoming environment, Italian dishes that do not challenge their taste. The chefs wish the modernization of Palestinian cooking leaves room not only for reconfiguring traditional Palestinian food as upscale dishes, but also for narrating the story of Palestinian citizens of Israel and voicing their protest against the position their cuisine occupies in the contemporary Israeli food scene. Shukri says: In cooking our grandmothers’ dishes we expose people to the Palestinian narrative, to our history. We’re the only ones in this county who have a cuisine. This food sustained our identity and you don’t let me make a living of it.

Cooking, on the one hand, seems a safe way of complicating the Palestinian narrative in Israel. The dishes narrate the story of Palestinians living in Israel, a narrative that stresses innovation, professionalism, and detachment from the narrative of the Nakbah and the Palestinian national struggle. From a stock of knowledge kept within the Palestinian community to which Jews have limited access, food becomes an invaluable resource to be mobilized in order to create a distinctive narrative of Palestinians in Israel, one of modernity with a quest for social acceptance. Through their food labor and attempts to adjust food to the Palestinian and Jewish taste, restaurateurs realize the limited control they have over their public image, the limitation of commodifying Palestinian cookery knowledge, and how rooted is their position as “strangers.”

Conclusion This chapter suggested looking at the changes in food practices among Palestinian citizens of Israel both in the home and in Palestinian upscale restaurants. I argued that

Obliterating or Reviving the Nonexisting Nation

141

the preoccupation with food in the two locales points to the ways in which Palestinians in Israel intertwine potential acceptance into Israeli society with modernization and voluntary detachment from Palestinian culinary tradition and national narrative. The home is a site for modernizing the family and the community. The quest for being taken as modern in order to win acceptance in Israeli society has led women to interpret the preparation and consumption of their native dishes in domestic settings as receding them toward traditionalism. Their consumption depends on their provision by senior members of the family and on their consumption power as the foods turn into commodities bought from caterers or prepared by professional cooks and integrated into restaurant menus. This enables women to practice a modern lifestyle by trading home chores for consumption and also for exposing offspring to new foods and cooking technologies. In addition, Palestinian chefs, who have refrained from serving dishes that have historically been consumed in the dwelling, started commodifying traditional dishes in order to position these dishes, in their upscale version, alongside other ethnic cuisines. The reduction of their cuisine from the level of the national to the level of the ethnic was meant to differentiate, distinguish, and show how the reconfiguration of their native culinary knowledge enabled their participation in the domain of upscale dining. However, their clients’ reaction to their menus caused them to understand the limited control they have over the commodification of their food, the public image of their cuisine, and their ability to make a living off their food. While they wished to be addressed as professionals who mobilize ethnic knowledge as an invaluable asset that marks difference, their Jewish and Palestinian customers prioritized the ethnic component of their identity and saw their cumulative knowledge and credentials as a disguise of their essential identity. To conclude, in the contemporary Palestinian home and restaurant, different cultural histories that have been marginalized within a nation are interconnected. This interconnection creates an assumed solidarity of its inhabitants with a broader collective, regardless of the extent to which they are perceived as its members. Because of their insider-outsider position, Palestinians in Israel are able to actively construct a home from various vantage points and observe and experience affinities and differences with the cultural others surrounding them. In the restaurants, chefs aim at drawing an imaginary political geography of Israel, which includes them as professionals who reconfigure ethnicity as a professional tool. The latter is embedded in a web of social relations and negotiations over the essence of Palestinian cookery in Israel. In so doing, they construct a setting that suggests alternative images to Palestinian cuisine. The women and the chefs introduce a narrative of despair, one that emphasizes their willingness to collaborate with the eradication of the nonexisting state in the hope that it would win them acceptance in a state of which they are citizens, but not members.

12

Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States: An Empirical or Conceptual Problem? Amy B. Trubek

Introduction There is no coherent narrative, easily accessible, when addressing American national cuisine. Familiar narrative tropes of history and anthropology—continuity and change over the longue durée, a before and after analysis after a seminal political or economic event, the tireless burden of one group or the status benefits of another—can address elements but do not really help to connect the dots or create a definitive road map. There may not be a “there” there, no evident system that integrates identity (American) with culinary practices (shared ingredients, techniques, and dishes). Without a clearly identifiable set of components and with no clear mode of integration, does it, in fact exist? It can not be said of the United States, though, that her vast geography has never been integrated through national projects from the concrete to the abstract; in other words, parks, roadways and bridges to public education and military might. Perhaps, though, the problem of a national cuisine for the United States lies in the necessary reliance on the everyday acts of its citizens as much as the explicit efforts of the nationstate in order for its existence. As in the question, if you build it, will they come, what about if everyone does not make the same food or identify the food they make as uniquely American, does a national cuisine exist? The problem, then, might be one of culture not of politics. Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson defines cuisine as a “cultural construct that systematizes culinary practices and transmutes the spontaneous culinary gesture into a stable cultural code” (2004: 3). She uses this definition to help explain the strength and solidity of French cuisine, arguably a world-renowned national cuisine, one, as she points out, embedded in the initial development of the French nation; the stories of the acts of revolution themselves, the attempts to overthrow monarchy and replace it with democracy, were associated with food: “let them eat cake.” Food reproduces and reinforces ideas of French-ness both as culture and nation: “The cuisine of France . . . is greater than the sum of its parts” (2004: 6). The concept of American culture does not begin to

Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States

143

have the same coherence as in the French case. This might be due to the heterogeneity of the constructs of both culture and nation: France is smaller in scope and scale, more homogenous in its people, and more centralized in its political organization. In the United States, there are so many (literally) moving parts—people, identities, ingredients, traditions, expectations, structures of government. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz tackled the “problem” of American national cuisine with vigor and helped frame many subsequent scholarly investigations (1997). He does not think an array of dishes can be cobbled together to create a cuisine. His issue, like Parkhurst Ferguson’s, is one of coherence. For Mintz, it is the lack of integrated communities involved in a shared dialogue about what defines both the food and the group which reveals the void, the no “there” there. His definition of coherence is grass-roots; it has to happen in practical ways, in shared customs and traditions. The case for an American national cuisine falls apart because of a lack of shared discourse and practice, never mind whether there is any type of nationalist project around food. In some sense, he sees American cuisine as always disparate and inchoate—regional foodways, industrial foods, restaurant haute cuisine—and this is not a failure of the American people or their practices but an accurate reflection of how cultures and cuisines actually work; there is no guarantee of a national cuisine if contemporary sociopolitical organization is defined by nation-states. His skepticism extends beyond the particular problems of the American case. Any definition of a national cuisine is a “holistic artifice” (1996: 104). There might be a middle way, a means of identifying certain nationalistic elements in both the discourses and practices around food in the United States. Krishnendu Ray (2008) explores this possibility by making an empirical investigation of the connection between discourse and practice in one place: New York City. In his excellent summary of Mintz’s main arguments, he identifies four conceptual problems interfering with any idea of an American national cuisine: spatial bounding (it is too big); temporal continuity (it is too new and there are too many new people); systemic coherence (there are too many elements); and self-consciousness (we do not have a deep or long investment) (2008: 264). He focuses on the final point, self-consciousness, and uses fine-dining restaurants as the case study, and discussions in print media for the evidence. He compares the discussions of restaurants and French cuisine and restaurants and American cuisine over a 150-year period. He finds a growing selfawareness of the category, American cuisine, especially in contrast to the long powerful association between fine-dining restaurants and French cuisine. So, an American national cuisine might exist when people try to articulate a vision that is distinct from other, perhaps more coherent cuisines (Ray, 2008: 288–90). There is something to be said for a structural necessity of an “other” when it comes to the idea of any cuisine, since opposition (in most cases, for example, the monarchy, the colonial rule) and differentiation (in all cases, for example, from neighbors big and small) is built into the nationalist project. However, what if the problems of an American national cuisine were seen as the necessary elements for understanding and possibly defining it? Thus, perhaps it exists only in differentiation from the other nations and in contrast to the everyday practices and identities that are more compelling predictors of what happens. Thus, American

144

The Emergence of National Food

cuisine is regional, it is industrial, it is polyglot, and we often, but not always, care about it. That just might be its national identity, even if this does not fit into definitions based on coherent projects of the nation-state. In some sense, an American national cuisine exists if we change the categories by which we connect the dots between a definition of nation and an idea of cuisine. But there is the vexed issue of now versus then—do certain historical conditions need to be in place in order to make sense of a contemporary case? Looking closely at New England, one of the earliest regions to be fully colonized, the home of early nationalistic fervor, the site of the Boston Tea Party—our moment of comradery with the French (not cake or bread but tea), and a region with rich agrarian and industrial histories—can help build, in the style of Ray’s empirical analysis of New York City restaurants, a possible case for a redefined American national cuisine. In this case, the evidence comes from several empirical investigations of regional food practices occurring over a decade. The first was part of a qualitative exploration of place-based foods such as maple syrup and artisan cheese (including interviews and participant-observation), and the second was in concert with other food researchers based in New England interested in developing tools for sugarmakers, cheesemakers, and chefs (including surveys, interviews, and focus groups) (Trubek, 2008, 2016; Lahne and Trubek, 2014; DiStefano and Trubek, 2015). The final inquiry was historical; this was an examination of regional cookbooks and other primary source materials in order to better understand everyday practices (Trubek, 2017). Thus, there is specific knowledge of New England iconic foods and regional cuisine; but as in Mintz’s essay, Cuisine: High and Low and Not at All, it can also be used to consider the larger query as to whether an American national cuisine is possible or feasible.

The historical case of New England So, if nationalism is a project and cuisine is a system, how do they connect or not connect in New England? This is a region in the northeastern United States encompassing six states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. There is only one major metropolitan area in this region—Boston—and large rural areas including farms, mostly relatively small (by American standards). The regional population is fourteen and a half million, again relatively small by American standards, but two times more than the population of Denmark and Costa Rica, both nation-states known for at least iconic national foods, if not complex cuisines. One way to answer this question as to the optimal connection between nationalism and cuisine is with a historical narrative, considering them rooted in the past and then focusing on emergence: we need to identify the development of a coherent system, an integrated set of practices, and a shared self-referenced discourse. Another way is to do a scan of the geographical region: how can we search for evidence of examples—foods, dishes, and stories that reflect or reinforce a nationalist project and a cuisine? Historian Harvey Levenstein’s history of American cuisine, Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (2003), argues that the British provided the original structure for any American cuisine, which might be understood as ironic,

Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States

145

since it was a rebellion against the oppressive hand of British rule, especially taxation without representation, that led to the creation of this nation, the United States of America. As Levenstein puts it, there was political liberation but “Americans never liberated themselves from the British culinary heritage” (2003: 3). The British influence is particularly strong in the regional cuisine of New England, for reasons mentioned above. The historically persistent elements—the legacy of the British— can be seen in a generally bland diet that relies heavily on preparing and eating large cuts of meat and consuming vegetables that have been cooked or preserved and not served fresh. There is also a long-term dedication to sweetened foods. Certain dishes remain iconic to the region and reveal this legacy: Boston baked beans, New England boiled dinner, Yankee pot roast, apple pie. All these dishes reflect their historical longevity in both techniques and ingredients. Boston baked beans are cooked slowly in a ceramic pot (traditionally in a wood-fired oven or hearth); other than dried beans the other ingredients are maple syrup, pork fat, and yellow mustard. The New England boiled dinner takes vegetables (carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onions) and an inexpensive cut of beef or pork and cooks them in water on the stove top (this dish is remarkably like the French pot au feu). Yankee pot roast is a variation on a theme; in this case an inexpensive, not fatty cut of beef is braised with wine, tomatoes, or beef stock in the oven with root vegetables (carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions) until tender. Thus, the desire for forms of freedom from oppression and the search for religious tolerance that propelled many of the early colonists to New England did not extend to matters of cuisine. The investment in reproducing the British culinary style meant that early colonists took great pains to bring over the necessary ingredients—wheat, cattle, pigs, chickens, apples—so that dishes like Yankee pot roast and apple pie could be made. The taste of the familiar was powerful, instigating efforts small and large. For example, the early colonial period is characterized by small farms and village settlements based primarily on subsistence patterns of food production. In the earlier phases of settlement, the patterns tended to involve more clustered farms and village settlements. A Vermont hill farm, for example, would include a few dairy cows, backyard chickens for eggs and meat, a small orchard, primarily of apple trees, and a vegetable plot with carrots, potatoes, and other root vegetables. By the early 1800s, settlers wanted larger tracts of land and greater independence. A more substantial Vermont farm, such as John Whittemore’s one hundred acres near Saint Albans in the northwest of the state, also produced wheat, oats, potatoes, and raised a herd of cattle, most sold to middlemen serving urban markets (Albers, 2000: 139–40). Other than potatoes, all these animals and plants were originally imported from England, thus building a new cuisine rooted in the British one. This was no mean feat, given that in those days, all imported goods were transported in wooden boats, powered only by wind. The first cookbook published in America by an American author (rather than a reproduction of an already published British one such as the very popular book, The Art of Cooking Made Plain and Simple by Hannah Glasse, first published in 1747) was Amelia Simmon’s American Cookery, published in 1796. The last lines of the book’s subtitle are “Adapted to this country and all grades of life.” She continued

146

The Emergence of National Food

the now established assumption that this new nation’s cuisine was rooted in the culinary traditions of European forbearers. The first four recipes are about roasting meat: beef, mutton, beef, and lamb. The author goes on to explore fish, and then subsequent sections include roots and vegetables, beans, peas, herbs, cakes, and pastries. Cookbooks, however, are prescriptive documents that do not easily reveal whether these recipes were actively used by early settlers or villagers. Martha Ballard’s diary, bridging the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, does provide rich detail about the everyday diet of a Yankee family (a term used for inhabitants of New England) during early decades of the new nation. Ballard, made well-known by historian Laurel Thacher Ulrich’s compelling story of her life as a midwife, wrote often in her diary about gardening and cooking. She wrote every day for twenty-seven years, beginning in 1785 (Vileisis, 2008: 12–16), and very often, the subject was the process of getting food from farm to plate: “She spread manure, pulled weeds, noticed sprouts, and then picked, cooked, and savored the first string beans of the season” (Vileisis, 2008: 21–22). Her diet was resolutely British; she cultivated and consumed cabbages, beets, carrots, string beans, onions, and most days her meals included eating some type of meat. On April 13, 1794, we “cookt a legg of pork” and on May 11, 1800, she “cookt the head and harslett of a Veal which we killd yesterday” (Ballard, n.d.). She was fifty when she started the diary; she had already lived through British colonial rule, the Revolutionary War, and was just beginning as an American citizen under the presidency of George Washington. Her diet (although it did incorporate New World ingredients such as turkey, potatoes, and corn) was full of the “culinary gestures” Ferguson refers to that continue the stable culinary code of British cuisine. Amelia Simmons’ cookbook does reveal already emerging cases of hybridity, where British cuisine meets new ingredients and an expanding supply chain. One such amalgamation involves the incorporation of corn meal into the colonial diet, as seen in the dish Indian pudding. This dish, which uses a traditional British style of sweetened and baked pudding using cereal grains, keeps the milk and molasses but uses corn meal instead of rye, oats, or wheat. Her recipe begins with scalded milk, then adding cornmeal as well as raisins, eggs, molasses, or sugar and spices. By the 1700s, potatoes had already been brought from the New World to England (and all the British Isles) and were fully incorporated into British cuisine, so the inclusion in her American cookbook of a section on potatoes never discusses it as an exotic or new-fangled ingredient: “A Roast Potato is brought on with roast Beef, a Steak, a Chop or Fricasses; good boiled with a boiled dish; make an excellent stuffing for a turkey, water or water fowl; make a good pie and a good starch for many uses” (Simmons, 1796: 18). The food plants intrinsic to the Native American diet—corn, squash, potatoes—make their way into, first, the colonial diet and then become part of the broader, emerging American cuisine, but, especially in the case of New England, they were always tethered to Old World culinary codes. As the American nation emerges and solidifies during the nineteenth century, another element of the incomplete integration of the nationalist project and the culinary system emerges: the vastness of the potential supply chain and the rapid industrialization of food production, from farm to plate. New England remains a region

Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States

147

with many small, subsistence homesteads but there is a parallel emergence of new regions devoted to farming at a larger scale and new means—canals and railroads— of moving the goods from the West into the rural and increasingly expanding urban areas of the East. This leads to greater and more diverse access to a food supply now defined as much by a national impetus for devoting larger tracts of land toward the production of singular crops and animals—wheat, chicken, and cows for examples—to be sold to urban citizens: “By 1860, the growing demand of urban eaters had already prompted New England’s traditionally self-reliant farmers to reconfigure their lands with more cash crops to supply city tables with vegetables, fruits, butter, and poultry” (Vileisis, 2008: 38). And then there was the global trade of food stuffs and food laborers that began with the British and continued even after the end of monarchy and the beginning of democracy: fish, molasses, spices, slaves (Mintz, 1985). This meant that by the 1860s, many New Englanders (and throughout the East) had little to no firsthand experience with raising food themselves, and the vast bounty of the national and industrial supply chain meant they could either easily purchase the ingredients for Yankee (read British) meals or find ingredients that spoke to other cultural ethnic traditions: Irish, Italian, Polish. Pat Willard, in her introduction to America Eats: On the Road with the WPA (2008), a book that explores essays put together by writers hired by the American government under the New Deal to document regional American foodways, points out that, as is the case with Sidney Mintz, there are many who opine, in fact lament, “our national cuisine and the poverty of its heritage” (Willard, 2008: 1). She argues that this is really self-regret on the part of the experts, for they wish that the “food we think of as truly American—think pies and barbecues, thick stews, a good roasted chicken, a tender slab of steak—did not develop over hundreds of years from the rustic charms of peasant fare or through the haughty demands of imperial refinements” (Willard, 2008: 1). She, too, wonders if the constant implicit compare and contrast with other national cuisines, the pressure to somehow meet the French standard or to measure up in regard to Indian or Chinese imperial practices, has been a set up for failure. In a humorous vein, she asks, “The bad press that our national cuisine has received at times is partly due to timing. You can’t tell me every other country in the world has not had its share of bad kitchen days. But in comparison to others, ours is decidedly young cuisine” (Willard, 2008: 2). Willard embraces the haphazard mess that might just be our national cuisine: a mish-mash of culinary techniques, a mash up of agrarian and industrial, a constant hybrid of individual, regional, national, and global ingredients. It is fitting that Willard derives her analysis from her editorial work pulling together essays from the never published America Eats project, the only ever federally funded initiative by the US government to document how America eats by collecting personal stories and reporting on festivals and other public events. This was part of a larger effort by the Roosevelt administration to assist out of work writers and artists hard hit by the great economic depression of the 1930s. The goal was never to create a cookbook but to help document “traditional cookery”; even almost a century ago, everyday home cooking was seen to be a fragile enterprise, due to the “mass production of foodstuff and partly cooked foods” (Willard, 2008: 4) into the everyday life of many Americans.

148

The Emergence of National Food

Farm to Table in New England: A glimmer of the future? So, the question remains: do we have a national cuisine? The answer remains: it depends on your standards and expectations and the analytic methods of containment. In light of the evidence from New England, both the systemic coherence and selfconsciousness (as in Ray’s definition) emerged from Europe, particularly the British culinary model. This indicates that the foodways were never a fundamental component of the American nationalist project, at least not in the early days of the founding of the nation through the Civil War. And, as the efforts of the WPA America Eats project indicate, emerging in the 1880s and defining by the 1930s, the increasing important of mass-produced foods with an increasingly national reach became the next system— industrial not national cuisine. So, to return to the earlier discussion about containing food practices into a certain conceptual frame, the definition of an American national cuisine is as follows: the spatial boundaries are created by regions, temporal continuity and change must always be involved, any coherence exists at the intersection of agrarian, domestic, and industrial practices, and, finally, it is not really central to the reproduction of national identity. New England—as a region, as a set of shared culinary ideals and practices—might just confirm that definition. The cuisine of the region includes iconic foods and dishes understood to have a historical and cultural continuity—the Boston baked beans and Indian pudding mentioned earlier but also chicken pie, blueberry cobbler, and the cornmeal and molasses-infused Anadama bread—but there are also attempts to create a new culinary coherence. Simultaneously there are hybrid culinary styles emerging all the time as well as a continued reliance on industrial processed foods in both domestic and commercial settings. A haphazard mess, perhaps, but what if instead it was called consistently chaotic and innovative? Two examples can help make the case for this definition of a national cuisine: maple syrup and the farm to table movement. Maple syrup is an iconic food ingredient that is unique to the northern forests of North America. The majority of maple syrup produced in the United States is done so in New England. Maple sugaring long predates the establishment of strong national borders between the United States and Canada; fur trappers and traders were aware of and possibly trading syrup by the early 1700s. As early as 1672, a French Catholic missionary, during a journey on the northern side of Lake Huron in 1672 writes of a baptism where “maple water” was used. Historical evidence indicates that the Abenaki taught the colonists how to gauge the sugar maple tree with an axe and then use bark buckets to collect the sap; settlers called maple syrup “Indian molasses” (Trubek, 2016). By 1749, other settlers were writing about harvesting sap and boiling it down to maple syrup in large ironware kettles. In northern New England and Southeastern Canada, most rural families owned lands with a “sugarbush” or a stand of sugar maple trees. For most early settlers in the region, maple syrup was the only available sweetener and more often than not the syrup was cooked down until it crystallized into maple sugar because it was easier to store (Trubek, 2016). Although the commercial production of cane sugar combined with government subsidies allowed for processed, refined sugar to become widely available and affordable to New Englanders during the twentieth century,

Nationalism, Culinary Coherence, and the Case of the United States

149

the process of sugaring and the regional identity with maple syrup did not decline or disappear. In fact, there are more taps and more maple syrup being produced in New England today than since the Second World War. In 2012, 378 million gallons of maple syrup were produced in New England (USDA, 2016). In February and March, all the New England states host maple festivals, maple weekends, open houses at individual sugar houses, and more. These events tend to celebrate a culinary continuity: the long-term and persistent harvesting of this wild food by people in New England and the everyday consumption of this sweetener—on pancakes, in baked goods, stirred in coffee. But there are also many culinary transformations: up until the rise of processed refined cane sugar, the syrup was boiled down until it became crystallized and solid, used as a sugar. Without being able to easily compete with cane sugar, maple in the form of syrup was valorized and the traditions of boiling sap into syrup were connected to rural communities and identity in New England. In the twenty-first century, with rising concerns about the negative health implications of consuming both cane sugar and high fructose syrup, a new identity for maple syrup has formed: a healthy, natural sweetener (Trubek, 2016). New enterprises now create maple blocks and maple wafers or infused maple syrups (ginger, lime) for uses both savory and sweet. Maple syrup remains an iconic food of New England, but it does not always look or taste the same as the past. And a similar story of continuity and change can be told of many other iconic foods defining different geographic regions: Vidalia onions from Georgia, Hatch chilies from New Mexico, Montmorency cherries from Michigan. The Farm to Table movement is another set of on the ground activities that function to reinforce and reproduce our regional, intersectional, and hybrid version of national cuisine. In many ways, this set of practices merges aspirations and actions; a countercuisine to the components of American cuisine characterized by a lack of spatial or temporal bounding and the relatively thin history of a peasant or subsistence based agrarian or culinary traditions has emerged. A counter-cuisine is an intervention into a dominant culinary paradigm, a movement and a moment when food becomes a vehicle for social change. The genesis began almost one hundred years ago as part of the back to the land movement, a sociopolitical protest against the increased industrialization and urbanization of American social and economic systems (Trubek, 2008). This movement, grounded in Thomas Jefferson’s vision (he was one of America’s First Founders and primary author of the Declaration of Independence) of an enlightened and empowered citizenry engaged in agrarian practices, was revitalized and expanded during the 1960s during the larger countercultural political upheavals of that era, which helped propel young people to migrate from cities and suburbs to rural areas and opt out of commercial consumer society; many small farms and restaurants were started at this time. In this iteration of the back to the land movement, young people moved to remote rural areas to lead lives more rooted in nature and less driven by the consumerism of contemporary life. In places like northern California, Wisconsin, Maine, and Vermont, many people became actively involved in producing food, often for subsistence but also starting entrepreneurial food businesses existing in parallel to the longer-term rural activities in these regions like tapping maple, running dairy farms, and hunting and foraging in the woods (Trubek, 2008). In New England,

150

The Emergence of National Food

this led to the development of a network of small farmers’ markets where people could come to purchase traditional, iconic foods like maple syrup, apples, potatoes, cabbages, and eggs, but also newer ingredients—goat and sheep’s milk cheese, infused honey, sourdough breads, kale, garlic—as well as dishes prepared from locally raised ingredients that went far beyond fried donuts made with apple cider and apple pie. The integration of a set of values and practices inspired by a rural, agrarian tradition that was no longer as wedded to British culinary codes led to a number of innovative New England restaurants producing a new regional cuisine. The dishes on these restaurant menus included maple syrup, butter, potatoes, poultry, venison, apples, and other typical and iconic foods of the region, but they are not wedded to any national or regional culinary code. At Fore Street, a well-known restaurant in Portland, Maine whose tag line is “Locally Sourced and Hand Crafted,” the menu includes this entrée, Turnspit Roasted Organic Maine Half Chicken From Whitefield Maine. Charred Cornbread Rusk with Toasted Black Cumin Sweet Butter. Fidelity to place without any hegemonic culinary system to abide by, aspirations to continue to intervene in an overly industrial systems of food production and attempts to continue making regional dishes define this movement (another one on the Fore Street menu is Dry Rubbed Pork Loin with Morse’s Sauerkraut with Pickling Spices). Farmer’s markets, artisan producers of cheese, beer, bread, and many other nonindustrial foods, and farm to table restaurants are now found throughout the United States. These efforts do not define our national cuisine, but they certainly work within the proffered definition.

Conclusion In Willard’s America Eats, she quotes a supervisor sending out a memo to all the state offices of the Works Progress Administration program (1935–42) working on the only federal project ever designed to promote American national cuisine. He says: If the book has a basic purpose, it is to make people appreciate a much-neglected aspect of our culture, the American table, as much as a few expatriates do the French. If we can make Americans realize that they have the best table in the world, we shall have helped to deepen national patriotism. (2008: 5)

This project was abandoned on the eve of the Second World War, and although the nation entered a long period of patriotic fervor and social, economic, and political efforts based in nationalist projects, food never became central to nationalism or centralized in a coherent national cuisine. But there is plenty of evidence for some coherence that is uniquely American, a story we can tell about the past and the present, our own unique mish-mash, mash-up, and inventive means of getting food on the table, each and every day.

13

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet

Introduction This chapter is a follow-up to my study about the cultural appropriation of poutine, which sparked a newsworthy controversy in 2017. Here, I investigate whether or not a pan-Canadian cuisine exists. Instead of the usual Canadian multiculturalism grid of analysis, I deconstruct the pan-Canadian cuisine myth through the plurinational framework. I identify Canadian multiculturalism as a pluralism model that, by design, prevents the occurrence of an overarching cuisine for Canada. If there is a Canadian cuisine, it is not one that is representative of the various groups that inhabit Canada’s territory. Instead, it is one that currently limits itself to a cuisine drawn from the heritage of Upper-Canada. I further analyze ways national ownership of food are made in general and suggest that the dismissal of a stigma through a revaluing approach represents an overlooked path for establishing national ownership over food—as exemplified by the revaluation of poutine by Québécois. Overall, I provide here three main arguments regarding cuisines in Canada: (1) Canada is not a nation-state: the plurinational framework prevails over the multiculturalism one when studying cuisines in Canada, (2) there is an array of different national cuisines—including Québécois cuisine—that are not mere regional cuisines of Canada, but distinct national cuisines in their own right, and (3) there is currently no semblance of an overarching cuisine for Canada.

Who said a pan-Canadian cuisine exists? In Canada, the notion of an overarching “national cuisine” started to gain momentum in the past decade. Two academic books—What’s to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History (2009) edited by Nathalie Cooke, and Speaking in Cod Tongues (2017) by Lenore Newman—have provided the stepping stones for theorizing and advancing the notion of a pan-Canadian cuisine. Cooke’s edited volume has suggested that the culinary tastes evolving across the geography of Canada translate into a Canadian food culture—some sort of overarching Canadian ethos. Newman has argued that from this perceived Canadian food culture a Canadian “national cuisine” would arise.

152

The Emergence of National Food

So far, attempts at defining an overarching Canadian cuisine have openly been driven by asserting the view of a Canadian identity based on multiculturalism. Such grid of analysis has led researchers toward two surprising trends: (1) to present Canadian cuisine as being based on ingredients instead of dishes, and (2) to label dishes as Canadian based on their consumption on Canada’s territory. Ingredients presented as constitutive of a supposed pan-Canadian cuisine would be maple syrup, salmon, wild berries, wheat, cheese, fiddleheads, beef, and lobster. Instances of dishes that have been presented as Canadian by proponents of the multiculturalism view include pemmican (a mixture of powdered meat, grease, and berries prepared by Indigenous groups, and which played a prominent role during the fur trade period), perogies (dumplings of Central European origins), California roll (an Americanized sushi style), Kraft Dinner (known as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner in the United  States), doughnuts, Halifax donair (Greek inspired gyro, substituting beef for lamb and a condensed milk based sauce for tzatziki), Jamaican beef patties (flaky meat-filled pastries of Jamaican origin), Nanaimo bars (a three-layer dessert: unbaked chocolate cake at the bottom, custard in the middle, and dark chocolate coating on top), butter tarts (a flaky pastry filled with a buttery-sugary mixture), smoke meat sandwich (a cured beef brisket and rye bread sandwich associated with Montreal’s Jewish community), tourtière (a Québécois meat pie made of ground meats and potatoes), and lately poutine (a Québécois dish originally made of fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy which is increasingly presented as Canada’s ‘national dish’). The present chapter aims to deconstruct these two trends. The analysis is made through an alternative framework to Canadian multiculturalism, which I identify as incompatible with the very notion of an overarching—or national—cuisine. Instead, I use the plurinational view of Canada, which I argue is a more suitable and coherent framework to study the topic of national cuisine in the context of Canada. From Expo 67 to Canada’s onehundred-and-fiftieth year of Confederation in 2017, the analysis is conducted using the following categories: (1) bottom-up nationalism, (2) top-down nationalism, and (3) naturalization; which, as detailed hereafter, are the three broad processes involved in the making of the pan-Canada cuisine myth.

Canadian nationalism Before looking at the culinary aspects of Canadian “national cuisine” as it has been presented by proponents of multiculturalism, the way nationalism is construed in Canada first needs to be addressed. Canadian nationalism has mainly been defined— and at times strictly defined—through its multiculturalism model (Angus, 2006: 24–25; Taylor, 2012: 417). Proposed in 1971 and brought into law in 1988, multiculturalism is the model for managing ethnocultural diversity in Canada (Library and Archives Canada, 1971, 1988). Multiculturalism contrasts with other pluralism models such as the melting pot in the United States or republicanism in France. Among the pillars of the multiculturalism model (Bouchard, 2014: 95) lies the conceptualization of a nation as a pool of individuals and groups for which no majority—nor national—culture is recognized. This model is further characterized by a weak preoccupation with the

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

153

building of a common—overarching or national—culture—a culture that would be shared among all individuals and groups (Bouchard, 2014: 95). Canadian multiculturalism has changed since its introduction. To understand how multiculturalism has changed, it is worth looking at the case of Québec—which also provides useful context for latter parts of the chapter. It is important to underscore that since its introduction, Canadian multiculturalism has been rejected by all Québec governments (from both federalist and sovereignist allegiance), because it has been said to negate Québécois distinctive character as a North American francophone nation (Bouchard, 2014: 93). Consequently, Québec governments have approached pluralism through another model: interculturalism. The differences between Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism have been detailed by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor (Bouchard, 2014; Taylor, 2012). In short, contrary to Canadian multiculturalism, the two main pillars of Québec interculturalism are (1) its duality aspect, or the recognition of a cultural majority-minorities relationship between groups in Québec, and (2) the promotion of a common or overarching Québécois culture shared among groups (Bouchard, 2014: 45–91). Bouchard makes the case that Canadian multiculturalism was refashioned by conservative administrations during the 1990s and 2000s in such ways that it would increasingly resemble Québec interculturalism, mainly for their preoccupation with building a common— “national”—Canadian culture (Bouchard, 2014: 96–97). For Taylor, although Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism would now behave similarly at a policy level, they provide drastically different “stories” in terms of both historization and future societal orientations. Canadian multiculturalism has traditionally rejected the plurinational conception of Canada (Bouchard, 2014: 9,99). At the same time, the government of Canada officially recognizes the Québécois and about 80 Indigenous peoples inhabiting Canadian territory (several First Nations communities and the Métis) as distinct nations (Department of Justice Canada, 2018; House of Commons of Canada, 2006). However, these recognitions are regularly contested by elected officials and Canadian nationalists through paradoxical statements. This was the case when Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, told the New York Times Magazine after his 2015 election: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada. . . . There are shared values . . . [and those values] are what makes us the first postnational state’’ (Lawson, 2015). Such declaration is embedded in the tradition of the Canadian government to negate or downplay the plurinational characteristic of the Canadian state, but also a sign of Trudeau’s intentions of returning toward the original Canadian multiculturalism model, where the notion of an overarching or national culture is problematic. Such contradiction in how Canada is construed is further compounded by the fact that the demonym “Canada” regularly implies what has been labeled “English Canada.” Ian Angus (2006: 25) describes the reasons for what he refers to as the slide from EnglishCanada to Canada for short: Thus, if one can speak of the cultural identity of English Canada, one must keep in mind that it is an identity that has expressed itself mainly through an identification with Canada as such—thus often rendering invisible the question

154

The Emergence of National Food

of its relations to Québec and First Nations. Using a linguistic term, the slide between English Canada and Canada covers a conceptual confusion that was a historically effective structuring factor in English Canadian identity. English Canadians took themselves to be simply Canadians outright, thereby hiding the fact that it is the only cultural identity that has not been included into Canada by conquest or treaty. That is to say, the slide operates to obscure the legacy of [the British] empire within the Canadian nations-state. (Note that Angus does not define Canada as a nation-state, but as a nations-state, adhering to the plurinational view.)

In other words, the term Canadian, and its associated identity, is confounding for it is polysemous: sometimes used as an overarching term, but other times implies or is understood as English Canada. This has led many to differentiate themselves from the Canadian demonym through a distinctive national appellation. For instance, after conquest by the British (circa, 1760)—which led to the creation of Upper Canada and Lower Canada—the French settlers who used to be referred to as Canadiens became French-Canadian. Later, the État généraux du Canada Français (Estates General of French Canada) held from 1966 to 1969 marked the dismantlement of FrenchCanadians into an array of fragmented francophone groups, and the officialization of Québécois demonym. While such alternative identifying labels do not preclude their users to claim Canadian citizenship, care should be taken in the use of anachronisms when referring to their identities. From the plurinational aspect and slide between English-Canada and Canada, three distinct paths present themselves for a Canadian culture to emerge. These were suggested by Michael Dorland (1988: 138): “What nationalism and culture there would be in Canada would thus be i) firmly Erastian, i.e., under the authority of the State (top-down), both in character and in organization, ii) and if not under the control of the state (bottom-up), either marginalized, fragmentary or non-existent, or if neither of the above, iii) imported (naturalized)” (information in parentheses added by the author). These three paths, state (top-down), fragmentary (bottom-up), and imported (naturalized), provide convenient categorizations to look at the constituents of contemporary “Canadian cuisine” for the rest of the chapter.

“Canadian cuisine” A cuisine of ingredients Cuisine is not spontaneous; it is composed from an array of cultural elements that are constructed, coded, and modulated by all sorts of capitals. Warren Belasco (1999: 276) summarizes cuisine as a set of socially situated food behaviors comprising a limited number of ‘edible’ foods (selectivity); a preference for particular ways of preparing food (techniques); a distinctive set of flavors; textural and visual characteristics (aesthetics); a set of

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

155

rules for consuming food (ritual); and an organized system of producing and distributing the food (infrastructure). The same structural elements are found in the definition of foodways: another conceptual term depicting eating and drinking practices which encompasses what members in a group eat, how they eat it, whom they eat it with, and how they source and prepare the ingredients, among other physical, social, cultural, economic, spiritual, and aesthetic aspects of eating (Long, 2013: 23). As such, structural elements of food cultures—understood either through the cuisine or foodways conceptualization—do not consist strictly of ingredients found or cultivated throughout a territory. Yet, there has been a strong tendency to use such confounding preconception in the suggestion of an overarching Canadian cuisine. For instance, Newman indicates how one of the most striking features of Canada’s cuisine is the strong tendency to  highlight fresh local ingredients over complex preparations: we put ingredients forward. In contrast to many other cuisines, there are few truly Canadian recipes. . . . One hallmark of Canada’s culinary style is to recreate a recipe or technique from elsewhere in a way that substitutes in local products. (Newman, 2017: 91)

Although the selectivity aspect of cuisine implies natural capital (through the selection of ingredients), technique, aesthetics, ritual, and infrastructure refers to the social, cultural, financial, and built capitals that are required in order to talk of a cuisine. As such, the ongoing framing of a Canadian cuisine solely based on ingredients found throughout the territory is unconvincing as it excludes all aspects of cultural, social, and other capitals that are constitutive and implied by a cuisine, foodways, or food culture.

A cuisine of naturalized dishes Bottom-up (cookbooks) Before looking at the top-down and naturalized processes, the bottom-up (fragmentary) one will be observed through the work of Jehane Benoit and Elizabeth Baird—arguably the two most preeminent figures of “Canadian cuisine.” They were both honoured with the Order of Canada (the cornerstone of the Canadian Honours System)—Benoit (1973) for her “contribution to [the culinary] art in Canada,” and Baird (2013) for her “contributions to the promotion of Canada’s diverse food heritage” (The Governor General of Canada, n.d.). Benoit’s seminal work is the L’Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne (1963) (the Canadian Cuisine Encyclopedia) and Baird is famed for Classic Canadian Cooking (1974). Although they both used the “Canadian” demonym, their concept of food culture clearly inscribes a “fragmentary” view of Canada rather than an overarching one. While the federalist allegiances of Benoit were well-known (Paulin and Desjardins, 2012: 263), here is how she approached the term cuisine canadienne in her encyclopedia: “Avons-nous

156

The Emergence of National Food

une cuisine canadienne? Oui, mais nous avons surtout une cuisine du Québec” (which translates to “Does a Canadian cuisine exist? Yes, but it is above all a cuisine from Québec,” a sentence of interest which was removed in the English translation of the cookbook) (Benoit, 1963: 10). In a radio interview, Benoit adds: “With the World’s Fair coming up, I believe it is of capital importance that restaurateurs put forward on their menus one, two, or three French-Québécois specialty dishes, and that they clearly label them as such . . . and I truly hope [my cookbook] will serve to generate a desire to [do so]” (author’s translation) (Métro-Magazine, 1963: 3m54s). Similarly, Baird’s Classic Canadian Cooking does not intend to address an overarching Canadian food culture, but rather the cooking of Upper Canada of the 1800s and early 1900s. A large part of the introduction is dedicated to such explicit fragmentary view of cuisines in Canada: By classic Canadian cooking, I mean the Upper Canadian cooking tradition evolved in the 1800s and early 1900s. Upper Canadian cooking is somewhat different from East Coast cooking and substantially different from Québécois cooking. . . . Maritimes Provinces were settled much earlier than Upper Canada and were for a long time colonies quite separate from the Canadas. . . . Meanwhile a separate and very distinguished cooking style was being developed in Québec. . . . East Coast cooks would not use the term “Canadian” to describe their cooking tradition, nor would the cooks of Québec. Almost by default, then, [Upper Canadian cooking] is the cooking style which seems best suited to be termed “Canadian.” (Baird, 1974: 2–3)

The fragmentation in the most preeminent work of both Benoit (French-Québécois more than pan-Canadian) and Baird (Upper Canada instead of pan-Canadian) exemplifies the slide and broader confusion surrounding the Canadian demonym previously discussed. It should be noted here that although the original version of Benoit encyclopedia bears the Canadian demonym (note, this edition was published prior to the État généraux du Canada Français, i.e., at a time when Québécois still identified as French-Canadians), subsequent editions had their titles changed, discarding the Canadian label: The New and Complete Encyclopedia of Cooking (1970) and Jehane Benoit’s Encyclopedia of Cooking (1991). Although Benoit’s and Baird’s central work—oft-cited as constitutive of pan-Canadian cuisine—depicted a fragmented instead of overarching Canadian conception, this has not prevented the “top-down” and “naturalized” paths to have their way in promoting the myth of a “Canadian cuisine.”

Top-down and naturalization The first tangible top-down processes can be traced back to the 1960s, a decade marked by Canada’s centennial, and “larger issues related to the construction of Canadian nationalism” (Kenneally, 2009). Several cookbooks were commissioned by the federal government for the centennial to address the “lasting preoccupation with the seeming lack of Canadian cuisine” (Newman, 2017: 109). The 1967 World Fair, the landmark of

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

157

the centennial, was identified as the breakthrough event of the overarching Canadian cuisine notion (Wilmshurst, 2013), mainly for the Canadian pavilion’s restaurant. Here is how its menu and décor have been described: La toundra, the fine-dining restaurant of the Canadian pavilion, featured a tundra coulour scheme, sealskin seats, and murals of everyday Inuit Life. Drawing on a Canada that most Canadians had never seen, the restaurant served whale meat and muktuk [pieces of whale blubber and skin, usually eaten raw], named ingredients from across the country, and had a section of multicultural dishes that reflected both an ideology and an aspiration. (Newman, 2017: 110)

This quote from Newman indicates that at its inception the pan-Canadian cuisine idea was sustained by affixing a Canadian stamp on dishes based on their consumption throughout the territory of Canada—a naturalization process that was cemented by the enactment of Canada’s multiculturalism policy a few years later. After fifty years of maturation, not much has changed in the way the top-down and the naturalization processes act in the building of the pan-Canadian cuisine myth. The year 2017 marked the Canadian confederation sesquicentennial, and 500 million Canadian dollars were spent on the celebrations. Three books on the topic of “Canadian cuisine” were published during that year: Speaking in Cod Tongues (2017), Canada’s Culinary Heritage (2017), and Culinary Treasures from Around the World (2017), the latter two were commissioned expressly by the Canadian government as part of the sesquicentennial celebration. Canada’s Culinary Heritage cookbook is a collection of one hundred recipes from one hundred public figures. For a book that intends to affirm Canadian cuisine character, its content is rather puzzling: the cover displays a pasta salad composed of a slew of linguine mixed with cherry tomatoes and chopped basil, and recipes range from Moroccan tajine (listed as a chicken and squash stew served with couscous), Singaporean salad (a salad usually made of raw fish with vegetables also known as lo hei; the cookbook proposes a vegan version), Haitian griot (fried marinated pork), lentil dhal (stew or soup made of lentils that is popular across South Asia), stracciatella soup (a Roman egg drop soup made with chicken broth and cheese), Aloo Gobi (potato and cauliflower curry popular across South Asia), Kenyan Githeri (a maize and bean stew) to “grandma Gretzky’s delicious pierogies” (Wayne Gretzky is a famous Canadian hockey player). Culinary Treasures from Around the World is no less perplexing. The cookbook purely avoids the subject of Canadian cuisine, and instead collects recipes provided by diplomatic officials from embassies located in Canada. On its promotional website (www.canada2017.org), the book is presented as a collection of “recipes from more than 100 countries, friends of Canada.” In parallel to the publication of these commissioned cookbooks, major media outlets published stories on Canadian food as part of their 150th- year coverage. Here is the short list of dishes classified as Canadian that was compiled by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s most widely read daily newspaper: pemmican, pierogies, Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwich (Schwartz’s is arguably the most famous place in Montreal serving smoked meat sandwich), Pablum (fortified infant food), Kraft Dinner, Canada war cake (depicted as “a simple eggless, milkless, butterless, and sugar-stretching

158

The Emergence of National Food

dessert that appeared in newspapers and cookbooks across the country during both wars”), margarine (plant-based butter spread imitation), Hawkins Cheezies (a cheese puff snack), fish sticks (bite-size pieces of breaded and fried fish, sold frozen), poutine, Halifax donair, Tim Hortons’s doughnuts (Tim Hortons is a transnational fast food restaurant chain widespread across Canada), California roll, ginger beef (presented as ‘Canadian Prairies’ answer to General Tso’s chicken), McCain Superfries (French fries sold frozen), Jamaican patty, and McLobster (Macdonald’s version of the lobster roll, served in the Atlantic provinces) (Mosby, 2017). On Maclean’s list (2017) titled “150 reasons why it’s better to be Canadian,’ ranks 140–148 are occupied by Tim Hortons’s doughnuts, bacon, lentils production, maple syrup, poutine, Halifax donair, ketchupflavor chips, the Caesar cocktail (presented as ‘the better Bloody Mary’ for substituting Clamato for tomato juice, among other variations), and Hawaiian pizza (a pizza with tomato sauce, pineapple, ham, and cheese as toppings). Many of the aforementioned dishes are also explored in Speaking in Cod Tongues, which takes the reader on a twoyear journey exploring food across Canada. The author discusses potential Canadian “national dishes” and lists poutine as the frontrunner, while Nanaimo bar, doughnut, and butter tart failed the title for their narrow geographical sweep in consumption (Newman, 2017: 104–06). Overall the content of these publications shows the naturalization process at work, and raise the evidence that what individuals eat at home does not automatically translate into being part of an overarching cuisine. Indeed, listing Singaporean salad or Jamaican patty as Canadian dishes is anything but credible. If looking at many individuals’ food habits can reveal broader cultural elements, they do not warrant the occurrence of a culture all by themselves, let alone a national culture. This would actually be contrary to the notion of culture, which can be briefly defined here as “behavior and beliefs that are learned and shared: learned so it is not ‘instinctual’ and shared so it is not individual” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2015: 50–51). By labeling any given dish as Canadian for its consumption in Canada, the multiculturalist view turns Canadian cuisine into global cuisine. Overall, the naturalization process loses the very essence of culture, and in some contexts leads to instances of cultural appropriation. For the rest of the chapter, it is worth focusing on the case of the cultural ownership of poutine to further assess how the naturalization and cultural appropriation processes work in Canadian cuisine.

The stories behind the poutine debate If there is a need to assign a cultural ownership to poutine, Québécois is the most legitimate one. The supporting arguments for such a statement reside in poutine’s sociohistorical context. A dish of humble beginnings that originated from the Centredu-Québec area in the 1950s, poutine has long been mocked and even abused by many—chiefly Anglo-Canadians and people from France—to tarnish Québécois culture and undermine its legitimacy. While the first generations that suffered from the poutine stigma opted to disidentify with the dish, Québécois youth have recently been operating a reappropriation of poutine to positively revalue the dish as a symbol of Québécois cultural pride. Today, poutine is in vogue, celebrated in numerous annual

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

159

poutine festivals located within and outside Québec borders (both north and south of the US-Canada border), and is arguably one of the frontrunners to become the next global dish. The new hype surrounding poutine even brought the dish to be served at the White House during the first State Dinner between Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau in 2016. With its recent and sudden increase in popularity, poutine has started to be identified as a Canadian dish, even as Canada’s “national dish”—and is now a symbol used in Canadian banal nationalism. I have argued in a study titled “Poutine Dynamics” that such Canadization (the labeling of poutine as a Canadian dish) amounts to cultural appropriation of Québécois culture (Fabien-Ouellet, 2016). Cultural appropriation is a concept referencing “acts in which aspects of marginalized/ colonized/subordinated cultures are taken and used [without reciprocity, permission, and/or compensation] by a dominant/colonizing culture in such a way as to serve the interests of the dominant. . . . These instances often carry the connotation of stealing or of in some way using the culture of a subordinated group against them” (Rogers, 2006: 477, 486). Contemporary Québec-Canada relations draw heavily on EnglishCanadian (dominant) and French-Canadian (subordinated) rapport heritage. Corrie Scott (2016) has succinctly described the power imbalance legacy between the two groups: “As far as nineteen century Anglosaxons were concerned, French Canadians were not quite white” (note, whiteness is understood here as a social status, not as the color of the skin per se). This dynamic has led to diverse assimilation processes and policies on part of English-Canadians on French-Canadians, which in turn led to the building of the Québécois nation as a strategy by French-Canadians to make use of Québec civic institutions to prevent their assimilation and prosper. It is only recently (in 2006) that the government of Canada officially recognized Québécois as a distinct nation (House of Common of Canada, 2006). This national recognition underscores Québécois’ distinctive cultural traits, including a trait that is of interest for this chapter: a distinctive cuisine. This summarizes the content of poutine dynamics’ which led me to suggest that the assimilation processes of Québécois, historically based upon shame and cultural denial, have partially morphed into processes based on cultural appropriation. The content of my poutine study was quickly taken out of scholarly circles and repurposed by journalists and columnists to sustain a newsworthy polemic. The controversy was covered by all major Canadian and Québec media, as well as NPR, VICE, and the New York Times in the United States, and triggered heated reactions on social media. In this extensive media coverage and public debate regarding the cultural ownership of poutine, the dish itself ended up serving as a proxy to discuss the sensitive issue of ethnocultural diversity management. The poutine debate has epitomized the difference of “stories” in Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism previously discussed. For an outsider to capture manifestations of this difference in “stories,” the comparison of the English and French language versions of Wikipedia pages surrounding Québécois cultural elements provides compelling materials. Examples are numerous, but two stand out in terms of cuisine: tourtière and poutine. Tourtière is presented as a Québécois dish with regional variations in the French version, while the English version currently presents the dish as “a Canadian meat pie dish originating from the province of Québec.” Poutine is presented as a

160

The Emergence of National Food

Québécois dish in the French version, but as a “dish originating from the Canadian province of Quebec” in the current English version. Arguably, the debates regarding poutine’s cultural ownership (and the Wikipedia page variations) are nothing but attempts to legitimate the “stories” conveyed by Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism. “Québec is in Canada ergo poutine is a Canadian dish” has been the main argument for using the Canadian label over the Québécois one. “Québécois culture is distinct, so is poutine” has been the main argument in support for strictly using the Québécois label. If these arguments share the same intent (to legitimate their own “story”), they are not equally compelling. Arguments based purely upon geography and citizenship are far from convincing. The relatively new phenomenon of having poutine served across Canada does not make poutine a Canadian dish just yet. The malaise of affixing a Canadian stamp on a dish for its consumption across the geography of Canada has already been exposed by Canada’s Culinary Heritage, the commissioned cookbook: Haitian griot or Moroccan tajine do not become Canadian dishes because they are consumed in Canada. If such process would be legitimate, then poutine could also be labeled a US-American dish for its current widespread consumption in the United States. In fact, to some extent, labeling poutine as a Northeastern American dish would be geographically sounder than labeling it Canadian, although it would still be culturally vague. Regarding the citizenship argument, if individuals from national groups inhabiting Canadian territory entail Canadian citizenship status, it does not mean that their culture is de facto Canadian. This has come up in the debate surrounding cultural appropriation in literatures and storytelling arts across Canadian territory. Tracey Lindberg, author of the best-selling novel Birdie and member of the As’in’i’wa’chi Nation (also known as Kelly Lake Cree Nation), said the following: “Calling what we do ‘Canlit’ [Canadian literature] is as inaccurate as calling us Canadians” (Longman, 2017). Such cultural distinction was also brought forward by Chef Joseph Shawana in his answer to a petition signed by thousands asking that seal tartare be removed from his Toronto restaurant: “It helps everyone that comes to the restaurant identify with our culture, Indigenous culture” (McGillivray, 2017). A counter petition to keep the dish on the menu was launched by Aylan Couchie, an Anishanaabe artist from the Nipissing First Nation, in which she argued that “Canadians need to step back and start looking at Indigenous people. . . . with respect that our culture is different” (Whalen, 2017). For Chef Rich Francis, a member of the Tetlit Gwich’in and Tuscarora Nations, “the regulations that are put in place by the [Canadian] government [regarding the use of wild meat] don’t allow us to fully express ourselves,” he further added, “I can’t pull back because the rest of Canada is uncomfortable with who we are” (Abraham, 2017). Just like the poutine controversy, the issue of cultural appropriation in Canlit, and the use of seal meat has shown how Canadian nationalists are having a hard time to get their head around the presence of different nations in Canada and are even perplexed when minority nations remind them of their existence and distinctions. It all circles back to the plurinational state of the Canadian geography, and the fact that each nation has its own identity and culture—a reality largely disregarded by the Canadian multiculturalism model. In terms of cuisine, this leads the multiculturalism view to promote the rather unconvincing and often illegitimate naturalization process in the presentation of a

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

161

‘Canadian cuisine’ that ends up being regarded as lacking a distinguishable character, in addition to being confronted with cultural appropriation issues. This echoes what Lévi-Strauss (1968: 411) said of cuisine: “[Cuisine is] a language into which [a society] translates its structure, unless it reluctantly and no less unwittingly reveals there its contradictions.” In the case of pan-Canadian cuisine, it is not strictly the cuisine itself that translates social structures: it is its very suggestion. As opposed to Canadian multiculturalism, Québec interculturalism is well equipped to deal with cultural hybridization—the blending of the founding cultures and the ones of newcomers in the creation and promotion of a common culture. Through poutine, one can actually observe and taste Québec interculturalism at play. Québec restaurants now serve piri-piri chicken poutine, smoked meat poutine, griot poutine, butter chicken poutine, shawarma poutine, and so forth. Virtually all Québec minority groups have come up with their own—equally delicious—versions of poutine. Poutine today symbolizes the cultural hybridization processes between the Québécois majority and Québécois minority groups in the development and promotion of an ever-evolving common culture in Québec. The question of interest then becomes what makes poutine a Québécois national dish, instead of a Centre-du-Québec regional dish. This is one of the recurrent questions in food studies: can there be national cuisines, or only regional ones? Research has shown that common ways of forcing regional preparations to enter national identification are through cookbooks, institutional catering, and conscription (Appadurai, 1988; Ichijo and Ranta, 2016: 64–72; Cwiertka, 2006). The case of poutine seems different. The dish is rarely seen in cookbooks, Québécois media often use the dish as the symbol for junk food, which has led the government of Québec to restrict its offering on cafeteria menus, and the last conscription predates the origin of poutine by more than a decade. Instead, the case of poutine suggests another nationalization path: the positive revaluation of a national stigma. That poutine is highly embedded in popular Québécois culture and foodways—with bags of cheese curds available at any given gas station as snacks—does not necessarily explain how the dish would legitimately qualify to be more national (Québécois) than a regional delicacy from the Centre-du Québec that is popular across Québec. Arguably, the poutine stigma, which targeted the Québécois nation as a whole instead of a regional subgroup, has had the legitimatizing role in conferring the Québécois (national) ownership to the dish. Further, as people from the Centre-du-Québec area reciprocally identify as Québécois, there has been no controversy surrounding the Québécois appellation, contrary to the Canadization case that has entertained a strong malaise. While the poutine debate has furthered the discussion regarding the distinction of Québécois cuisine from Canadian cuisine, many food items found on lists and cookbooks provided in this chapter now demand further investigation regarding their classification as “Canadian.” Tourtière is one that quickly comes to mind, but it is maple syrup which presents itself as the most intriguing case study. The subject was even brought up during the 2017 general assembly of the Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producer, when new branding logos were unveiled: one logo specific to Québec with the inscription Érable du Québec (maple from Québec), and another one for the global markets with an alternative inscription: Maple from Canada. An argument followed between those wanting to put forward the Québécois distinctive character of

162

The Emergence of National Food

maple producers on both logos, and those wanting to seize a marketing opportunity and surf on the favorable image Canada has projected globally (Bégin, 2017). Without going into depth, it is worth concluding this chapter by providing some data on the matter. Although maple syrup has increasingly been part of Canada’s branding and many now consider maple syrup as quintessential Canadian, it is actually Québec that is by far the world’s largest maple syrup producer. Quebec is home to 13,500 maple syrup producers, and hosts hundreds of sugarshack restaurateurs offering a cabane à sucre menu composed of dishes specific to the maple sugar season, from oreille de crisse (fried slice of salt pork) to tire d’érable on snow (condensed maple syrup poured on a snow cover, lifted and rolled on a wooden stick, then served as a soft candy) (Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec, 2016). By looking at the most recent data available on maple syrup production, it appears that Canada (excluding Québec) is only a marginal player in maple syrup production. In 2016, Québec accounted for 71.4 percent of the world’s maple syrup production, the United States accounted for 22.4 percent (about half from Vermont) and only 6.2 percent came from the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario combined (Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec, 2016). As such, considering strictly production levels, the quintessential association between maple syrup and Canada seems to stem from failing to distinguish Québécois cuisine from Canadian cuisine. There are obviously other metrics to analyze if one wants to deepen such a discussion. In all cases, it is safe to say that maple syrup enters the foodways of different groups in the Northeastern American geography, chiefly through the Québécois and Vermonters. It should be noted here that there are ongoing discussions regarding the distinctions between the Québécois and Vermonter maple industries, as well as on the role Indigenous groups have played (Trubek, 2010). This is not the place to further discuss them, but it is worth reiterating as a closing remark that the plurinational framework and distinction of Québécois cuisine should prevail in such discussions, and any others surrounding the topic of ‘national cuisine’ in Canada.

Conclusion In this chapter, I exposed why the notion of a pan-Canadian cuisine is a fallacy. At a culinary level, the core characteristics of the supposed overarching Canadian cuisine are both unpersuasive and illegitimate. While the ingredient argument goes against the very definition of a cuisine, the naturalization of dishes—or the labeling of any given dish as Canadian for its consumption across the territory—goes against the very notion of a culture and entertains a strong malaise for its lack of reciprocity in the process. But the deeper reasons making pan-Canadian cuisine a myth reside in the political dynamics of the food and nationalism nexus. Investigating issues related to nation and ethnocultural diversity management in Canada brings to light the fact that Canadian multiculturalism, by design, prevents the occurrence of any overarching Canadian cuisine. I have argued here that it is the plurinational view which stands as the proper framework to study cuisines and cultures in Canada. That is because different nations

The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy

163

inhabit the geography of Canada, making Canada neither post-national, nor a nationstate. I have also brought forward the argument that what the Canadian label connotes has changed through time, and how its contemporary meaning has been driven by the slides from English-Canadian to Canadian outright. The cultural implication for Canadian cuisine is that the cultural group it has come to represent has fluctuated through time. Today, Canadian cuisine refers to what would be the foodways in the continuity of Upper-Canada heritage, as suggested by Baird. But admitting so would put in jeopardy the multiculturalism model as it rejects the duality lens, or the prevalence of English Canada culture over other minority groups in Canada. This forces Canadian nationalists to make use of top-down, bottom-up, and naturalization processes to have their way in creating the myth of pan-Canadian cuisine—however unconvincing and illegitimate these processes tend to be in the Canadian context, as shown in this chapter. The absence of a pan-Canadian educational system warrants further investigation regarding limitations of top-down processes in building a pan-Canadian food culture. It should be noted that my purpose here was not to assess Québécois cuisine in depth; a rich corpus already exists showcasing its distinctive character. However, this chapter has provided arguments for distinguishing Québécois cuisine from Canadian cuisine. To be clear on the outcome: the plurinational framework and interculturalism model make Québécois cuisine not a mere regional cuisine of Canada, but a recognized and coherent national cuisine in its own right.

14

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”: Food Regionalism and Transnationalism in Ecuador and the Andes Emma-Jayne Abbots

Introduction This chapter examines the absence of nationalized foods in Ecuador and finds its explanation in entrenched regional divisions that potentially traverse national boundaries. Despite conscious postcolonial nation-building projects that have resulted in a proliferation of nationalist symbols and a strong political rhetoric of “patria” (nationhood), the Republic of Ecuador remains a deeply divided nation. Social, political, and cultural boundaries map onto four distinct topographical regions—the coast, the Andean highlands, the lowland Amazon, and the Galápagos Islands—with the political capital, Quito, located in the northern highlands and its largest city and economic powerhouse, Guayaquil, positioned on the coast. This chapter centers on the southern highlands and draws on ethnographic data from the greater Cuenca region, which is home to Ecuador’s third largest city and a number of rural and semi-rural communities and villages. For clarity in what follows, I refer to the highlands when discussing Ecuador specifically and the Andes when referring to the pan-national topographical region that covers primarily Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Each Ecuadorian region has its own comida típica (typical food) that tends to be consolidated and represented as national dishes by tourists but remains distinctly regional to my Ecuadorian participants. Yet some of these Ecuadorian foods are not necessarily unique to Ecuador and are also typical of the cuisine of neighboring Andean countries, as well as being available across Latin America more broadly. Taking cuy (guinea pig) from the Andes as an illustration, I interrogate the ways in which such seemingly “national” dishes are constructed by the local population as regionally specific, explore the political and economic reasons informing this regionalism, and reflect on the extent that dishes can transcend national borders whilst concomitantly establishing difference within the region. In order to place what follows in context, I begin by introducing a brief history of the emergence of Ecuador as a nation-state before addressing its fragmented foodscape and the importance of comida típica. I then

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”

165

turn to cuy specifically, first exploring it as a culturally and socially significant Andean dish that appears to have the capacity to cross national borders, and then examining the ways its valorization as a typically regional dish flattens divergence in Cuenca. In so doing, I highlight the fluidity of meaning attached to cuy and attend to the ways it intersects with other forms of social division such as class, ethnicity, and country-city relations. To understand how these divisions, together with deep regional affiliations, play out through food, I first turn to the manner in which they have been forged and entrenched by the nation-building programmes of the Republic.

Ecuador: A fragmented nation The Republic of Ecuador emerged as an independent nation from the fragments of the precolonial state of Gran Colombia in 1830. The following decades were particularly turbulent, as five regions, headed by creole elites,1 laid claim to becoming the central power. It was not until the regional governments of Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca joined forces in 1859 that the process of nation-building effectively began (Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996), although “Ecuador as a nation” did not materialize until the liberal revolution of 1895 (Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996: 6). It was at this historical moment that “the great leap of modernization of the State and society” (Ayala Mora, 2005: 123) took place, leading to integrated communications across the regions, a national currency and bank, an expanded military, and the separation of church and state. While the state may have acted as protector and arbiter of equal citizens (Clark, 1994), black and indigenous groups did not, however, enjoy the same rights as mestizos2 and the landed elite, with many remaining tied to the hacienda system3 until the 1964 Agrarian Reform Act encouraged the redistribution of land (Crain, 1990). The revolutionary nationalist government in 1972 witnessed the state embarking on a conscious programme of nation-building through the ideology of mestizaje (miscegenation) (Stutzman, 1981), which rapidly slipped from a seemingly inclusive process of ethnic homogenization toward one of blanqueamiento (cultural whitening) by excluding those who were not mixed race or white (Whitten, 1981: 15). Black and indigenous populations were thereby firmly relegated to the rural, illiterate, and poverty-stricken margins, while the white and mestizo populations were constructed as belonging to the urban, educated, and “civilized” core (Whitten, 1981). Underpinning this was clear teleology in which it was envisaged that those in the campo (countryside) would desirably “progress” from a backward static condition to one of dynamic modernity, as they were drawn from the indigenous peripheries into the white urban center of the nation, and become truly valued citizens of Ecuador (Stutzman, 1981). The rise of indigenous rights movements in the late twentieth century, which at their peak drew support from multiple groups across the highland and Amazon regions (Collins, 2000), saw a significant shift away from this ideology to one of plurality and “Unity in Diversity” (Ayala Mora, 2005: 23). Nonetheless, nation-wide divisions across ethnicity, class, regions, and the country and city remain. These social boundaries intersect in complex and myriad ways, and in this chapter, I focus on the relationship between pueblo, meaning local, regional, or ethnic affiliations and patria, as expressed

166

The Emergence of National Food

through the lens of regional foods. Before I move onto these foods, however, it is worth briefly noting the particular sociohistorical context of the greater Cuenca region. Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, the formation and disbanding of Gran Colombia and the subsequent formation of the nation-state, the greater Cuenca region was under the rule of Tawantinsuyu (the Inca Empire). During the Incan Civil War, the population of the region rallied to Huáscar, the son of Cusco (in what is now Peru) against Atahualpa, the son of Quito, who was the ultimate victor. Now a celebrated “national” hero of Ecuador, Atahualpa “wreaked a terrible vengeance” (Garcilaso de la Vega, 1966: 623) against those who fought against him, who, in turn, allied themselves to the conquistadores (Garcilaso de la Vega, 1966: 808). These historical moments remain relevant today, as one of my participants, Alfonso, reminded me: Atahualpa? He is not important to us here, not in Cuenca. He belongs to the north, to Quito; he was born there. He belongs to them. We have Huáscar here, he is more important in the South.

I raise this point not to unpack the ethnogenesis and reformulation of a Quito-centric nationalist history that occurs in Cuenca, but rather to indicate the regionalism and north-south divide that pervades much of its social and political life. As Radcliffe and Westwood contend, the emergence of the centralized nation did not eradicate divisions and “strong regional affiliations continue to cross-cut Ecuadorian nationalism” (Garcilaso de la Vega, 1966: 6): affiliations, they conclude, that are grounded in a history of diverse economic and political relations, including the influence of the Catholic Church and missionaries, workers unionization, and the use of natural resources. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that there is little sense of a national foodscape or cuisine in Ecuador. During my time in the field I came across few narratives of Ecuadorian cuisine—even among those involved in the culinary field—and even fewer national cookbooks, with those that do exist, such as “Comidas del Ecuador” (Meals of Ecuador) (Fried, 2008), stressing regional differences and the province of origin. Indeed, the only time I observed distinct national symbolism around food was during a supermarket-led campaign encouraging consumers to buy “Ecuadorian Bread,” The Ecuadorian flag festooned this in-store promotion, which is not unexpected given both its subject matter and the flag’s prevalence in everyday life. The colors of the tricolor flag frequently adorn public spaces and practices—from the institutional, such as government buildings and ritual events, to the more prosaic, for example tape demarcating roadworks—to domestic and private domains. The flag and narratives of patria permeate virtually every corner of social and cultural life and make its absence from food all the more striking.

Comida Típica: Food regionalism in Ecuador In part, the absence of a nationalized cuisine can be explained by the zonal topography of the country. Although a small nation, the distinct regions lend themselves to very different products: cocoa, for example, is commonly branded an Ecuadorian

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”

167

product by makers and retailers—most of which lie outside the country—but is grown predominantly on the coast and lowlands, and does not figure in highland cuisine, whilst cuy, which I discuss in more detail below, is native to the highlands. Yet I also contend that the absence of a “national cuisine” is shaped by the regionalism that emerges from the diverse sociohistorical processes the different areas have experienced and the subsequent ways in which, despite efforts by the state to build the nation, individuals and communities see themselves as culturally distinct from their neighbors. As Radcliffe and Westwood (1996) conclude, individuals’ relationships with the nation are shaped by their regional affiliations—patria is seen through the lens of pueblo. I build on this premise by showing how such affiliations are reflected in food practices and preferences. This came to the fore when I discussed “national” dishes with my participants, who consistently pointed to their particular regionality and the prevalence of comida típica—a term used across Ecuador to refer to those dishes understood as characteristic of the region. Miguel explained: Each region has a food, a special type of food and they are famous for that food. My favourite is the food from the coast, from Manta. They have delicious fish—it’s very tasty—and coconut and peanuts. They make these little balls with coconut leaves and shrimp; they’re very good. You can’t get them here, they only come from Manta.

Moreover, Susana exclaimed on discovering I was taking a trip to Loja, a small city south of Cuenca: You must try the bocadillos (hard, sweet cake-like breads)—they’re delicious. You can’t get them anywhere else; they only make them in Loja. I remember I went there, eight, ten years ago, with my husband—his family were from there and we had bocadillos, they’re delicious. And horchata (a mixed-herb drink, often served as tea), you must try their horchata.

Similarly, those from other regions mobilize food to define the greater Cuenca region, as Luis from Quito observed: Every province has a distinct type of cookery, a comida típica. Cuy, mote sucio (mote deep fried in pork fat), mote pillo (mote cooked with scrambled egg and garlic); they’re from Cuenca. You get them in other places, but they are not so good there, they are typical of Cuenca.

Such food regionalism is not unique, of course, to Ecuador. But even when “regional traditions are exposed as mere inventions” (Bell and Valentine, 1997: 147), they still work to create differences between self and other. This process is not politically benign, with national, regional, and local cuisines being “products of dominant ideologies and related power structures” (Cusack, 2000: 207). As Appadurai writes of India, dishes become codified as representative of regions and ethnicities through their representation in national cookbooks and, while this can encourage

168

The Emergence of National Food

cosmopolitanism, it can also facilitate “ethnoethnicity” and the construction of a culinary “other” (1988: 14–18). The process also creates a culinary self, as exemplified by Ayora-Diaz’s (2012) account of food in Yucatán, Mexico, in which he argues that a distinct Yucatecan gastronomy emerges that is defined and articulated in opposition to the Mexico core, and materializes as a “response and resistance” (Ayora-Diaz 2012: 243) to the expansion of central Mexican elites. Unpacking the processes by which such a regional “gastronomic field” is forged, mediated, and standardized by taking the foods and cooking practices of domestic kitchens and disseminating it as “Yucatecan cuisine” through cookbooks and restaurants, Ayora-Diaz shows how the construction of a regional food identity creates Yucatán as distinctly different from central Mexico, while concomitantly homogenizing local variations under a generalized identity. Divergences within the region are thus silenced as the regional foodfield becomes formalized and governed by authoritative public figures, such as chefs and restaurateurs (Ayora-Diaz 2012: 242). Food does not have to be “local,” however, to play a role in regional, or even national, cuisine (cf. Wilk, 2006). In Cuenca, my participants—especially the younger generation—commonly framed global fast food chains as markers of the region’s standing in the global economy. The presence of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Burger King were cause for celebration, whilst the absence of a McDonalds restaurant was a source of tension, given the chain’s presence in Quito and Guayaquil. A strong sense of regional pride, alongside a fear that Cuenca would be seen as more inward-looking and less global, and consequently inferior to, its regional rivals, ran through the postings on the “Bring McDonalds to Cuenca” Facebook campaign. Regional political tensions are thus played out through globalized foods. Moreover, many of my younger participants regarded these foods as having a role to play in the ongoing formation of regional cuisine and invoked a history of multiple cultural encounters and the narrative of mestizaje in their construction of comida típica. As Carlos told me, comida típica is the food of the ancestors and, “in four to five generations, we will be the ancestors, and we’re eating hamburgers, so of course hamburgers could be comida típica” (Abbots, 2015: 97). Comida típica, then, is a somewhat open and dynamic category that incorporates multiple creolized dishes, as well as those made predominantly from indigenous ingredients. Nevertheless, regardless of their origins, typical dishes are constructed as regional cuisine through discourse and practice—a process of rooting food to region that I have discussed in depth elsewhere, alongside the flexibility of the category comida típica (Abbots, 2015). What interests me here is the capacity for dishes that have their basis in indigenous ingredients from a distinct topographical area that cross national borders, such as the Andes, to traverse those boundaries, whilst simultaneously, echoing Ayora-Diaz (2012), creating divergences within the nation. I explore this question through the lens of cuy and it to that dish I now turn.

Cuy in the Andes: A transnational dish? Eating guinea pigs, which are indigenous to the Andes, has a long history. The animals were domesticated possibly as early as 5000 B.C. and definitely by 2500 B.C.

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”

169

(Wing, 1986: 260), and widely distributed before the Spanish Conquest (Archetti, 1997: 30–31). Unlike alpacas and llamas, guinea pigs were not owned by the Incan state, although they were reserved for ritual consumption (Archetti, 1997). Cuy continues to have ritual significance among certain segments of the populations across the Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Bolivian Andes and plays a considerable role in defining, creating, and maintaining social relations. One just has to view the painting, hanging in Cusco Cathedral (Peru), of The Last Supper by Marcos Zapata (1753) that features cuy as the central dish, served alongside potatoes and corn, to get a sense of the cultural significance of the foodstuff. Among my participants, cuy was treated differently from any other food. The live animals were raised at home or circulated through restricted circuits of exchange, and were laboriously and painstakingly prepared for eating, with the cook being actively and physically engaged with the raw meat, before its roasting on a long wooden pole over a bonfire at the back of the house took place. Moreover, it was only ever eaten on ritual and special familial occasions, and solely with select members of the household or with those who were being incorporated into the household—to the extent that any domestic helpers were excluded from both preparing and sharing the dish. Cuy is hence a symbolically important dish that has the capacity to forge connections. As Weismantel writes in reference to the parish of Zumbagua in the mid Ecuadorian Highlands, “To kill a cuy for someone . . . is an open declaration that you would like to deepen and formalize the relationship between your household and theirs” (1988: 131), an argument supported by DeFrance who notes that in Moquegua, Peru, “dining on cuy promotes group, familial, and interpersonal solidarity” (2006: 11). This capacity extends over transnational boundaries and distributed households, with the sending of cuy packages being one of the key mechanisms through which women in the greater Cuenca region maintained relationships with their male kin who had migrated to the United States. The dish thus formed part of a transnational circuit of exchange that helped keep migrated kin rooted to both their Ecuadorian household and their regional ‘homeland’ (see Abbots, 2017). Moving away from the domestic context, cuy has also come to represent the Andes on a global scale and it is not uncommonly marketed to tourists in specialist restaurants and material culture, such as postcards of the regions. In this context, cuy becomes commodified and dislocated from its ritual, symbolic, and intimate meaning as it becomes incorporated into a discourse of exotic cuisine and food of ‘the other’ that enables a tourist to experience the region and construct the self as “cosmopolitan” (cf. Heldke, 2003). Even a most cursory of glances at tourist blogs, travel photograph collections, and TripAdvisor reviews yields a large number of images of cuy being served—cuy on the menu; “adventurous” travellers tucking into cuy; and comments that stress its novelty value. To illustrate, one tourist’s review of a Cuencano restaurant notes that “okay, I have to admit the thought of guinea pig, as a meal choice, might be daunting, but as they say ‘when in Rome . . .’” whilst another writes that “if you dare try cuy . . . ” (TripAdvisor, 2018). Such sentiments are echoed in Prada-Trigo’s (2017) analysis of cuy in Cuencano restaurants that shows how tourists’ consumption of the dish is primarily motivated by its perceived exoticism, alongside the recognition that it is a typical dish, and therefore must be tried in order to have an immersive and “authentic” experience.

170

The Emergence of National Food

What is striking in the tourists’ comments on TripAdvisor and other blogs, however, is the way in which they frame cuy as Ecuadorian, rather than Cuencano, with one stating “this restaurant makes you feel at home with amazing decorations. The food is extraordinary and gives you a taste of what Ecuador is all about” and another that “you can’t come to Ecuador and not have Guinea Pig” (TripAdvisor, 2018). This is a stark contrast to the views of my Ecuadorian research participants, who stress its regional import, as I discuss in more detail below, as well as the Cuencano participants of Prada-Trigo, who also emphasize the importance of regional, cultural, and familial traditions in their eating of cuy. As he notes, Cuencanos and tourists may be sharing the same restaurant spaces and cuy dishes, but they are not approaching those dishes with the same value system. For tourists, then, cuy forms part of the exotic culinary tradition of the nation, whereas for Cuencanos it is an intimate dish emblematic of their distinct regional traditions. The dish thus carries different meanings for different groups, and with this comes a rather fluid sense of the place it iconicizes. Cuy can be national, regional, or Pan-Andean, it seems. The observation that the geographical and cultural place of cuy is based on the subject position of the eater, together with the acknowledgment of its topographical reach and social history, raises further questions regarding the capacity for food to define broader culinary areas that traverse the “modern” boundaries of nation-states, as well as delineating cultural boundaries within the nation. Such “gustatory boundaries” can be made to transcend physical space and national borders whilst defining and constructing cultural identity in relation to a culinary other (cf. Ray, 2004). Eating the same material and symbolic substances can act as a mechanism for inscribing a sense of citizenship and belonging to a group at community, regional, national and pan-national scales, as well as differentiating the self and group from “others” (Abbots, 2017). Yet, as we have seen, even though individuals and groups may be eating cuy, it does not necessarily equate that they are eating the same cuy. As the differences between tourists and Cuencano readings of the dish indicate, cuy is imbued with divergent meanings and has an elasticity and fluidity. This, I suggest, can apply to local populations across Ecuador, Peru, and the Bolivian Andes just as much as it does to tourists and Cuencanos. Returning to Ecuador, the Pan-Andean dish of cuy is further made regional and as comida típica not only by the divergent social meanings it is given by different groups, but also in the way it is materially prepared and served. In addition to the laborious method of butchery, my participants marinated the meat for a number of hours with their own achiote (annatto) spice paste before roasting it either over the bonfire in a domestic context or over a barbeque or spit-roast when the dish is to be commercially sold. It was then served with boiled potatoes and mote, a large hominy type corn. Whereas the cuy DeFrance observed in Peru are dusted in seasoned ground corn and fried in oil—a cooking technique my participants would not consider—and served with unpeeled potatoes and salad, with pisco sours (a national drink) and roasted corn as an appetizer. Cuy frito, she argues, thus becomes a signature meal of Moquegua city that is recognized as such throughout the region (2006: 26) whilst cuy asado (roast cuy) appears to be far more common in the Ecuadorian highlands. Hence, while there are

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”

171

distinct similarities and grammars (cf. Barthes, 1997), there are also subtle regional and national variations. The practice of customizing a dish widely available across regions and nations and making it specifically local occurs in the cooking of other foodstuffs found across Latin America, such as the corn-based snacks of tamales and humitas and the fried filled pastries of empanadas, and my participants drew my attention to the minute specificities and differentiations that made their dishes uniquely comida típica of their particular region. Carmela, for example, stressed the necessity of using white zhima corn (which she told me was particular to the greater Cuencano village of Jima) rather than other corn species, such as morocho, in the making of her tamales and humitas, and Maria (also from Jima village) instructed me while empanada-making to “use Jima milk, from the cows of Jima, and the cheese too, they will not be so good with other cheese, its best to have the cheese from Jima, they will be tastier, very delicious.” This process of differentiation indicates that even in culinary contexts where a food appears, at first glance, to be the same and potentially act as a mechanism to forge proximities and cultural similarities that transcend local, regional, and national boundaries, it can also serve to create subtler and less visible markers of difference and distance. This can, however, following Avieli’s (2016) concept of gastromediation, also open up spaces for incorporation, recognition, and resolution, and I now turn to explore this by interrogating the ways in which cuy can help construct regional personhood and the manner in which this intersects with other forms of social differentiation, such as class and country-city relations.

Cuy in Cuenca: Regional belonging and divergence It was not long after my arrival in the rural household that was to become my home for a year—which was located in the greater Cuencano village of Jima—that a cuy meal was prepared to welcome me. Although I did not fully recognize it at the time, this initial dinner, along with subsequent meals of cuy with my Jimeño “family,” was critical to the making of my Jimeño personhood and incorporation into the household and wider community. Felicia told me, “Don’t worry if you don’t like it. It has a strange taste but keep eating it. You will learn to like it; the more you eat it, the more you will like it. You have to like it; you will be more like us then”(Abbots, 2017: 44). As I have demonstrated previously, this practice of sharing material substances, in the form of a symbolically important food, worked to embed me and my participants in the locality by forging connections between the material environment—in the form of the local grass upon which the cuy are fed—of before the meat that is raised within the household, and the individual human bodies that share that same meat (Abbots, 2017). This is overlaid and interplays with the shared consumption of meaning and mutual recognition that the cuy is “from here” and plays a role in defining social and familial relations. Cuy therefore helps make an individual—biologically, socially, and culturally—and connects that individual to people and place.

172

The Emergence of National Food

Against this backdrop, it is not just eating cuy that matters, but also liking and desiring it. As Felicia’s comment above suggests, it was important that I learnt to like cuy and have enjoyment in its eating. This was reinforced by Sonia, who took considerable pride in her son’s love of cuy: Look at him eat, how many pieces is that, three, four? Pablito always eats so much cuy. When he was a little, you know, very young, one or two years old, he would always want cuy. “Mami” he would say, “when can we have cuy? are we having cuy today Mami?” he would say. He loves it! It is because he is a son of Jima; he is a good Jimeño; that is why he loves his cuy! (Abbots, 2017: 46)

In making this statement, especially in exclaiming that Pablo is a “good Jimeño” because of his demonstrable love of cuy and that, in turn, his love of cuy stems from his Jimeño personhood, Sonia draws gives a clear indication of the relationship between cuy and regional belonging, as well as indicating the importance of desire for the meat in this context—an aspect of eating in the construction of the self that is commonly overlooked (Abbots, 2017). Similarly, Sonia’s migrated husband made requests for cuy to be sent to him in the United States, and this expressed desire for the “cuy from home” was further seen as evidence of his sustained commitment to the household and regional personhood, despite his long-term physical absence and seeming dislocation. As such, Sonia was content to fulfill this desire by sending packages of cuy and zhima mote on ritual occasions and family celebrations, which served to reinforce his continued inclusion in the household, however transnationally distributed it may be. It was not just in the domestic environment that the relationship between cuy and regional belonging was reinforced. Local food festivals also highlighted cuy as a regionally specific dish and it commonly featured in cookery contests, along with chicha (maize beer). Such events were often accompanied with pop-up food stalls that were only allowed to sell “traditional foods” “from here.”4 Sonia was one of the women who set up such a stall at an event in Jima, which she advertised as: “Comida Típica: Come and Taste Delicious CUY From The Area,” with her sister aiding the marketing by announcing into a loudspeaker that “we have delicious local cuy here, fed on local grass. Our cuy is the healthiest, most natural, and the tastiest. It’s fed on local grass for a delicious flavour” (Abbots, 2014: 92). The Jima event was also accompanied with a public history lesson, led by a member of the local elite who gave a speech as to the importance of local food traditions that, as could be expected given the troublesome nature of the region’s precolonial history, glided over the Incan period: These are our traditional foods. The Incas were here, but not for very long. Before the area—all of Sígsig canton—was Cañari, (local ethnic grouping) and it is our Cañari traditions and Cañari foods that live on today. The mestizo town of Jima has Cañari origins and traditions, and this gives us our culture. (Abbots, 2014: 91)

Food festivals, even—or perhaps more so—when they are constructed around selective representations of the past and invented traditions, reflect and create a sense of regional belonging (Adema, 2009). But they can also alienate individuals and groups as a food becomes dislocated from its social meaning and intimate relations, to such a degree that it ceases to be ‘our food’ (Cavanaugh, 2007). This observation, coupled with

“They’re Always Eating Cuy”

173

Ayora-Diaz’s (2012) conclusions, creates questions regarding the extent that regional food forges connections across an entire community or region or whether distinctions emerge between those who eat the food and those who promote it. In short, does the generalization of a food as regional typical flatten social divergences and silence those that have less culinary authority? This is a particularly salient question in regard to cuy, which has a somewhat ambivalent social status despite its valorization as comida típica: it is not uncommon for those promoting the consumption of the dish to refrain from eating it themselves (see Abbots, 2017). Commonality can thereby be an illusion, even within locales and regions, and warrants further critical examination. Due in part to its precolonial history and status as a “low” food of the people rather than the food of the Incan state, cuy has strongly been associated with indigeneity, the peasantry, and the countryside, rather than the cultured city and whiteness (Archetti, 1997). Weismantel (1988) illustrates this in her ethnography of food symbolism and ethnicity in Zumbagua, in which she presents a menu of ingredients and dishes that are categorized as either indigenous or white/mestizo, with cuy, potatoes and chicha coming under the category of “indigenous” food in opposition to the “white” foods which include chicken, trago (a refined spirit), and rice. She thereby not only contends that differing levels of status and ethnic connotations are conferred to particular dishes, but also demonstrates how eating these dishes reflects the social status of an individual. Likewise, DeFrance writes how cuy can serve to create social division as much as solidarity, as the higher-class residents of Moquegua regarded cuy as inedible and disgusting and “as inappropriate food for their kind” (2006: 11). Given the fluidity of meaning food has as it travels, as well as the elasticity of the definition of comida típica, I argue that we have to be wary of making such structural classifications, even in contexts where it is evident that some individuals regard a food as particularly abject and lower in status. In concert with this, Bourque (2001) highlights how the subject position of the eater is central to the status of a foodstuff and contests that the status of cuy is more ambiguous than fixed. Her account of a feast for canton officials shows that those who are confident in their social status, for example urban-dwelling mestizos, are more comfortable eating cuy as it does not compromise their social position, whereas those in an indigenous village distance themselves from the meat as it compounds their low status. In the countryside, then, the “low” social status of cuy is reflected and reinforced by the lower social status of its eater, which dialectically reflects and reinforces the eater’s social position. On the other hand, the more negative—read indigenous and peasant—connotations of the dish are, at least in part, negated in the city. Nevertheless, while the status of cuy is not structurally fixed but is instead contingent with the subject position of the consumer, it is still evident that the dish interplays with class, ethnicity, and city-country relations, as well as region. This is illustrated by DeFrance’s observation that the citizens of the Peruvian coastal city of Ilo ‘scoffed’ at the idea of eating cuy as it is considered a “sierra food” (2006: 27) and summarized by one of my participants, Marieya, a wealthy, educated Quiteña, who on hearing that I lived in the campo (countryside) near Cuenca said: Do you eat a lot of cuy and mote? The campesinos (peasants) in Cuenca always eat a lot of cuy and mote. I don’t like cuy, it’s horrible and bad for you. But the campesinos don’t know much; they’re always eating cuy and mote.

174

The Emergence of National Food

Conclusion Cuy, as a dish that is eaten across nations and within the discrete topographical area of the Andes, has the seeming capacity to traverse national boundaries. Yet it can just as readily establish and maintain other relations of distance and otherness, whether it is through the imbuing of local meaning through particular cooking practices or by interplaying with other forms of social differences, such as class, ethnicity, and country-city relations. Throughout this chapter, I have argued that cuy is made into a regional dish by the practices and framings of my participants, which reflect and reiterate entrenched regional divisions borne from geographical variance, political tensions, and divergent sociohistorical processes. Such constructions of regionality do not result in sameness and proximity, however, and they can also obscure and flatten differences within the region. I thereby suggest it is critical to recognize that the cultural valorization of a food as typical—whether this occurs at the scale of the nation, region, or local community—does not necessarily equate to the social celebration of its producers and consumers, as Marieya’s scathing commentary on Cuencano campesinos above suggests. But these reflections do not mean that cuy is fixed in meaning. Instead, as with any other food that travels across different ethnographic contexts and social groups, it can take on myriad meanings that are dependent on the subject position and relationality of the eater: for those outside of Ecuador, cuy is a nationally Ecuadorian food but for those within the nation, who are immersed in established social hierarchies, it remains a food that is distinctly regional and typical of a particular segment of the national population.

Notes 1 Creole is a term used in Latin America to refer to individuals of Spanish descent. 2 Mixed race individuals of Spanish and indigenous descent. 3 An institution of rural life, haciendas were large, profit-making estates, such as plantations, initially granted by the Spanish Crown during the colonial period. This system of extensive landholding survived independence and remained reliant on the labor of local rural and indigenous populations. 4 See Abbots (2014, 2017) for more detailed analysis of the food festivals more generally and Jima’s fair specifically.

Conclusion Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta

This volume explores the following question: “under what circumstances does (or does not) national food emerge?” What might appear to be an eclectic range of cases is assembled to address this question. The cases assembled cover a variety of conditions: “classical” cases in Europe, settler societies such as Israel, Canada, and the United States, a variety of postcolonial experiences from Latin America and Africa, and postcommunist societies. We have also consciously excluded cases which have been well investigated and documented such as France, Italy, India, and Japan in order to unearth less-known material. The case studies provided in this volume use a variety of theoretical perspectives of nationalism and different methodological approaches in their attempt to answer the question. In this brief conclusion, we summarize our findings and offer some insight into the appearance of national food. So under what circumstances does (or does not) national food emerge? It is clear from this volume that none of the theoretical perspectives of nationalism can fully explain the emergence or non-emergence of national food. Consequently, the answer the chapters in this volume suggest is, as expected, “it depends.” When comparing cases in which national food has emerged, such as the cases of Portugal (in the form of salt cod), Slovenia (potica), Bulgaria (yoghurt), Scotland (haggis and, more recently, deep fried Mars Bars), Catalonia (in the form of Catalan cuisine), and to a lesser extent Israel (in the form of a Jewish Israeli food culture), it has been shown that disparate factors have been at work; sometimes, the emergence of national food accompanies an orthodox nationbuilding process in which religion, political economy, industrialization, and political development come together to form a relatively homogeneous group of human beings, as seen in the case of Portugal. In the Scottish case, however, the idea of noble poverty in the context of power struggle between Scotland and England plays a particularly important role, even in the present time. While the establishment of potica as a symbol of the Slovene nation is associated with harking back to the idealized, preindustrial and pre-socialist past, the status of Bacillus Bulgaricus as a bacterium which makes Bulgaria unique is supported by belief in science and waves of industrialization and commercialization. The contrast is interesting because both Slovenia and Bulgaria are postcommunist countries but the way the idealized past—premodern, rural, and traditional life—is mobilized in establishing and maintaining Slovenian potica and Bulgarian yoghurt differs: in the Slovenian case, science as part of modernity does not feature prominently, while in the Bulgarian case, science is mobilized to recreate the idealized past and link it to the present. The case of Catalonia is somewhat similar to that of Scotland in that the formation of the idea of Catalan nationhood as well as

176

The Emergence of National Food

cuisine has always been shaped by its relationship with Spain. In these cases, then, the existence of a clear “other” has been decisive though ingredients and cooking styles that could be regarded as local are necessary. In this regard, the Israeli case study by Ranta and Prieto-Piastro is enlightening. In this case, whether there is a clear “other” for the settler population is uncertain because Zionists wanted to create New Jews modeled on the healthy and strong Palestinian population; at the same time, for the state of Israel, neighboring Arab countries as well as Palestinian citizens of the state are seen as a threatening “other.” Perhaps the ambiguity about who is the “other” is important in the finding that while there is an Israeli food culture (shared understanding about what, when, and how to eat among segments of the Jewish Israeli society), there is not an Israeli cuisine (a systematic body of knowledge about what to eat, how to cook, how to present, etc.). It can be speculated that the ambiguity about the “other” reflects the lack of internal coherence in selfunderstanding of Jewish Israelis. These observations bring us back to Krishnendu Ray’s point that cuisine is another tool of boundary making (Ray, 2008). As pointed out in the introduction, however, this purely instrumental view of cuisine (national food, in this volume) fails to explain the level of passion that national food can invoke. This reminds us of the classic instrumentalist versus primordialist opposition in the study of ethnicity (Hutchinson and Smith, 1996: 3–14). While instrumentalists regard ethnicity as a social, cultural, and political resource to satisfy different interests (ethnicity as a tool to achieve a goal), primordialists see ethnicity as part of human nature which exerts overwhelming and irresistible influence on human beings. For instrumentalists, ethnicity is a social construct while for primordialists, it is biological or at least understood to be so. The framework is often referred to when explaining conflict, but how one treats national food can be seen as reflecting these contrasting views of ethnicity, as exemplified by debates in our case studies of who particular food items belong to. Expanding this onto theories of nationalism, it indicates the opposition between the modernists who take the view that nations are created to satisfy certain interests and the primordialists/ perennialists who regard nations as an inseparable part of human existence (Smith, 1998). There has been no conclusion to these two sets of opposition. In the field of the study of ethnicity, there are alternatives such as Fredrik Barth’s transactional approach which focuses on the boundary making and its maintenance (Barth, 1969) and Donald Horowitz’s social psychological approach which emphasizes the importance of different estimations of the group’s self-worth, which may lead to resentment/ frustration (Horowitz, 1985). In theories of nationalism, the ethno-symbolic approach, which places emphasis on the ways in which myths and memories are maintained, rediscovered, and reappropriated by a group in maintaining their cultural identity, serves as an alternative that could bridge the divide between modernists and primordialists/perennialists. Reviewing the cases in which national food has emerged and largely accepted as such, the ethno-symbolic approach appears to provide the most comprehensive explanation for its emergence. For instance, potica has established itself as a Slovenian national food because it allows the contemporary Slovenes to connect to a particular,

Conclusion

177

preindustrial, rural past which helps them differentiate from the socialist identity. Israeli food culture is possible because different ingredients and different ways of cooking them somehow connect contemporary Jewish Israelis to a mythical or biblical past and to an imagined old-new homeland thus anchoring their Israeli identity to the land. For Catalans, in a similar manner, consuming foods that have been recognized and recorded in two national (and idealized) Golden Ages, the medieval era and the nineteenth century, is a means of partaking of the national past (Barthes, 1961). The key, therefore, is the existence of myths and memories that can be reinterpreted to make sense of the present. When reviewing the cases in which national food fails to emerge or has failed to be accepted as such, the absence of internal coherence, something that can bind the whole group to a single thing, seems to be a common denominator. Trubek and Fabien-Ouellet examining large settler societies, America and Canada respectively, repeatedly point to the absence of coherence in terms of history, geography (which leads to the absence of coherence in produce), and political economy as a reason why American cuisine or Canadian cuisine is impossible. Trubek argues when the unit is reduced to a region where a certain level of coherence can be achieved as in the case of New England, we can be confident that there is a “national” cuisine. Aguilera, Nikolić, and Abbots, providing case studies of Latin American countries, also point to the diversity and heterogeneity of the population as a reason why “national” food has not emerged or has not been accepted, and therefore contested. The diversity and heterogeneity is not necessarily defined by “primordial factors” such as topography, race, or ethnicity; as Aguilera shows, class can play a significant role in producing heterogeneity in the population. Moreover, the diversity and heterogeneity, which appears to prevent national food from emerging, is there despite the top-down efforts by the government to forge a homogeneous population. This observation suggests that the modernist account of nationalism probably exaggerates the power of the state, a point which also has some parallels in the case of Ghana. While there is no doubt that the modern state with its monopoly of legal violence and an unprecedented capacity of surveillance exerts enormous power on the population in its territory, it does not necessarily succeed in producing a homogeneous group of people. Even though, in some cases, the state manages to harness shared historical memories or symbols to produce a reasonably coherent account of who the people are, in many other cases, there are no convenient myths and memories to be mobilized. In this regard, the ethno-symbolic approach appears to provide the most reasonable explanation as to why national food sometimes fails to emerge. Another theoretical insight that needs attention here is provided by Gvion in her study of Palestinian young women and chefs in Israel. She documents the ways in which her respondents appear to abandon their tradition, their national food, in their efforts to “get on” in mainstream society in Israel. She concludes that it is because for them, the nation to which they are supposed to belong has receded in importance. Gvion’s study brings us back to some of the classical definitions of the nation. Ernest Renan defined a nation as “a soul, a spiritual principle” that is constituted by two principles: “One is in the past, the other is in the present. One is the possession in

178

The Emergence of National Food

common of a rich legacy of remembrances; the other is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue to value the heritage which all hold in common” (Hutchinson and Smith, 1994: 17). Max Weber also emphasized the subjective element in defining a nation: “a nation is a community of sentiment which would adequately manifest itself in a state of its own” (Hutchinson and Smith, 1994: 25). The nation is, according to these celebrated definitions, an affair of heart; what is important is subjective elements, not the physical and objective markers. The Palestinian citizens of Israel Gvion has studied appear to question the need to belong to a community of sentiment. When the nation is questioned subjectively, naturally, the importance of national food diminishes while it may still exist as an objective reality. National food only emerges when there is a large enough number of people agreeing that there is such a thing as a nation and that they belong to it. The existence of a state does not guarantee the existence of a reasonably coherent nation, but the absence of a state does not preclude the emergence of a “community of sentiment.” If anything, the existence of the state is not a predictor of the development of a national food at all, such as in the cases of Canada, Ecuador, and the United States. A comparison of Catalans and Palestinians in Israel demonstrate how two contrasting situations can occur. In the Catalan one, the existence of a state, separate from the Catalan nation with its own nationalizing agenda, was crucial to the development of a separate national identity and cuisine. Among Palestinians in Israel however, they are willing, to an extent, to adopt the identity of the Israeli state. However, economic factors and economic power may influence this situation, such as Catalonia’s role as an economically important region, which is not the case with Palestinians in Israel.1 The role of economic power in national foodways was also an issue discussed in Ghana by Simpson Miller, where the presence of the Asante, an ethnic group with a strong sense of a separate identity, stymied the development of national food due to its monopoly over cocoa production. Perhaps one conclusion these case studies suggest is that the development of national foods is often aligned with economic interests, which may be associated with state power, or may be in the hands of nonstate (i.e., bottom-up) actors. As noted earlier, there is no single factor that can predict the emergence/nonemergence of national food. The existence of the state or, even the nation as seen in the case of Ecuador, does not guarantee the emergence of national food. Perhaps reflecting the inherent materiality of food, economic factors appear to be influential though they are by no means decisive. Theoretically speaking, the case studies assembled in this volume suggest the ethno-symbolist approach focusing on the agency of people mobilizing existing myths and memories in forming and maintaining the nation, and therefore nationalism, is most useful in explaining the emergence/non-emergence of national food. When myths and memories which resonate with a large number of people are connected to or represented by food, it can emerge as national food. The shared myths and memories are the basis of a sense of cohesion or even unity among a group of people, which tallies with the observation provided by many of the chapters here: the emergence of national food is strongly correlated with a sense of cohesion, or even unity, among a group of people. If the boundary of such a group broadly coincides with the nation, it is likely there is national food; if not, national food is

Conclusion

179

unlikely to emerge. As pointed out by Renan and Weber, the idea of the community of sentiment or fate appears to be the most useful indicator of predicting the emergence of national food.

Note 1 The decision of Palestinian Arab citizens to adopt to an extent an Israeli identity does have some parallels to the Catalan case, however in a very different context. Migrants from other parts of Spain that arrived in Catalonia in the 1960s and 1970s encouraged their children to learn Catalan, and adopt a Catalan identity, as they associated this identity with higher economic and social status.

References Primary sources Akoto, A. (2014), Interviewed by Brandi Miller, Accra, May 28. Alata, O. and M. Oyokohene (1948), Speech, February 14, Ghana Public Records and Archives Administration. Catalogue reference: ARG 1-1-254. Ballard, M. (n.d.), Diaries from 1785 to 1812. Available online: http://dohistory.org/diary/ index.html (accessed April 8, 2018). The Battle of the Reviews [1760]. London: Printed for R. Marriner. A Catalogue of the Kitchin-Furniture of John Bull Esqr [c. 1762]. London: Printed by J. Williams. BM Satires 3990. Circular from Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah to Chief Regional Officers on behalf of the National Food Board (1953), Public Records and Archives Administration, Accra. Catalog reference: ARG 2-8-27. The Congress; or, A Device to Lower the Land-Tax [1762]. London: Printed for the author. BM Satires 3887. Department of Justice Canada (2018), Principles – Respecting the Government of Canada’s Relationship with Indigenous Peoples. Available online: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/ csj-sjc/principles.pdf (accessed March 16, 2018). Duncan-Jones, A. C., Colonial Director of Supplies (1941), Meeting Minutes, October 25, Ghana Public Records and Archives Administration. Catalogue reference: ARG 1-1-67. Euromonitor International (2014), “China Country Report (Packaged Foods).” Available online: http://www.euromonitor.com/china?PageCode=195&CountryCode=null&Ind ustryCode=88216&ContentType=null&ReportType=null&SortBy=1&PageNumber= 0&PageSize=20&PageType=13 (accessed February 28, 2018). The Exaltation of the Boot [c. 1762]. British Antidote to Caledonian Poison. 5th ed. London: Sold at Mr Sumpter’s. BM Satires 3861. Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec (2016), Statistiques Acericole 2016. Available online: https://fpaq.ca/documentation/dossier-economique/ (accessed April 8, 2018). Fordjour, D. K. (2014), Interview, La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra. Interviewed by Brandi Simpson Miller, July 3, 2014. Generalitat de Catalunya (2017), “Catalan Exports 2016,” Catalonia in Business (Catalonia Trade and Investment), Issue 31, May 30, available online: http://catalonia.com/ newsletter_news/newsletter/issue31/exports-2016.jsp (accessed April 8, 2018). Generalitat de Catalunya (2018), “Sectors in Catalonia: Food and Drink,” Catalonia Trade and Investment/Acció. Available online: http://catalonia.com/trade-with-catalonia/ food-drink.jsp (accessed April 8, 2018). Global Nonviolent Action Database (2014), “Ghanaians Boycott European Goods, 1948.” Available online: http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/ (accessed August 26, 2014). The Governor General of Canada (n.d.), Recipient. Order of Canada. Available online: http://www.gg.ca/honour.aspx?id=14937&t=12&ln=benoît&lan=eng (accessed March 16, 2018).

182

References

Hall-Stevenson, John [1763]. A Pastoral Cordial, Or, an Anodyne Sermon. London: Printed for J. Hinxman. The Highland Seer, or the Political Vision [1762]. BM Satires 3867. House of Commons of Canada (2006), Journals, 39th Parliament, 1st Session, No. 87, November 27, available online: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication. aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1&DocId=2539924#DOC--2543815 (accessed March 16, 2018). Law on the Labels and Geographical Indications (2017), Republic of Bulgaria (1999), Official Gazette of the Republic of Bulgaria, Vol. 81, September 14 (amended Vol. 85, October 24, 2017), available online: https://www.lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2134680576 (accessed February 28, 2018). Library and Archives Canada (1971). Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 28th Parliament, 3rd Session, Volume 8 (October 8): 8545–48, Appendix, 8580–85. Library and Archives Canada (1988). Statutes of Canada. An Act for the Preservation and Enhancement of Multiculturalism in Canada, SC 36–37, Elizabeth II, Volume I, Chapter 31. MEP (Ministerio de Educación Pública) (2005), Relanzamiento de la Educación Costarricense, MEP. Available online: https://mep.janium.net/janium/Documentos/200 5estudiossocialescicloI.pdf (accessed February 28, 2018). Ministry of Food and Agriculture (2014), “Indigenous Recipes.” Available online: http:// mofa.gov.gh/site/?page_id=8721 (accessed March 30, 2014). National Commission on Culture (2004), “The Cultural Policy of Ghana,” Government of Ghana. Available online: http://www.artsinafrica.com/uploads/2011/04/Ghana.pdf (accessed July 20, 2014). National Statistical Institute of the Republic of Bulgaria (2016), “Population by Districts, Age, Place of Residence and Sex,” Time Series, Pop.6.1.3_Pop_Dr_En.xls. Available online: http://www.nsi.bg/en/content/6708/population-districts-age-place-residenceand-sex (accessed February 28, 2018). Ofício do Intendente Geral da Polícia (1811). Ofício do Intendente Geral da Polícia Desembargador Jerónimo Francisco Lobo, como Substituto, para o Conselho de Guerra, sobre a distribuição do donativo britânico de bacalhau, considerando a relação número de fogos-arrobas de bacalhau, pelas Comarcas do Reino, cujas terras foram invadidas (PT/AMM/CFLLTV/TT-CGR/061). Osei-Tutu, J. K. (2014), Interviewed by Brandi Simpson Miller, Accra, May 27. Regulation (EU) No. 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 November 2012 on Quality Schemes for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs. OJ L 343, December 14, 2012: 1–29. Reed, Joseph [1761]. The Register-Office: A Farce of Two Acts. London: Printed for T. Davies. The Republic of Ghana, National Commission on Culture (2004), “The Cultural Policy of Ghana, 2004.” Available online: http://www.artsinafrica.com/uploads/2011/04/Ghana. pdf (accessed April 2011). Scotch Amusements [1768]. Oxford Magazine, 1(10) (October): facing page 140. BM Satires 4237. Tod, William [1759]. Letter to William Smellie. November 29. William Smellie MSS., Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, National Museums Scotland Library. Townshend, George [1763]. The Pedlars, or Scotch Merchants of London. London: Published in Ryders Court. BM Satires 4061.

References

183

The Triumphal Arch [1763]. London: Sold by E. Sumpter. BM Satires 4046. United States Department of Agriculture Maple Report (2016). Available online: https:// www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_England_includes/Publications/Current_ News_Release/2016/Maple.pdf (accessed April 8, 2018). Universal Declaration of Guachaca Fermentation (2014), Santiago: Kiltro Ediciones [in Spanish]. Worlali, Agbeve (2014), Interviewed by Brandi Miller, Legon, May 27.

Secondary sources Abbots, E-J. (2014), “The Fast and the Fusion: Class, Creolization and the Remaking of Comida Típica in Highland Ecuador,” in J. Klein and A. Murcott (eds), Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody, 87–107, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Abbots, E-J. (2017), The Agency of Eating: Mediation, Food and the Body, London: Bloomsbury. Abel, A. (2017), “Why Israel Just Might Have the World’s Best Restaurant Scene,” Forbes, January 12, available online: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabel/2017/01/12/whyisrael-just-might-have-the-worlds-best-restaurant-scene/#217f59f4de5f (accessed March 20, 2018). Abraham, L. (2017), “‘Cooking for Reconciliation’: Indigenous Chefs Aim to Raise Awareness of Traditional Foods,” The Canadian Press, March 27, available online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/indigenous-chefs-raise-awareness-traditionalfoods-1.4042522 (accessed April 8, 2018). Abu-Saad, I. (2006), “State-Controlled Education and Identity Formation among the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel,” The American Behavioral Scientist, 49(8): 1085–100. Adema, P. (2009), Garlic Capital of the World: Gilroy, Garlic and the Making of the Festive Foodscape, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Aguilera, I. (2016), De la cocina al Estado nación. El ingrediente Mapuche, Barcelona: Icaria/Observatorio de la Alimentación. Aguilera, I. and A. Alvear (2017), “Pipeño and Terremoto Like National Drinks: Reflexions about Heritage and National Representation,” RIVAR, 12: 5–21 [in Spanish]. Agulló, F. (1999), Llibre de la cuina catalana (Presentació de Lloreç Torrado), Barcelona: El Pedrís. Akyeampong, E. K. (2006), Themes in West Africa’s History, Athens: Ohio University Press. Albala, K. (2011), “Historical Background to Food and Christianity,” in Albala, K. and E. Trudy (eds), Food and Faith in Christian Culture, 7–19, New York: Columbia University Press. Albers, J. (2000), Hands on the Land, Cambridge: MIT Press. Alkalaj, M. (1996), Slovenska zunanjepolitična potica v letu 1996 [The Slovene foreign policy potica in the year 1996]. Delo, December 21. Allman, J. M. (1990), “The Youngmen and the Porcupine: Class, Nationalism and Asante’s Struggle for Self-Determination, 1954–57,” The Journal of African History, 31(2): 263–79. Almog, O. (2000), The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, Berkeley: University of California Press.

184

References

Althusser, L. (2001), Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New York: Monthly Review Press. Álvarez Masís, Y. (ed) (2005), Cocina Tradicional Costarricense 1.Guanacaste y Región Central de Puntarenas, San José, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes. Álvarez Masís, Y. (ed) (2007), Cocina Tradicional Costarricense 2. Heredia y Limón, San José, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes. Álvarez Masís, Y. (ed) (2014), Cocina Tradicional Costarricense 6. Limón, San José, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes. Anderson, B. (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London and New York: Verso. Anderson, B. (1998), The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, New York: Verso. Anderson, L. (2013), Cooking Up the Nation: Spanish Culinary Texts and Culinary Nationalization in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, Woodbridge: Tamesis. Angus, I. (2006), “The Paradox of Cultural Identity in English Canada,” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 10: 23. Anonymous (1790), Aventuras, ou Lograções, de D. Bacalhau Quaresma e D. Sardinha d’Espixa, Lisboa: Na Officina de António Gomes. Anonymous (1902), Cosinha Portugueza ou Arte Culinária Nacional, Coimbra: Coimbra Editora. Anonymous (1967), Mil e um Modos de Cozinhar Bacalhau, Porto: Rosa Celeste Castro Fernandes. Appadurai, A. (1988), “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30(1): 3–24. Appadurai, A. (2008), “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” in Counihan, C. and P. Van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader, 289–307, London: Routledge. Archetti, E. P. (1997), Guinea-Pigs: Food, Symbol and Conflict of Knowledge in Ecuador, Oxford: Berg. Ardèvol, E., Estalella, A. and D. Domínguez (2008), “Introducción,” in Ardèvol, E., Estalella, A. and D. Domínguez (eds), La Mediación Tecnológica En La Práctica Etnográfica, 9–29, España: ANKULEGI. Arhin, K. (1970), “Aspects of the Ashanti Northern Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 40(4): 363–73. Armstrong, J. (1982), Nations before Nationalism, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Assies, W. (2007), “Prólogo,” in Yáñez, N. and J. Aylwin (eds), El gobierno de Lagos, los pueblos indígenas y el “nuevo trato”. Las paradojas de la democracia chilena, Santiago: LOM. Atherton, H. M. (1974), Political Prints in the Age of Hogarth: A Study of the Ideographic Representation of Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Austin, D. (1970), Politics in Ghana: 1946–1960, New York: Oxford University Press. Austin, G., Baten, J. and B. Van Leeuwen (2012), “The Biological Standard of Living in Early Nineteenth-Century West Africa: New Anthropometric Evidence for Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso,” The Economic History Review, 65(4): 1280–302. Avieli, N. (2017), Food and Power: A Culinary Ethnography of Israel, Berkeley : University of California Press.

References

185

Ayala Mora, E. (2005), Ecuador, Patria de Todos: Manual de Cívica, Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar y Corporción Editora Nacional. Ayora-Diaz, S. I. (2012), Foodscapes, Foodfields and Identities in Yucatán, Oxford: Berghan Books. Balic, A. (2013), “The Haggis,” in McWilliams, M. (ed), Wrapped and Stuffed Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2012, 82–93, Totnes, Devon: Prospect Books. Baird, E. (1974), Classic Canadian Cooking: Menus for the Seasons, Toronto: James Lorimer & Company. Bak-Geller, S. (2015a), “Wheat Versus Maize: Civilizing Dietary Strategies and Early Mexican Republicanism,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas, 4(8): 1–25. Bak-Geller, S. (2015b), “Food Shortage in Colonial Mexico: Maize, Food Policies and the Construction of a Modern Political Culture (1785–1807),” in Helstosky, C. (ed), The Routledge History of Food, 81–91, London: Routledge. Bakhtin, M. (1984), Rabelais and His World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Barthes, R. (2013 [1997]) “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption,” in Counihan, C. and P. Van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader, 23–30, Abingdon: Routledge. Barths, F. (1969), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Bégin, P.-Y. (2017), Le sirop d’érable, québécois ou canadien? La Terre De Chez Nous. Available online: https://www.laterre.ca/actualites/economie/sirop-derable-quebecoiscanadien.php (accessed April 8, 2018) Belasco, W. (1999), “Food and the Counterculture: A Story of Bread and Politics,” in Grew, R. (ed), Food in Global History, Boulder: Westview Press. Bell, D. and G. Valentine (1997), Consuming Geographies: We Are Where We Eat, London: Routledge. Bengoa, J. (1999), Historia de un conflicto. El Estado y los Mapuches en el siglo XX, Santiago: Planeta. Benoit, J. (1963), L’encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne, Montréal, Québec: Les Messageries du Saint-Laurent ltée. Benvenisti, M. (2012), The Dream of the White Sabra, Jerusalem: Keter [in Hebrew] Ben-Ze’ev, E. (2004), “The Politics of Taste and Smell: Palestinian Rites of Return,” in Lien, M. and B. Nerlich (eds), The Politics of Food, 141–60, Oxford: Berg. Bernard, Y. (2004), “La Netnographie: Une nouvelle méthode d’enquête qualitative sur les communautés virtuelles de consummation,” Décisions Marketing, 36: 49–62. Billig, M. (1995), Banal Nationalism, London: Sage. Blair St. George, R. (ed) (1988), Material Life in America: 1600–1860, Boston: Northeastern University Press. Blumen, O. and A. Halevi (2005), “Negotiating National Boundaries: Palestinian and Jewish Women’s Studies Students in Israel,” Identities, 12: 505–38. Bogataj, J. (2014), Potice iz Slovenije, Ljubljana: Rokus Klett. Borov, I. (1962), “Bulgaria, Country of the Centenarians,” Journal of Gerontology, 10: 392–96 [in Italian]. Braudel, F. (1979), Civilisation Matérielle et Capitalisme, Paris: Armand Colin. Breslaw, E. and D. Kleyn (1973), “In Vitro Digestability of Protein in Yoghurt at Various Stages of Processing,” Journal of Food Science, 38(6): 116–21. Bouchard, G. (2014), L’interculturalisme: Un point de vue québécois, Montréal: Boréal. Bourdieu, P. (1979), La Distinction: Critique Sociale du Jugement, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.

186

References

Bourdieu, P. (1980), “Le Mort Saisit le VIF: Les Relations entre l’ Histoire Réifiée et L’ Histoire Incorporée,” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 32/33: 3–14. Bourdieu, P. (1997), Méditations Pascaliennes, Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Bourque, N. (2001), “Eating Your Words: Communicating with Food in the Ecuadorian Andes,” in J. Hendry and C. W. Watson (eds), An Anthropology of Indirect Communication, 85–100, London: Routledge. Brayton, S. and B. Millington (2011), “Renovating Ethnic Identity on Restaurant Makeover,” Social Identities, 17(2): 185–200. Brillat Savarin, J. A. (2011), Fisiología del gusto, Barcelona: Editorial Óptima. Brown, C. (1985), Scottish Cookery, Glasgow : Richard Drew Publishing. Brown, C. (1991), Broths to Bannocks: Cooking in Scotland 1690 to the Present Day, London: John Murray. (Orig. pub. 1990.) Brydon, L. and K. Legge (1996), Adjusting Society: The World Bank, the IMF, and Ghana, London: I. B. Tauris. Buettner, E. (2012), “Going for Indian: South Asian Restaurants and the Limits of Multiculturalism in Britain,” in Ray, K. and T. Srinivas (eds), Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia, 143–74, Berkeley : University of California Press. Bulir, A. (1998), The Price Incentive to Smuggle and the Cocoa Supply in Ghana, 1950– 1996, New York: International Monetary Fund. Burcar, L. (2015), Restavracija kapitalizma: Repatriarhalizacija družbe [Restauration of capitalism: Repatriarhalisation of society], Ljubljana: Sophia. Burns, R. (1787), Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Edinburgh: William Creech. Busia, K. A. (1950), Report on a Social Survey of Sekondi-Takoradi, London: Crown Agents for the Colonies. Cairns, K. and J. Johnston (2015), Food and Femininity, New York: Bloomsbury. Caldwell, M. (2002), “The Taste of Nationalism: Food, Politics in Postsocialist Moscow,” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 67(3): 295–319. Caliandro, A. (2014), “Ethnography of Virtual Worlds, Netnography, and Digital Ethnography,” in Sunderland, P. and R. Denny (eds), Handbook of Business Anthropology, 783–61, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Calvo, E. (1982), “Migration et alimentation,” Social Science Information, 21(3): 383–446. Camerlenghi, N. (2016), “Terroir and Architecture,” in Martin-McAuliffe, L. S. (ed), Food and Architecture at the Table, 23–42, London: Bloomsbury. Camporesi, P. (1981), Le Pain Sauvage. L’Imaginaire de la Faim de la Renaissance au xviiie Siècle, Paris: Le Chemin Vert. Cardoso, C. (1982–83), “O julgamento e o enterro do bacalhau,” Sintria, I–II: 753–802. Cardoso, M. (2016), “Bacalhau 500 milhões’ já está a caminho e não vem a nado”, Expresso, July 15. Carneiro, M. S. (1901), O Cosinheiro Popular dos Pobres e Ricos ou o Moderno Tesouro do Cosinheiro, Porto: Em casa de Joaquim Maria da Costa Livreiro-Editor. Carson, J. (ed) (1744), Jemmy Carson’s Collections, Dublin: James Carson Castelo-Branco, F. (n.d.), “Culinária e Doçaria,” in De Castro Pires de Lima, F. (ed), A Arte Popular em Portugal, 299–333, Lisboa: Editorial Verbo. Castelo-Branco, F. (1969), Lisboa Seiscentista, Lisboa: Câmara Municipal. Castells, M. (2004), The Power of Identity, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Cavanaugh, J. (2007), “Making Salami, Producing Bergamo: The Transformation of Value,” Ethnos, 72(2): 149–72. Chandan, Ramesh C. and A. Kilara (eds) (2006), Manufacturing Yogurt and Fermented Milks, Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing.

References

187

Chang Vargas, G. et al. (eds) (2001), Nuestras Comidas, San José, Costa Rica: CECC. Chang Vargas, G. (2001a), “Costa Rica: Comidas Regionales,” in Chang Vargas, G. et al. (eds), Nuestras Comidas, 123–44, San José, Costa Rica: CECC. Chang Vargas, G. (2001b), “Bebidas Regionales,” in G. Chang Vargas et al. (eds), Nuestras Comidas, 231–39, San José: CECC. Chatterjee, P. (1993), The Nation and Its Fragments, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cheape, H. (2010), “Gheibhte Breacain Charnaid (‘Scarlet Tartans Would Be Got…’): The Re-invention of Tradition,” in Brown, I. (ed), From Tartan to Tartanry: Scottish Culture, History and Myth, 13–31, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Chen, Y. (2010), “Bodily Memory and Sensibility: Culinary Preferences and National Consciousness in the Case of ‘Taiwanese Cuisine’,” Taiwan Journal of Anthropology, 8(3): 163–96. Chomakov, H. (1987), Bulgarian Yoghurt: Health and Longevity, Sofia: Zemizdat. Clark, A. K. (1994), “Indians, the State and the Law: Public Works and the Struggle to Control Labour in Liberal Ecuador,” Journal of Historical Sociology, 7(1): 49–72. Clavijero, Francisco J. (1987), Historia antigua de México, Mexico: Porrúa. Cocinero mexicano, o colección de las mejores recetas para guisar al estilo americano, y de las más selectas según el método de las cocinas española, italiana, francesa e inglesa (1831), Mexico: Galván Press. Collins, J. N. (2000), “A Sense of Possibility: Ecuador’s Indigenous Movement Takes Center Stage,” NACLA, 33(5): 40–46. Colley, L. (2005), Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, new ed., New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Orig. pub. 1992.) Congdon, V. (2015), Nourishing the Nation: Manifestations of Catalan National Identity, PhD Dissertation, Linacre College, University of Oxford. Congdon, V. (2017), “Regionalists and Excursionistes: Catalan ‘Regions’ and National Identity,” in Riding, J. and M. Jones (eds), Reanimating Regions: Culture Politics and Performance, 79–94, New York and London: Routledge. Consiglieri, C. and M. Abel (1998), O Bacalhau na Vida e na Cultura dos Portugueses, Lisboa: Academia do Bacalhau de Lisboa. Consiglieri, C. and M. Abel (1999), Bacalhau em Português, Sintra: Colares Editora. Cornfeld, L. (1949), Ma Avashel mi-Manot ha Tzena? Madrikh, Tel Aviv: Published by the author. Cornfeld, L. (1962), Israeli Cookery, Connecticut: The Avi Publishing Company. Cornfield, G. (1996), Lilian, Honolulu: Orion Master Recordings. Cortes-Valente, M. (1998), Cozinha de Portugal, 2 vols. Lisboa: Temas e Debates. Costa, A. R. (1789), Descripção Topografica, e Historica da Cidade do Porto, Porto: Officina de Antonio Alvarez Ribeiro. Costa, J. D. R. (1818), “Suplício do Bacalhau e Degredo do Judas em Sábado de Aleluia,” in Costa, J. D. R. (ed), Roda da Fortuna, Onde Gira Toda a Gente Bem, ou Mal Segura: Obra Crítica, Moral e Muito Divertida, folheto II, 11–25, Lisboa: Impressão de J. F. M. de Campos. Counihan, C. and P. Van Estrik (2008), Food and Culture: A Reader Paperback, London: Routledge. Crain, M. (1990), “The Social Construction of National Identity in Highland Ecuador,” Anthropological Quarterly, 63(1): 43–59. Cruz, F. I. S. (1843), Ensaio sobre a Topographia Médica de Lisboa, ou Consideraçoens Especiaes Relativas à Sua História, Lisboa: Typ. M. T. Coelho.

188

References

Csergo, J. (1996), “L’Invention des Cuisines Régionales”, in Jean-Louis, F. and M. Montanari (eds), Histoire de l’ Alimentation, 823–41, Paris: Fayard. Culler, J. (1981), “Semiotics of Tourism,” American Journal of Semiotics, 1(1/2): 127–40. Cunill de Bosch, J. (1908), La Cuyna Catalana: Aplech de fòrmules pera prepara tota mena de plats ab economia y facilitar, propi pera servir de guia a les mestresses de casa y a totes les cuyneres en general, Barcelona: Llibreria de Francesch Puig. Cunningham, A. (ed) (1842), TThe Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing His Poems, Songs, and Correspondence, London: George Virtue. Cusack, I. (2000), “African Cuisines: Recipes for Nation-Building?” Journal of African Cultural Studies, 13(2): 207–25. Cusack, I. (2003), “Pots, Pens and ‘Eating Out the Body’: Cuisine and the Gendering of African Nations,” Nations and Nationalism, 9(2): 277–96. Cusack, I. (2004), “‘Equatorial Guinea’s National Cuisine Is Simple and Tasty’: Cuisine and the Making of National Culture,” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, 8: 131–48. Cwiertka, K. J. (2006), Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, London: Reaktion Books. Davidson, A. (2002), “Cod,” in Davidson, A. (ed), The Penguin Companion to Food, 242, London: Penguin Books. Davidson, R. A. (2007), “Terroir and Catalonia,” Journal of Catalan Studies, 1(1): 39–53. De Certeau, M. and L. Girad (1998), The Practice of Everyday Life, Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. DeFrance, S. D. (2006), “The Sixth Toe: The Modern Culinary Role of the Guinea Pig in Southern Peru,” Food and Foodways, 14: 3–34. Di Giovine, M. A. and R. L. Brulotte (2014), “Introduction: Food and Foodways as Cultural Heritage,” in Brulotte, R. L. and M. A. Di Giovine (eds), Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage, 1–28, Farnham: Ashgate. De Jong, A. and P. Varley (2017), “Food Tourism Policy: Deconstructing Boundaries of Taste and Class,” Tourism Management, 60: 212–22. De la Vega, G. (1966), Royal Commentaries of the Incas, and General History of Peru, translated with an introduction by Harold. H. Livermore, Austin: University of Texas Press. De los Ríos, E. (1852), Compendio de la Historia de México, Mexico: Voz de la Religión Press. DeSoucey, M. (2010), “Gastronationalism: Food Traditions and Authenticity Politics in the European Union,” American Sociological Review, 75(3): 432–55. Deutsche W. (2017), “Bulgarian Yoghurt Drives the Chinese Crazy,” DW, September 26, available online: http://www.dw.com/bg/%D0%B1%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3 %D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE-%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%81% D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE-%D0%BC%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B4%D1%8F%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B 5/a-40686859 (accessed February 28, 2018). DeVault, L. M. (1991), Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. DiGiacomo, S. (1987), “‘La Caseta i l’hortet’: Rural Imagery in Catalan Urban Politics,” Anthropological Quarterly, 60(4): 160–66. DiStefano, R and A. Trubek (2015), “Cheese Stories: Cheesemongers, Vermont Artisan Cheese and the Value of Telling Stories,” Cuizine, 6(1).

References

189

Domènech, I. (1930), Àpats: Magnific manual de cuina pràctica catalana, adequate a tots els gustos i el més variat i seleccionat de Catalunya, [Place and publisher unknown]. Dorland, M. (1988), “A Thoroughly Hidden Country: Ressentiment in Canadian Culture, Canadian Nationalism, Canadian Culture,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory/Revue canadienne de theorie politique et sociale, 12(1–2): 130–64. Dow, B. (1995), “Mars Supper, Please,” Daily Record, August 24. Earle, R. (2012), The Body of the Conquistador, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebert, N. (2017), “Reflection on Home and Identity in Late Modernity,” in Lloyd, J. and E. Vasta (eds), Reimagining Home in the 21st Century, 21–35, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishin. Eça de Queiroz, J. M. (2003), Cousin Bazilio, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, Sawtry, UK: Dedalus. Eça de Queiroz, J. M. (2008), Correspondência, vol. I, Lisboa: Caminho. Edensor, T. (2002), National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life, Oxford: Berg. Edensor, T. (2006), “Reconsidering National Temporalities: Institutional Times, Everyday Routines, Serial Spaces and Synchronicities,” European Journal of Social Theory, 9(4): 525–45. Encina, F. A. (1955), Our Economic Inferiority, Santiago: Editorial Universitaria [in Spanish]. Eyzaguirre, H. (1986), Taste and Wisdom of Chilean Cuisine, Santiago: Editorial Andrés Bello [in Spanish]. Fabien-Ouellet, N. (2016), “Poutine Dynamics,” Cuizine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures/Cuizine : Revue des cultures culinaires au Canada, 7(2). Doi: https://doi. org/10.7202/1038479ar Fajans, J. (2012), Brazilian Food: Race, Class and Identity in Regional Cuisines, London: Bloomsbury. Feijoo y, M. and J. Benito (1779), Teatro crítico universal, Madrid: Joaquim Ibarra, Printer to His Majesty. Fenton, A. (2007), “Diet,” in Lynch, M. (ed), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, online ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Orig. pub. 2001.) Available

online: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/ 9780199234820.001.0001/acref-9780199234820-e-82 (accessed May 18, 2018) Ferguson, P. (2004), Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ferrão, J. et al. (1984), Tesouros da Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa, Lisboa: Edição Selecções do Reader’s Digest. Ferraz, J. (1866), “Recordações do Minho – Festas Populares: O Natal, as Janeiras, os Reis,” Archivo Pittoresco, IX: 315–16. Ferrero, S. (2002), “Comida Sin Sar. Consumption of Mexican Food in Los Angeles: ‘Foodscapes’ in a Transnational Consumer Society,” in Belasco, W. and P. Scranton (eds), Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, 194–219, New York: Routledge. Fialho de Almeida, J. (1992), Os Gatos/4, Lisboa: Livros do Brasil. “Food Sovereignty Ghana and COFAM Demonstrates against GMO’s” (2014), Your Neighborhood, May 12–26. Fischler, C. (1988), “Food, Self and Identity,” Social Science Information, 27: 275–92. Fox, J. E. and C. Miller-Idriss (2008), “Everyday Nationhood,” Ethnicities, 8(4): 536–76. Franklin, W. T. (1818), Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 2nd ed, vol. 2. London: Printed for Henry Colburn. Fraser, R. (1986), West African Poetry: A Critical History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

190

References

Freire, A. O. (1739), Descripçam Corográfica do Reyno de Portugal, Lisboa: Officina de Miguel Rodrigues. Fried, M. (2008), Comidas del Ecuador: Recetas Tradicionales Para Gente de Hoy, Quito: Andean Press. Galloway, J., Forsyth, A. and D. Shewan (2007), Young People’s Street Drinking Behaviour: Investigating the Influence of Marketing and Subculture, Glasgow Centre for the Study of Violence. Ganzaroli, A., De Noni, I. and P. Van Baalen (2017), “Vicious Advice: Analyzing the Impact of TripAdvisor on the Quality of Restaurants as Part of the Cultural Heritage of Venice,” Tourism Management, 61(C): 501–10. Garrido, A. (2004), O Estado Novo e a Campanha do Bacalhau, Rio de Mouro: Círculo de Leitores. Garrido, A. (2008), “O Estado Novo e as Pescas: A Recriação Historicista da Tradição Marítima Nacional,” in Torgal, L. R. and H. Paulo (eds), Estados Autoritários e Totalitários e suas Representações: Propaganda, Ideologia, Historiografia e Memória, 99–118, Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra. Garrido, A. (2011), A Epopeia do Bacalhau, Lisboa: Edições CTT. Gaytan, M. S. (2008), “From Sombreros to Sincronizadas: Authenticity, Ethnicity, and the Mexican Restaurant Industry,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37(3): 314–41. Gebe, B. Y. (2008), “Ghana’s Foreign Policy at Independence and Implications for the 1966 Coup D’état,” Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(3): 160–86. Gellner, E. (1983), Nations and Nationalism, Oxford: Blackwell. Georgieva, M. (2010), “Milk for Sale: Milk Processors Fight a Battle for the Raw Resource,” Kapital, September 24, available online: https://www.capital.bg/biznes/ kompanii/2010/09/24/965146_mliako_za_prodan/ (accessed February 28, 2018). Georgieva, M. (2017), “How Yoghurt Will Not Be Bulgarian Anymore,” Kapital, September 8, available online: https://www.capital.bg/biznes/kompanii/2017/09/08/3037551_kak_ kiseloto_mliako_niama_da_e_bulgarsko/ (accessed February 28, 2018). Gerbi, A. (1982), La disputa del Nuevo Mundo, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Gibson, A. J. S. and T. C. Smout (1995), Prices, Food and Wages in Scotland, 1550–1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, A A. (1996), “A Streak of Good Fortune,” Sunday Times, July 14. Girard, A. (1977), “Le triomphe de ‘La Cuisinière bourgeoise’. Livres culinaires, cuisine et société en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 24: 497–523. Gocking, R. S. (2005), The History of Ghana, Westport: Greenwood. Godina Golija, M. (2014), “Potica in njene zgodbe: Slovenci v Srbiji in simbolni pomen” hrane [Potica and its stories: Slovenes in Serbia and the symbolic meaning of food], Dve Domovini/Two Homelands, 39: 55–66. Godinho, V. M. (1956), Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, Lisboa: Editora Arcádia. Goljat, A. (2003), Potice, Ljubljana: Kmečki glas. González, S. (1995), Iquique Puerto Mayor, Iquique: Mallku. González, H. (1997), “Apuntes sobre el tema de la identidad cultural en la Región de Tarapacá,” Estudios Atacameños, 13: 27–45. Goody, J. (1982), Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greene, S. E. (1998), “Developing the Arts for Development in Ghana,” Africa Notes: Bulletin of the Institute for African Development.

References

191

Grewe, R. (2009), Llibre de Totes Maneres de Potatges de Menjar, Barcelona: Editorial Barcino. Grigoroff, S. (1905), “Étude sur une lait fermentée comestible. Le ‘Kissélo mléko’ de Bulgarie”, in Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande, Genève: Georg & G., LibrairesÉditeurs, Librairie de L’Université. Grigorova, Y. (2005), At the Beginning Was the Memory of Home: 10 Years since Establishment, Sofia: University Publisher St Kliment Ohridsky [in Bulgarian]. Grigorova, Y. (2015), “Interview for the BTA with Elka Robeva,” June 9, available online: http://www.bta.bg/bg/video/show/id/0_zcvj8ggi last (accessed February 28, 2018). Grosby, S. (2005), “The Primordial, Kinship and Nationality,” in Ichijo, A. and G. Uzelac (eds), When Is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theorise of Nationalism, 56–78, London: Routledge. Grow More Flags” (1954), The Daily Echo, May 12. Guerra, F-X. (2000), “Una Modernidad Alternativa,” in Modernidad e independencias. Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas, 67–72, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica-Mapfre. Gur, J. (2007), The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey, New York: Schocken Books. Gvion, L. (2009), “Narrating Modernity and Tradition: The Case of Palestinian Food in Israel,” Identities, 16(4): 391–413. Gvion, L. (2012), Beyond Hummus and Falafel: Social and Cultural Aspects of Palestinian Food in Israel, Berkeley : University of California Press. Gvion L. (2014), “Tradition and Resistance: The Case of Palestinian Restaurants in Israel,” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 35(4): 366–84. Hage, G. (2010), “Migration, Food, Memory and Home-Building,” in Radstone, S. and B. Schwarz (eds), Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, 416–27, New York: Fordham University Press. Hall, J. (2001), Convivencia in Catalonia: Languages Living Together, Barcelona: Fundacio Jaume Bofill. Handler, R. (1988), Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Hastings, A. (1997), The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, C. J. H. (1963), A Generation of Materialism, New York: Harper & Row. Haylett, C. (2001), “Illegitimate Subjects? Abject Whites, Neoliberal Modernisation, and Middle-Class Multiculturalism,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 19(3): 351–70. Hayward, K. and M. Yar (2006), “The ‘Chav’ Phenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass,” Crime Media Culture, 2(1): 9–28. Heldke, L. (2003), Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer, New York: Routledge. Highmore, B. (2009), “The Taj Mahal in the High Street,” Food, Culture and Society, 12(2): 173–90. Higman, W. B. (2008), Jamaican Food: History, Biology, Culture, Kingston: University of West Indies Press. Hine, Ch. (2011), “Internet Research and Unobtrusive Methods,” Social Research Update 61 (Spring): 1–4. Hirsch, D. (2011), “Hummus Is Best When It Is Fresh and Made by Arabs: The Gourmetization of Hummus in Israel and the Return of the Repressed Arab,” American Ethnologist, 38(4): 617–30.

192

References

Hoare, Mrs. (1850), “An Irish Peculiarity,” Household Words, 1(25) (September 14): 594–96. Hollows, J. and S. Jones (2010), “‘At Least He’s Doing Something’: Moral Entrepreneurship and Individual Responsibility in Jamie’s Ministry of Food,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(3): 307–22. Horowitz, D. (1985), Ethnic Groups and Conflict, Berkeley : University of California Press Hughes, G. (1995), “Authenticity in Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research, 22(4): 781–803. Hutchinson, J. (1994), Modern Nationalism, London: Fontana. Hutchinson, J. (2005), Nations as Zones of Conflict, London: Sage. Hutchinson, J. and A. D. Smith (eds) (1994), Nationalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press Hutchinson, J. and A. D. Smith (eds) (1996), Ethnicity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ichijo, A. (2017), “Banal Nationalism and UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List: Cases of Washoku and the Gastronomic Meal of the French,” in Skey, M. and M. Antonisch (eds), Everyday Nationhood: Theorising Culture, Identity and Belonging after Banal Nationalism, 259–84, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Ichijo, A. and R. Ranta (2016), Food, National Identity and Nationalism: From Everyday to Global Politics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ichijo, A. and G. Uzelac (eds) (2005), When Is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theorise of Nationalism, London: Routledge. Ilc Klun, M. (2006), “Slovenska Diaspora na metropolitanskem območju Clevelanda” [American Slovenians at the Cleveland metropolitan area], Geografski obzornik, 4(53): 4–9. Inness, S. (2001), Kitchen Culture in America, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Instituto Nacional de Estatística, INE (2017), Balança Alimentar Portuguesa 2012–2016, Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Estatística. Ivanovic, C. (2004), Nueva Cocina Chilena: Culinaria e identidad, Tesis para optar al título de Antropóloga Social, Universidad de Chile, Chile. Izgoršek, U. and L. Jež (2003), “Potica: Znamenitost, ki bi jo Slovenci morali zaščititi” [Potica: The attraction that the Slovenes ought to protect], Nedelo (April 20): 18. Jabareen, Y. (2006), “Law and Education: Critical Perspectives on Arab Palestinian Education in Israel,” The American Behavioral Scientist, 49(8): 1052–74. Jensen, A. C. (1972), Cod: The Uncommon History of a Common Fish and Its Impact on American Life from Viking Times to the Present, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Jephson, R. (1980), “The Campaign; Or, Love in the East-Indies,” in Maynard, T. J. (ed), The Plays of Robert Jephson, New York: Garland. (Orig. perf. ca. 1783.) Jogan, M. (2016), Katoliška cerkev in družbeno zlo [Catholic Church and the social evil], Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. Juárez, J. (2008), Nacionalismo culinario. La cocina Mexicana en el siglo XX, México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Justesen, Ole (ed) (2005), Danish Sources for the History of Ghana 1735–1754, vol. 2, Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Kamin, T. and A. Vezovnik (2017), “Slovenia’s Socialist Superwoman: Feeding the Family, Nourishing the Nation,” Feminist Review, 117: XX. Kanaaneh, R. (2002), Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel, Berkeley : University of California Press.

References

193

Kaneva-Johnson, M. (1994), The Melting Pot: Balkan Food and Cookery, Totnes: Prospect Books. Katrandzhiev, K. (1940). “Yoghurt as Nutrition and Measures for Its Quality Improvement in the Capital,” Veterinary Collection : 43–56. Keller Brown, L. and K. Mussell (1984), Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group Identity, Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. Kenneally, R. R. (2009), “There Is a Canadian Cuisine, and It Is Unique in all the World,” in Cooke, N. (ed), What’s to Eat? Entrées in Canadian Food History, 167–96, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press. Kenrick, W. (1768), Poems; Ludicrous, Satirical and Moral, London: Printed for J. Fletcher. Kimmerling, B. (2001), The Invention and Decline of Israeliness, Berkeley: University of California Press. Kiple, K. (2007), A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knight, C. (2016a), “Negative Stereotypes of the Scottish Diet: A Qualitative Analysis of Deep-Fried Mars Bar References in Bestselling Newspapers in Scotland, 2011–14,” Appetite, 103: 369–76. Knight, C. (2016b), “Deep-Frying the Nation: Communicating about Scottish Food and Nutrition,” in Hosking, R. (ed), Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2015, 206–15, Totnes: Prospect. Kolavalli, S. and M. Vigneri (2011), “Cocoa in Ghana: Shaping the Success of an Economy,” in Chuhan-Pole, P. and M. Angwafo (eds), Yes, Africa Can: Success Stories from a Dynamic Continent, Washington, DC: World Bank. Kostov, I. (1998), “Made in Bulgaria Cannot Win against Imported Goods,” Press Conference with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria, Kapital, April 11, available online: https://www.capital.bg/politika_i_ikonomika/ bulgaria/1998/04/11/243981_made_in_bulgaria_gubi_sreshtu_vnosnite_stoki/ last (accessed February 28, 2018). Kozinets, R. (1998), “On Netnography: Initial Reflections on Consumer Research Investigations of Cyberculture,” Advances in Consumer Research, 25: 366–71 Kuhar, B. (1995), “Slovenska praznična potica: Veselje jo je pogledati, užitek jesti” [The Slovene festive potica: Joy to look, happiness to eat], Jana Special Issue (December): 40–41. Kurlansky, M. (1999), Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, London: Penguin. La Fleur, J. D. (2012), Fusion Foodways of Africa’s Gold Coast in the Atlantic Era, Leiden: Brill. Lahne, J. and A. Trubek. (2014), “‘A Little Information Excites Us’: Consumer Sensory Experience of Vermont Artisan Cheese as an Active Practice,” Appetite, 10: 128–38. Langford, P. (2005), “South Britons’ Reception of North Britons, 1707–1820,” in Smout, T. C. (ed), Anglo-Scottish Relations from 1603 to 1900, 143–69, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laqueur, W. (2003), A History of Zionism, New York: Schocken Books. Laudan, R. (2013), Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, Berkeley : University of California Press. Law, A. (2006), “Hatred and Respect: The Class Shame of Ned ‘Humour’,” Variant, 25 (Spring): 28–30. Law, A. and G. Mooney (2012), “The Decivilizing Process and Urban Working-Class Youth in Scotland,” Social Justice, 38(4): 106–26.

194

References

Lawrie, R. (1986), “Meat Production,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 87B: 221–32. Lawson, N. (2001), “Trashy,” Nigella Bites, Series 2, Episode 4. Channel Four. Lawson, G. (2015), “Trudeau’s Canada, Again,” The New York Times Magazine, December 13, available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canadaagain.html (accessed April 8, 2018) Leask, N. (2010), Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late EighteenthCentury Scotland, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lehmann, G. (1999), “Politics in the Kitchen,” Eighteenth-Century Life, 23: 71–83. Lei, S. and R. Law (2015), “Content Analysis of TripAdvisor Reviews on Restaurants: A Case Study of Macau,” Journal of Tourism, 16(1): 17–28. Lempérière, A. (2005), Entre Dieu et le Roi, la République: Mexico, XVIe–XIXe siècles, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Levenstein, H. (2003), Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet, Berkeley : University of California Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1968), L’Origine des manières de table, Paris: Plon. Libro de cocina de la gesta de Independencia, Nueva España (2002 [1817]), Mexico: Conaculta-Culturas populares e indígenas, Recetarios antiguos collection. Liu, H. (2010), “Kung Pao Kosher: Jewish Americans and Chinese Restaurants in New York,” Journal of Chinese Overseas, 6: 80–101. Llobera, J. (2004), Foundations of National Identity: From Catalonia to Europe, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Lloyd, P. (2012), “The Changing Status of Offal: A Fashionable Food in England between 1545 and 1655,” Food, Culture and Society, 15(1): 61–75. Long, L. M. (2013), Culinary Tourism, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. Longman, N. (2017), “CanLit and Colonialism: Indigenous Literature’s Fearless Aunties Respond on Cultural Appropriation,” Ricochet. Available online: https://ricochet. media/en/1811/indigenous-literatures-fearless-aunties-respond-on-culturalappropriation (accessed April 8, 2018). Lord Byron (1811), Scourge; Or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly, 1(3) (March 1): 191–211. Lupša, M. (2003), “Po poticah in čebelah nas najbolj spoznajo” [They know us best by poticas and bees], Jana, xxxi(13) (April 1): 24–25. Lupton, D. (1996), Food, the Body and the Self, London: Sage. Luthar, O. (ed) (2013), The Land Between: A History of Slovenia, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. MacClancy, J. (2007), Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena, Oxford: School for Advanced Research Press. Maclean’s 2017 (2017), “150 Reasons Why It’s Better to be Canadian,” Maclean’s. Available online: https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/150-reasons-why-its-better-to-becanadian/ (accessed April 8, 2018). McNeill, F. M. (1929), The Scots Kitchen: Its Traditions and Lore, with Old-Time Recipes, London: Blackie. Maia, C., pseudo. (1904), Tratado Completo de Cozinha e Copa, Lisboa: Guimarães & C. Maple products (n.d.a), https://shop.runamokmaple.com/ (accessed April 25, 2018). Maple products (n.d.b), http://tonewoodmaple.com (accessed April 25, 2018). Maria, R. (1941), A Cozinheira das Cozinheiras, Porto: Livraria Civilização Editora.

References

195

Matos, A. C. et al. (2012), “A Sociedade de Propaganda de Portugal e o Congresso de Turismo de 1911,” in Rollo, M. F. (ed), Congresso Internacional I República e Republicanismo: Atas, 393–403, Lisboa: Assembleia da República. Martí Escayol, M. A. (2004), El Plaer de la Xocolata: La història i la cultura de la xocolata a Catalunya, Barcelona: Cossetània edicions. McCann, James C. (2007), Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McGillivray, K. (2017), “‘It’s Who We Are’: Indigenous Chef Joseph Shawana Stands by Decision to Serve Seal,” CBC News, October 11, available online: https://www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/toronto/joseph-shawana-seal-meat-kukum-kitchen-1.4350357 (accessed April 8, 2018). McGough, R. (1989), “Edinburgh Festival Diary: Escape from Tiggywinkle,” Guardian, August 29. Melo, D. (2001), Salazarismo e Cultura Popular (1933–1958), Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais. Mendel, Y. and R. Ranta (2014), “Consuming Palestine: Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli Food Culture,” Ethnicities, 14(3): 412–35. Mendel, Y. and R. Ranta (2016), From the Arab Other to the Israeli Self: Palestinian Culture in the Making of Israeli National Identity, Farnham: Ashgate. Mennell, S. (1996), All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present, Chicago: University Press of Illinois. Meredith, M. (2013), The State of Africa: A History of the Continent since Independence, London: Simon & Schuster. Merriam-Webster (2018), “Foodways,” in Merriam-Webster [Online]. Available online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foodways (accessed May 18, 2018) Métro-Magazine (1963), Anoblir la cuisine canadienne du Québec. Available online: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/premiere/premiereplus/societe/p/40095/jehane-benoit-lagrande-dame-de-la-cuisine-qu (accessed April 8, 2018). Meyer, E. (1937), How to Cook in Palestine, Tel Aviv: WIZO. Milne, J. (2006), Kwame Nkrumah: A Biography, London: Panaf Books. Mimoso, F. (1919), Cem Maneiras de Cozinhar Bacalhau, Porto: Civilização. Mintz, S. (1985), Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, New York: Penguin. Mintz, S. (1996), Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom, New York: Basic Books. Mlekuž, J. (2015), “Zamišljena kranjska klobasa – v času, prostoru, jeziku in ustih” [Imagined kranjska sausage – in time, space, language and mouth], in Mlekuž, J. (ed), Predmeti, Slovencem sveti [Objects, sacred to the Slovenes], 25–86, Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU. Modesto, M. L. (1999 [1981]), Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa, Lisboa: Editorial Verbo. Modesto, M. L., Praça, A. and N. Calvet (1999), Festas e Comeres do Povo Português, vol. 1, Lisboa: Editorial Verbo. Molina Jiménez, I. (2008), Costarricense por Dicha. Identidad Nacional y Cambio Cultural en Costa Rica durante los Siglos XIX y XX, San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Montanari, M. (2010), L’ Identitá Italiana in Cucina, Roma and Bari: Editori Laterza. Montecino, S. (2004), The Delightful Pot. Chile’s mestizo cuisines, Santiago: Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino [in Spanish]. Montecino, S. (2007), Madres y Huachos. Alegorías del mestizaje chileno, Santiago: Catalonia.

196

References

Morrison, D. S. and M. Petticrew (2004), “Deep and Crisp and Eaten: Scotland’s DeepFried Mars Bar,” Lancet, 364. Mosby, I. (2017), “We Are What We Ate: Canada’s History in Cuisines,” The Globe and Mail, March 13, available online: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ canada-150/we-are-what-we-ate-canadas-history-incuisines/article34289538/ (accessed April 8, 2018). Moutinho, M. (1985), História da Pesca do Bacalhau: Por uma Antropologia do “Fiel Amigo”, Lisboa: Editorial Estampa. Musek, J. (1994), Psihološki portret Slovencev [A psychological portrait of the Slovenes], Ljubljana: Znanstveno in publicistično središče. “N.” (1808), “Sawney, Cobby, and Rufo: A Polemical Eclogue,” Satirist, Or, Monthly Meteor, 1(4) (January 1): 355–62. Naccarato, P. and K. LeBesco (2012), Culinary Capital, London: Berg. Naguib, N. (2006), “The Fragile Tale of Egyptian Jewish Cuisine: Food Memoirs of Claudia Roden and Colette Rossanti,” Food and Foodways, 14: 35–53. Narayan, U. (1997), Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism, New York: Routledge. Nash, A. (1997), “The Cotter’s Kailyard,” in Crawford, R. (ed), Robert Burns and Cultural Authority, 180–97, Iowa City : University of Iowa Press. Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2015), Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Newman, L. (2017), Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey, Regina, Saskatchewan: University of Regina Press. Nikolić, M. (2016), “Cooking Techniques as Markers of Identity and Authenticity in Costa Rica’s Afro-Caribbean Foodways,” in Ayora-Diaz, St.-I. (ed), Cooking Technology: Transformations in Culinary Practice in Mexico and Latin America, 167–79, London: Bloomsbury. Notaker, H. (2002), “En contrepoint: L’identité nationale à travers les livres de cuisine du XIXe siècle,” in Bruegel, M. and B. Laurioux (eds), Histoire et identités alimentaires en Europe, 137–50, Paris: Hachette. Notaker, H. (2017), A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries, Oakland: University of California Press. Nuevo cocinero mexicano en forma de diccionario (1888), Paris-Mexico: Librería de Ch. Bouret. Nuevo y sencillo arte de cocina, repostería y refrescos dispuesto por una Mexicana, y experimentado por personas inteligentes antes de darse a la prensa (1842 [1836]), Mexico: Vicente García Torres. Oliveira-Bello, A. M. (OLLEBOMA) (1936), Culinária Portuguesa, Lisboa: Edição do Autor. Oliveira-Martins, J. P. (1994), Portugal nos Mares, Lisboa: Livraria Bertrand. Otano, R. (2006), Nueva crónica de la transición, Santiago: LOM. Otma, S. (2004), “Svečani pogrinjki” [Festive covers], Jana, Special Issue (November): 52. Ottolenghi, Y. and S. Tamimi (2012), Jerusalem, London: Ebury Press. Özkirimli, U. (2017), Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Palacios, N. (1918), The Chilean Race, Santiago: Editorial Chilena [in Spanish]. Panayi, P. (2014), Fish and Chips: A History, London: Reaktion. Pantelidis, I. (2010), “Electronic Meal Experience: A Content Analysis of Online Restaurant Comments,” Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51(4): 483–91.

References

197

Parlato, A. (2007), Sua Maestà Il Baccalà, Nápoles: Colonnese Editore. Parker, J. (2001), Making the Town: Ga State and Society in Early Colonial Accra, Oxford: James Currey. Parker, R. (2017), “This Edinburgh Chippy Is Serving Up a Deep Fried Crème Egg to Celebrate Easter – And People Are Losing Their Minds,” Daily Record, March 11, available online: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/food-drink/edinburghchippy-serving-up-deep-10008331 (accessed March 25, 2018). Patterson, P. H. (2011), Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Patterson, S. (2011), “Pud Tastes Even Batter,” Scottish Sun, December 28. Patterson, S. (2014), “Chippy’s Fried Egg Is a Choc to Diners,” Scottish Sun, March 30. Paulin, M. and M. Desjardins (2012), À la découverte de Jehane Benoit, Saint-Jean-surRichelieu, Québec: Les Éditeurs réunis. Pease, V. (2014), “Here’s How the Carron Fish Bar Makes a Deep-Fried Snowball,” STV Aberdeen, November 12, available online: http://aberdeen.stv.tv/articles/299388carron-in-stonehaven-do-deep-fried-snowballs-inspired-by-eddi-reader/ (accessed August 25, 2017). Pentland, G. (2011), “‘We Speak for the Ready’: Images of Scots in Political Prints, 1707–1832,” Scottish Historical Review, 90(1): 64–95. Pereira Salas, E. (2007), Notes for a History of Chilean Cuisine, Santiago: Uqbar editores [in Spanish]. Perron, S. ed (2017a), Canada’s Culinary Heritage, Les Éditions Klorofil inc. Perron, S. ed (2017b), Culinary Treasures from Around the World, Sylvain Perron. Peterson, S. (1994), Acquired Taste: The French Origins of Modern Cooking, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Petrović, T. (2009), A Long Way Home: Representations of the Western Balkans in Political and Media Discourses, Ljubljana: Peace Institute. Pilcher, J. (1998), Que Vivan los Tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican Identity, Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Pilcher, J. (2001), ¡Vivan los tamales! La comida y la construcción de la identidad mexicana, Mexico: Ciesas-Ediciones de la Reina Roja-Conaculta. Pirjevec, D. (1964), Ivan Cankar in evropska literatura [Ivan Cankar and the European literature], Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. Poulain, J-P. (2005), Sociologies de l’ Alimentation, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Poulain, J-P. and E. Neirinck (2000), Histoire de la cuisine et des cuisiniers. Techniques culinaires et pratiques de table, en France, du Moyen-Age à nos jours, Cachan: Éditions Jacques Lanore. Prada-Trigo, J. (2017), “Tourism, Territory and Cuisine: Food Consideration and Perceptions Regarding Origin and Social Changes: The Case of Guinea Pig,” Journal of Tourism and Social Change, 1–16, available online https://doi.org/10.1080/14766825.20 17.1344678 (accessed February 22, 2018). Prieto-Piastro, C. R. (2017), “Teach Me How to Eat as an Israeli: Nation, Food Culture and Identity in Israel,” PhD dissertation, King’s College London. Rabinowitz, D. and K. Abu-Baker (2002), The Stand Tall Generation: The Palestinian Citizens of Israel Today, Jerusalem: Keter [in Hebrew]. Rackwitz, M. (2007), Travels to Terra Incognita: The Scottish Highlands and Hebrides in Early Modern Travellers’ Accounts, c. 1600 to 1800, Münster: Waxmann. Radcliffe, D. H. (1998), “Imitation, Popular Literacy, and ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’,” in McGuirk, C. (ed), Critical Essays on Robert Burns, 251–79. New York: G. K. Hall.

198

References

Radcliffe, S. and S. Westwood (1996), Remaking the Nation: Place, Identity and Politics in Latin America, London: Routledge. Raisborough, J. and M. Adams (2008), “Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class,” Sociological Research Online, 13(6): 2. Ranta, R. (2016), “Re-Arabizing Israeli Food Culture,” Food, Culture & Society, 18(4): 611–27. Ranta, R. and N. Nancheva (2019), “Eating Banitza in Post Brexit UK: Integration, Belonging, and the Changing Nature of Bulgarian Foodways,” Food and New Europe, Special Issue, Appetite, Forthcoming. Rauch, A. (2008), “Les pionniers du plat régional et du vin de pays – France, 1920–1940,” in Csergo, J. and P. Lemasson (eds), Voyages en Gastronomies: L’ Invention des Capitales et des Régions Gourmandes, 22–32, Paris: Éditions Autrement. Raviv, Y. (2015), Falafel Nation, Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press. Ray, K. (2004), The Migrant’s Table: Meals and Memories in Bengali-American Households, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ray, K. (2008), “Nation and Cuisine: Evidence from Newspapers Circa 1830–2003,” Food and Foodways, 16(4): 259–97. Ray, K. (2016), The Ethnic Restaurateur, London: Bloomsbury. Ray, K. and T. Srinivas (eds) (2012), Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia. Berkeley : University of California Press. Repe, B. and D. Kerec (2017), Slovenija moja dežela [Slovenia, my country], Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. Resnik, J. (2004), “Kako preprosto, dokler gledaš, in težko, ko se z delom spoprimeš sam” [How simple when you observe and difficult when you do it yourself], Nedelo (April 4): 14. Resnik, J. (2004a), “Potica bo letos naše Sladkote kraljica!” [This year, potica will be the queen of our Sweetness], Nedelo (January 25): 14. Resnik, J. (2004b), “Z zaščito slovenske potice v Evropi bo kar nekaj težav” [There will be trouble protecting Slovene potica in Europe], Nedelo (February 1): 14. Review of Mary Linwood’s Leicestershire Tales (London: Phillips, 1808) (1809), Satirist, Or, Monthly Meteor, 4(1) (January 1): 85–87. Roca, J., J. Roca and J. Roca (2004), La cuina de la meva mare: Les receptes fonamentals d’El Celler de Can Roca, Barcelona: La butxaca. Rodríguez, G. (2005), Recetas con historia, Santiago: Zig-Zag. Rogers, B. (2004), Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation, London: Vintage. (Orig. pub. 2003.) Rogers, R. A. (2006), “From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation,” Communication Theory, 16(4): 474–503. Ross González, M. (2001), Entre el Comal y la Olla. Fundamentos de Gastronomía Costarricense, San José: EUNED. Rotar, B. (1985), Risarji: Učenjaki – Ideologije v urbanizmu in arhitekturi [Those who draw: Scholars – Ideologies in urbanism and architecture], Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost. Rotar, B. (2007), Odbiranje iz preteklosti. Okviri, mreže, orientirji, časi kulturnega življenja v dolgem 19. stoletju [Selecting from the past: Frameworks, networks, landmarks, time of cultural life in the Southern provinces of the Austrian Empire in the long nineteenth century], Koper: Annales.

References

199

Roudometoff, V. (2002), Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria and the Macedonian Question, Westport: Praeger Publishers. Rounce, A. (2005), “‘Stuarts without End’: Wilkes, Churchill, and Anti-Scottishness,” Eighteenth-Century Life, 29(3): 20–43. Rozin, O. (2006), “Food, Identity, and Nation-Building in Israel’s Formative Years,” Israel Studies Forum, 21(1): 52–80. Sahagún, B. (1999), Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, Mexico: Porrúa, Sepan Cuantos Collection. Sandoval García, C. (2004), Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica, Athens: Ohio University Press. Santanach, J. (ed) (2006), Llibre de Sento Soví: Volum d’homenatge a Rudolf Grewe, Barcelona: Bibliotca Barcino. Saramago, A. (2004), Para uma História da Alimentação de Lisboa e seu Termo, Lisboa: Assírio e Alvim. Scaraboto, D., Vargas, C. and D. Costa (2012), “How Consumers Persuade Each Other: Rhetorical Strategies of Interpersonal Online Communities,” Brazilian Administration Review, 9(3): 246–67. Scott, C. (2016), “How French Canadians Became White Folks, or Doing Things with Race in Quebec,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(7): 1280–97. Sedó Masís, P. (ed) (2008), Glosario de Cocina Popular Costarricense. Descripción General de Alimentos, Equipos, Utensilios, Técnicas de Preparación y Frases Populares, San José: Universidad de Costa Rica. Segev, T. (1998), 1949: The First Israelis, New York: First Owl Books. Segev, T. (2002), Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel, New York: Metropolitan Books. Seremetakis, C. N. (2005), The Breast of Aphrodite, Oxford: Berg. Shepherd, G. M. (2012), Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and How It Matters, New York: Columbia University Press. Shields, T. (2002), “Kirk to Enterprise: Church Transformed into a Den of Iniquity Where Class Doesn’t Just Come in a Glass,” Sunday Herald (Glasgow), October 27. Shlaim, A. (2001), The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, New York: W. W. Norton. Simmel, G. (1950), “The Stranger,” in Wolff, K. H. (ed), The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 402–08, New York: Free Press. Simmons, A. (1796), American Cookery, Facsimile of the Second Edition. Boston: Applewood Books. Sirkis, R. (1975a), From the Kitchen with Love: Secrets of Entertaining, Ramat Gan: Sirkis Publishers. Sirkis, R. (1975b), Yieladim Mevashelim, Tel Aviv : Sirkis Publishers [in Hebrew]. Sirkis, R. (1985), Popular Food From Israel, Tel Aviv : Sirkis Publishers. Sitar, P. (2017), “‘Ne le kruh, tudi vrtnice’: Potrošnja, tehnološki razvoj in emancipacija žensk v socialistični Sloveniji” [‘Not only bread, but also roses’: Consumption, technological development and emancipation of women in socialist Slovenia], Ljubljana: ZRC. Smith, A. D. (1988 [1986]), The Ethnic Origin of Nations, Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, A. D. (1991), National Identity, London: Penguin. Smith, A. D. (1998), Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism, London: Routledge. Smith, A. D. (2008a), The Cultural Foundations of Nations, Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, A. D. (2008b), “The Limits of Everyday Nationhood,” Ethnicities, 8(4): 563–73.

200

References

Smith, A. D. (2012), “National Cuisines,” in Pilcher, J. M. (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Food History, 444–60, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, A. D. (2013), The Nation Made Real: Art and National Identity in Western Europe 1600–1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. (2012), “Eat Fried Chocs and Moisturise from Inside: Nigella’s Answer to Staying Young,” Daily Record, October 12. Sobral, V. (2012), As Minhas Receitas de Bacalhau: 500 Receitas, Alfragide: Casa das Letras. Sobral, J. M. (2014a), “The Country, the Nation, and the Region in Representations of Portuguese Food and Cuisine,” in Domingos, N, Sobral, J. M and H. West (eds), Food between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, 145–60, London: Bloomsbury. Sobral, J. M. (2014b), “The High and the Low in the Making of a Portuguese National Cuisine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Klien, J. A. and A. Murcott (eds), Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody, 108–34, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sobral, J. M. and P. Rodrigues (2013), “O ‘fiel amigo’: O bacalhau e a identidade portuguesa,” Etnográfica, 17(3): 619–49. Spector, F. (2016), “A Cuisine without Borders: The Vibrant Flavours of Israeli Food in Britain,” Telegraph, July 28, available online: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-anddrink/features/a-cuisine-without-borders-the-vibrant-flavours-of-israeli-food-i/ (accessed March 20, 2018). Staikov, L. (1988), Time of Violence, film available online: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ TIME-VIOLENCE-Vreme-razdelno-DVD/dp/B00BHE3TZG (accessed February 28, 2018). Standage, T. (1998), The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s Online Pioneers, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Stareva, L. (2009), Bulgarian Saints and Festivals: Rituals and Prohibitions, Divining, Fortune Telling and Magic, Weather Forecast, Ritual Objects, Foods and Symbols, Sofia: Trud. Stein, R. (1998), “National Itineraries, Itinerant Nations,” Social Text, 16(3): 91–124. Steven, M. (1985), The Good Scots Diet: What Happened to It? Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. Stoilova, E. (2014), Producing Bulgarian Yoghurt: Manufacturing and Exporting Authenticity, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Štok, Z. (2017), “Papež, Melania in Potica: Zdaj bi potico jedel ves svet” [The Pope, Melania and potica: Now the whole world would like to eat potica], Večer, May 26, available online: https://www.vecer.com/zdaj-bi-vsi-jedli-potico-6265131 (accessed February 2018). Stoyanov, V. (1998), Turkish Population of Bulgaria between the Poles of Ethnopolitics, Sofia: Lik [in Bulgarian]. Stutzman, R. (1981), “El Mestizaje: An All-Inclusive Ideology of Exclusion,” in Whitten, N. E. (ed), Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador, 45–94, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Subercaseaux, B. (2007), Historia de las ideas y de la cultura en Chile. Tomo IV. Nacionalismo y cultura, Santiago: Editorial Universitaria. Sutton, D. E. (2001), Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory, New York: Berg. Sutton, D. E. (2014), Secrets from the Kitchen: Cooking, Skill, and Everyday Life on Aegean Island, Oakland: University of California Press.

References

201

Taylor, C. (2012), “Interculturalism or Multiculturalism?” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 38(4–5): 413–23. Teles, B. (1904), A Carestia de Vida nos Camposl, Porto: Livraria Chardron. Thomson, C. (2005), “Fancy a Fried Egg,” Daily Record, March 25. Tierney, R. K., and E. Ohnuki-Tierney (2012), “Anthropology of Food,” in Pilcher, J. M. (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Food History, 117–34, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tivadar, B. and A. Vezovnik (2010), “Cooking in Socialist Slovenia: Housewives on the Road from a Bright Future to an Idyllic Past,” in Luthar, B. and M. Pušnik (eds), Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia, 379–405, Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing. Tominc, A. (2014), “Legitimising Amateur Celebrity Chefs’ Advice and the Discursive Transformation of the Slovene Culinary National Identity,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 17(3): 316–37. Tominc, A. (2015), “Cooking on Slovene National Television during Socialism: An Overview of Cooking Programmes from 1960 to 1990,” Družboslovne razprave, 31(29): 27–44. Tominc, A. (2017): The Discursive Construction of Class and Lifestyle: Celebrity Chef Cookbooks in Post-Socialist Slovenia, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Torres de Rubio, V. (2004), Manual de cocina michoacana, México: Fundación HerdezUMSNH. Toussaint-Samat, M. (1994), A History of Food, Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Toussaint-Samat, M. (2001), Histoire de la cuisine bourgeoise, du moyen âge à nos jours, Paris: Albin Michel. TripAdvisor (2018), https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g294309-d1086981r173621346-Tres_Estrellas-Cuenca_Azuay_Province.html (accessed February 21, 2018). Trubek, A. B. (2008), The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir, Berkeley : University of California Press. Trubek, A. B. (2016), “Sweetness and Taste: Mapping Maple Syrup in Vermont,” in MacAuliffe, S. (ed), At Table: Conversations between Food and Architecture, London: Berg Press. Trubek, A. B. (2017), Making Modern Meals: How Americans Cook Today, Oakland: University of California Press. Trubek, A. (2010), “Maple Syrup: Differences between Vermont and Quebec,” Cuizine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures, 2(2). Available online: https://id.erudit.org/ iderudit/044354ar (accessed April 8, 2018). Turmo, I. G. (2013), 200 Anos de Cociña, Madrid: Cultiva Livros. Tyler, I. (2008), “‘Chav Mum Chav Scum’: Class Disgust in Contemporary Britain,” Feminist Media Studies, 8(1): 17–34. Ucman, R. (2002), “Skrivnost potice sestre Vendeline” [The secret of sister Vendelina’s potica], Jana (13) (March 26): 42–43. Ucman, R. (2003), “Vonj po domačem pehtranu” [The smell of home tarragon], Jana, xxxi(15) (April 15): 44–45. Unknown author (1989), “Potica iz ajdove moke” [Buckwheat potica], Jana, xiii(50) (December 13): 33. Unknown author (2003a), “Njene potice so tako znane, kot da bi nosile njen podpis” [Her poticas are so famous as if they carried a signature], Nedelo (April 20): 18. Unknown author (2003b), “Skrivnost je v veselju in ljubezni” [Secret is in happiness and love], Nedelo (April 20): 19.

202

References

Uršič, M. (2015), “Skriti pridih podeželja?: Razrednost in ‘urbanost’ v primeru Ljubljane in Maribora” [The secret touch of the countryside?: Class and ‘urbanity’ in the case of Ljubljana and Maribor], Teorija in praksa, 52(1–2): 236–52. Valkanov, N. (2014), Prospects for the Milk Production Livestock in Bulgaria after Lifting of Quotas in the European Union from 2015, Sofia: Institute for Market Economics. Van Cott, DL. (2000), The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Van den Berghe, P. L. (1981), The Ethnic Phenomenon, New York: Elsevier. Van den Berghe, P. L. (2005), “Ethnies and Nations: Genealogy Indeed,” in Ichijo, A. and G. Uzelac (eds), When Is the Nation? Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism, 273–79, London: Routledge. Váquez Montalbán, M. (1977), L’art del menjar a Catalunya, Barcelona: Edicions 62 s/a. Vásquez, C. ( 2012), “Narrativity and Involvement in Online Consumer Reviews: The Case of TripAdvisor,” Narrative Inquiry, 22(1): 105–21 Vasta, E. (2017), “The Migrant ‘Stranger’ at Home: ‘Australian’ Shared Values and the National Imaginary,” in Lloyd, J. and E. Vasta (eds), Reimagining Home in the 21st Century, 36–53, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Vega Jiménez, P. (2012), “El Gallo Pinto: Afro-Caribbean Rice and Beans Conquer the Costa Rican National Cuisine,” Food, Culture and Society, 15(2): 223–40. Velikonja, M. (2005), Evroza - kritika novega evrocentrizma [Eurosis – critique of the new eurocentism], Ljubljana: Peace institute. Vera, A., Aguilera, I. and R. Fernández (2018), “Demandas de autenticidad: Deseo, ambivalencia y racismo en el Chile multicultural,” Convergencia, 76: 13–36. Vered, R. (2017a), “No, Cherry Tomatoes Aren’t an Israeli Invention,” Haaretz, December 5, available online: https://www.haaretz.com/food/.premium-no-cherry-tomatoesaren-t-an-israeli-invention-1.5627822 (accessed March 20, 2018). Vered, R. (2017b), “The Story behind an Iconic Israeli Street Food: The Sabich,” Haaretz, December 21, available online: https://www.haaretz.com/food/.premium.MAGAZINEthe-story-behind-the-one-real-israeli-sandwich-the-sabich-1.5629370 (accessed March 20, 2018). Vezovnik, A. (2009), Diskurz [The discourse], Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. Vezovnik, A. and T. Kamin (2016), “Constructing Class, Gender and Nationality in Socialism: A Multimodal Analysis of Food Advertisements in the Slovenian Magazine Naša Žena,” Teorija in praksa, 53(6): 1327–43. Vezovnik, A. and T. Kamin (2017), Mikropolitike hrane v (post)socializmu: Multimodalna analiza prehranskih oglasov v reviji Naša žena [Micropolitics of food in (post) socialism: Multimodal analysis of food advertising in the magazine Naša žena], in Ignjatović, M. (ed), Sociološka imaginacija kot potencial družbenih sprememb v 21. stoletju. Zbornik povzetkov, Slovensko sociološko srečanje 2017 [Sociological imagination as a potential for social change in the 21st century. A compilation of abstracts, Slovene sociological meeting 2017], 19–20, Ljubljana: Slovensko sociološko društvo. Viliesis, A. (2008), Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get It Back, Washington, DC: Island Press. Voltaire. (1994), Candide, ou l’Optimisme, Paris: Du Chêne. Yotova, M. (2014), “Reflecting Authenticity: ‘Grandmother’s Yoghurt’ between Bulgaria and Japan,” in Domingos Nuno, S., José, M. and H. West (eds), Food Between the Country and the City: Ethnographies of a Changing Global Foodscape, 175–90, New York: Bloomsbury.

References

203

Yotova, M. (2018), “Ethnographic Heritage as a Branding Strategy: A Case Study of Yogurt in Bulgaria and Japan,” Global Economic Review, 47(1): 47–62. Walker, M. (2013), “Border Food and Food on the Border: Meaning and Practice in Mexican Haute Cuisine,” Social and Cultural Geography, 14(6): 649–67. Walton, J. K. (1992), Fish and Chips and the British Working Class, 1870–1940, Leicester: University Press. Wang, N. (1999), “Rethinking Authenticity in Tourism Experience,” Annals of Tourism Research, 26(2): 349–70. Weismantel, M. J. (1988), Food, Gender and Poverty in the Ecuadorian Andes, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Whalen, J. (2017), “Seal Meat on the Menu at Toronto Restaurant Sparks Duelling Petitions, Online Debate,” CBC News, October 11, available online: https://www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/toronto/seal-meat-debate-kukum-1.4347858 (accessed April 8, 2018). Whitten Jnr, N. E. (1981), “Introduction,” in Whitten, N. E. (ed), Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador, 1–44, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Wilk, R. (2006), Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists, Oxford and New York: Berg. Willard, P. (2008), America Eats: On the Road with the WPA, New York: Bloomsbury. Williams, R. (1977), Marxism and Literature, New York: Oxford University Press. Wilmshurst, S. (2013), “How to Eat Like a Canadian: Centennial Cookbooks and Visions of Culinary Identity,” Cuizine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures, 4(2). Available online: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1019317ar (accessed April 8, 2018). Wing, E. (1986), “Domestication of Andean Mammals,” in Vuilleumier, F. and M. Monasterio (eds), High Altitude Tropical Biogeography, 246–64, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yack, B. (2012), Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community, Chicago: University of Chicago Press Young, R. (2012), “Can Neds (or Chavs) Be Non-delinquent, Educated or Even Middle Class? Contrasting Empirical Findings with Cultural Stereotypes,” Sociology, 46(6): 1140–60. Yusuke T. et al. (2014), “Products of the Parkinson’s-Disease-Related Glyxolase DJ-1, D-Lactate and Glycolate, Support Mitochondrial Membrane Potential and Neuronal Survival,” Biology Open, 3(8): 777–84. Zaban, Y. (2016), Land of Milk and Hummus: A Study of Israeli Culinary Culture, Ramat Gan, Afik Books [in Hebrew]. Zhang, H., Ji, P., Wang, J. and X. Chen (2017), “A Novel Decision Support Model for Satisfactory Restaurant Utilizing Social Information: A Case Study of TripAdvisor. com,” Tourism Management, 59: 281–97. Žižek, S. (1982), Zgodovina in nezavedno [History and the subconscious], Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. Žižek, S. (1987), Jezik, ideologija, Slovenci [Language, ideology, Slovenes], Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost. Zmajčkov butik (2002), Advertisement, Jana (13) (March 26). Zukin, Sh. (2008), “Consuming Authenticity: From Outposts of Difference to Means of Exclusion,” Cultural Studies, 22(5): 724–48.

Index abstinence 18, 20–1, 27 Afro-Caribbean 97–100, 102–3, 105–6 agriculture 65 America Eats Project 147, 148 Andes 14, 111, 164, 168, 169, 170, 174 Arab-Palestinian(s) 119–20, 122–9 Asante National Liberation Movement, the 66 Ashkenazi 121–4, 126–8 austerity 21, 123–4 authenticity 9, 13, 30, 33, 36, 52, 53, 55–7, 59–60, 113, 115 Aztec 29, 36, 101 Baird, Elizabeth 155–6, 163 banal nationalism 8, 23, 45, 132, 159 belonging 22, 45, 99, 100–3, 105–6, 109, 115, 121, 126, 132, 165, 170, 172 Benoit, Jehane 155–6 bottom-up 5, 8, 18, 23, 27, 70, 94–5, 152, 154, 155, 163, 178 boundary/boundaries 1, 2, 5, 22, 62, 67, 70, 81–3, 138, 148, 164–5, 168–71, 174, 176, 178 Bright Dairy & Food 53, 56 Britain/British 20, 23, 39, 61, 63, 74, 75, 76, 78–80, 82–4, 144–8, 150, 154 Bulgaria/Bulgarian 4, 9–10, 13, 51–60, 175 Bulgarization 51–2, 59–60 Burns, Robert 73, 77–8, 83 Canada/Canadian 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 19, 123, 127, 148, 151–63, 175, 177, 178 Canadization 159, 161 Castells, Manuel 96–7, 101, 105, Catalan (language) 86, 87, 89, 93 Catalonia 5, 7, 24–6, 85–95, 175, 178, 179 Catholicism 43, 45–6, 50 Christianity 18, 20

class 2, 4, 5, 20, 21, 25, 27, 40, 43, 62, 73, 79–84, 107, 109–10, 112–16 Clavijero, Francisco Javier 29, 37 Cocina Criolla Costarricense 98–9, 102, 104–5 Cocinero mexicano 28, 32–8 cocoa 4, 62, 64–7, 70, 166, 178 Cocoa Marketing Board, the 65–6 cohesion 11, 24, 28, 29, 47, 178 colonial distribution system 62 commensality 20 commodification 49, 132, 141 Convention Peoples Party, the 66 cookbooks 5–6, 8, 12, 13, 17, 21, 31, 33, 40, 121 American 145–7 Canadian 156–8, 160–1 Catalan 85–9 Costa Rican 96, 102–3, 105 Ecuadorian 166 French 31, 37 Greek 31 Hebrew 121 Iberoamerican 32 Indian 5, 167, Israeli 120, 123–8 Latin American 32 Mexican 30–8, 168 Portuguese 17, 21, 24–6 Slovene 39–41, 47–8 Zionist 122 corn/maize 33, 34, 63, 65, 70, 98, 100–1, 103–6, 112, 146, 148, 150, 157, 169–71, 172 cosmopolitanism 10–11, 43, 168 Costa Rica 11, 13, 96–106, 144 Criollo 30, 33, 36 cuisine 2–5, 11, 12, 24, 28, 31, 33, 62, 85, 91, 107, 142, 144, 154–5, 176 American 8, 14, 32, 142–50, 177 Asante 62, 67 British 146

Index Canadian 151–63, 177 Catalan 9, 85–95, 175 Chilean 11, 107–16 colonial 30 Costa Rican 11, 13, 96–106 Ecuadorian 14, 164–74 French 31, 74, 109, 142, 143 Ghanaian 62, 64–7, 68–70 Israeli 14, 119, 126–9, 176 Mexican 32–4, 36–7, 132 national 2–4, 11, 23–5, 33–4, 36–7, 62, 64–7, 69–70, 99, 101, 103–4, 105–6, 115, 142–3, 147, 148–50, 151–2, 161–3, 167–8, 177 New England 14, Palestinian 133–4, 140–1 Portuguese 18, 23–7, 89 prehispanic 36 Québécois 151, 156, 161–3 regional 14, 62, 99–103, 105–6, 144–5, 148, 150, 151, 168 Scottish 83 Slovene 39, Spanish 30, 89 subsistence 90 culinary capital 81 culinary nationalism 13, 18, 24, 25, 27, 73, 94, 108 Culler, Jonathan 113 cultural appropriation 128, 151, 158–61 cultural globalization 11, 13, 96 de Balbuena, Bernardo 29 de Salazar, Francisco Cervantes 21, 28 deep-fried Mars Bar 4, 13, 73, 79–84, 175 desire 45, 67, 81, 86, 107, 121–3, 129, 145, 156, 172, 178 disgust 35, 80–1, 173 ecological zones 62–3, 65 Ecuador 4, 8, 11, 14, 32, 164–74, 178 England 4, 73–5, 77, 79–80, 83, 145, 146, 175 ethnicity 13, 132, 137, 139, 141, 165, 173–4, 176–7 ethnicization 108, 110, 115 ethno-symbolism/ethnosymbolic 7–8, 176–7

205

European Union, the (EU) 26, 40–5, 49, 54, 58, 91–2 everyday nationhood 8, 23 Expo 67 152 Farm to Table 148–50 First Nations 153–4 fish and chips 79, 82–4 food consumption 18, 22, 62 food culture 3–5, 14, 81, 91, 96, 98, 101–3, 106, 119–29, 151, 155–6, 163, 175–7 food insecurity 62, 65, 70 food preparation 33 foodways 3, 57, 62, 65, 67–69, 120, 122, 127, 136, 143, 147–8, 155, 161–3, 178 French-Canadians 154, 156, 159 gastronationalism 24, 27, 85, 91–2 gastronomic calendar 92–3, 95 geographical indication/Protected Denomination of Origin/Protected Geographical Indication 56, 91–2 geography 8–9, 37, 132, 141, 142, 151, 160, 162–3, 177 Ghana 4, 9, 11, 13, 61–72, 178 globalization 8, 11, 26, 60 Gold Coast 61–3, 66, 70 Grigorov, Stamen (Foundation) 55 Guanacaste/Cocina Guanacasteca 97, 99–106 guinea pig/cuy 4, 11, 164–5, 167–74 habitus 22, 27 haggis 4, 13, 73–9, 83–4, 175 health 18, 52–4, 60, 79–81, 83, 86, 122, 149 heritage tourism 68 heterogeneity 143, 177 home 21, 23, 37, 39, 45, 47, 49, 55, 59–60, 63, 74, 78, 86, 92, 93, 112, 120, 121, 130–2, 133–4, 139–41, 143, 147, 158, 162, 164, 169–72 home cooking 147 homogeneity 5, 111

206

Index

Iberoamerica 32–3, 35, 37 immigration/immigrants 75, 79, 90, 106, 110, 120–4 imported foods 17, 63–4, 68 independence 23, 31, 32, 40, 43, 44–5, 61–2, 64–6, 70, 83, 85, 88, 93–4, 111, 145, 149, 174 Indiano 30 indigeneity/indigenous foods 173 industrialization 5, 7, 10, 43, 124, 146, 149, 175 integration 96, 105, 142, 146, 150 interculturalism 153, 159–61, 163 Israel 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 94, 119–29, 130–41, 175, 176, 177, 178 Israeli food 119–29, 140, 175–7 Jewish-Israeli 4, 119–20, 124, 128–9 Jews 7, 120–1, 123–4, 126, 128–9, 137–40, 176 Judaism 18 Kosher 120–1, 129 lactic acid 52, 56, 60 Lactobacillus bulgaricus bacteria 52, 55–6, 60 landscape 63, 91–92, 111, 131 Latin America 11, 13, 32–3, 164, 171, 174, 175, 177 lent 18, 20–1, 92 Levenstein, Harvey 144–5 Limón/Cocina Limonense 97, 99–103, 105–6 local food 64–6, 68–9, 96, 102, 123, 172 longevity 52–4, 56, 59, 145 maple syrup 144–5, 148–50, 152, 158, 161–2 Mechnikov, Ilya 52, 55, 57 media 39–40, 43–6, 48, 54–5, 73, 75, 79–80, 82, 84, 87, 93–4, 143, 157, 159, 161 Meiji Bulgaria yoghurt 54 Mesoamerican cultural context 100–1, 105 Mestizaje 165, 168 Mexico/Mexican 5, 13, 25, 28–38, 68, 100–1, 104, 132, 149, 168

migration/migrants 1, 22–3, 90, 94, 96, 111, 120–1, 123, 124, 127, 129, 179 Mintz, Sidney 2, 90, 143–4, 147 miscegenation 107, 109, 111, 114, 165 Mizrahi 119, 121, 123–4, 126–7 modernism 7 modernity 6–8, 9–10, 37, 94, 131, 133–5, 140, 165, 175 modernization 5, 10–11, 44, 50, 115, 130–1, 133, 136, 140–1, 165 mole 30, 36 Momchilovtsi 52–4, 56 multiculturalism 10–11, 14, 107–8, 151–3, 157, 159–63 Museum of Yoghurt 55 nation building 9, 11, 13, 46, 67, 70, 96, 106, 164–5, 175 national cultural policy 62, 67–8 national dish 19, 24, 40–1, 49, 69, 73, 78, 85, 89, 93, 98, 99, 104, 129, 152, 158, 159, 161, 164, 167 national food(s) 1–5, 7–8, 11–14, 27, 51, 52, 62, 69, 73, 83, 89, 93, 95, 120, 128–9, 130, 144, 175–9 national narrative 40, 62, 70, 130, 134–6, 139, 141 National Yoghurt Day 55 New England 2, 14, 144–50, 177 New Spain 28–30, 33 Nkrumah, Kwame 61–2, 64–70 Nuevo cocinero mexicano 33–4, 36 nutrition 68, 77–83, 120–1, 123 obesity 79–80 otherness 77, 174 Pa amb tomàquet 90–1 Palestinian/Palestinians 4, 7, 10, 14, 94, 119, 127–8, 129, 130–41, 176–8, 179 Parkhurst Ferguson, Priscilla 142–3 perennialism 6–7 pluralism 151–3 plurinational 151–4, 160, 162–3 poetry 77–8 political economy 4, 12, 62, 122, 175, 177 political transition in Chile 107–8, 114

Index popular culture 21, 75, 77, 78, 82, 161 Portugal 13, 17–21, 23–7, 175 Portuguese 4, 13, 17–27, 89, 93 postcommunist 10, 13, 55, 175 potica 4, 7, 10, 13, 39–50, 175–6 poutine 4, 7–8, 11, 14, 151–2, 158–61 poverty 13, 43, 73–4, 76–80, 83, 113, 147, 165, 175 prehispanic 28, 30, 33, 36–7 primordialism 3, 6–7 proletariat/bourgeoisie 114 pulque 33–4 Québécois 11, 151–4, 156, 158–63 Ray, Krishnendu 143–4, 148, 176 reappropriation 82, 158 recipes 5, 17, 21, 24–5, 27, 28–38, 39–41, 45–8, 57, 68, 74, 77, 86–90, 91, 98–100, 102, 109, 122, 124–5, 127, 132, 146, 155, 157 regionalism 9–11, 14, 164, 166–7 relationality 174 resistance identity 96, 105 restaurants 48, 59, 87, 88, 90, 93, 94, 102, 108, 110–13, 115, 119–20, 125–9, 130–3, 135–41, 143–4, 149–50, 157–8, 160–1, 168–70 re-traditionalization 44–46 Rhodope Mountain 52–53, 58 romanticism 7–10, 24 Roto 109, 114–15 salt cod 4, 13, 17–27, 175 sausages 44, 73, 90–4 science 2, 7, 9–10, 13, 175 Scotland 4, 73–84, 175

207

seasonality 85, 92, Serdika Sofia 54–6 Simmons, Amelia 32, 146 Slovenia 10, 13, 39–46, 175–6 sofregit 88–9, 91 stereotypes 73–7, 79–80, 83 stigma/stigmatizing/stigmatized 79–80, 82, 151, 158, 161 Studen Izvor 55

76,

tax 64–6, 145 terroir 9 top-down 5, 13, 18, 23, 27, 70, 92, 93, 95, 96–7, 101, 103, 105–6, 120, 152, 154–7, 163, 177 topography 8–9, 166, 177 tourism/tourists 5, 13–14, 25, 44, 53, 55, 58, 68–9, 81–2, 92, 96, 103, 112–13, 164, 169–70 tourtière 152, 159, 161 TV cooking programs 126 UNESCO intangible heritage 8 Upper Canada 151, 154, 156, 163 ‘white’ foods 173 whiteness 97, 159, 173 Willard, Pat 147, 150 women 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 43, 46–50, 58, 121–5, 130, 131–6, 138–9, 141, 169, 172, 177 working-class 79–83, 112 xenophobia

74

yoghurt 10, 51–60, 175 Yugoslavia 40, 42, 44, 49, 50 Zionism 121, 129