Anthrop 1AA3 - Food Taboo Unit Notes PDF

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Download Anthrop 1AA3 - Food Taboo Unit Notes PDF

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Anthropology of Food Taboos Wednesday, 14 November 2018 What is food? Food - the item and it’s meaning Consumption - the process of eating - Form of identity a social level Form of material culture (anything made or modified by humans) - Ex. apple pie, ice cream, etc Food as culture and Identity - Everybody eats - What and how we eat can become an expression of our ideas and beliefs - Ex. cupcakery - increasingly feminized - Ex. sexuallized food - strawberries, choclate, osyters Expression through food - Ex. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream limited edition christmas - Nostalgia - kids and ice cream - Getting broken up with, after an exam - Status or choice -> performing a particular social class - Emotion, pleasure, memory, politics, ethics (natural or organic, where it is made), social, guilt, new, popular culture, limited edition, brand name, all-natural - Certain brands within pop culture Monday, 19 November 2018 Cultural Meanings of Food and Food Taboos - Not just as a biological event but as an identity - Performative, social function when you are eating out - Home cooked meal by candle light - romantic - Coffee - someone you are meeting for the first time - Brunch - some sorta of extended - Expensive restaurant - impressive What food has meaning to you? Comfort Foods - Chocolate - Cheese

Food aversions - All meat - Lobsters especially - absolutely disgusting!! Social and individual experiences Food Classification Systems - People tend to classify foods in different ways, according to their culture Foods can be: - Edible-inedible - Male-female - Ex. BBQ - men; baked goods - female Food preferences - likes/dislikes Food restrictions - periodic denial of certain foods (ex. Pregnant women- cheeses, alcohol, shellfish)  he Food taboos - deliberate avoidance - all of the time, most often religious reasons -T deliberate avoidance of a food item for reasons other than simple dislike from food preferences - Most food taboos relate to animal resources - Pigs - muslim, jewish, ethiopian Orthodox Christians - Cows - hindu - Carnivores eaten in few cultures - Almost universal taboo against eating humans - indigenous communities eating portion of dead person's body, keep memory of person alive inside of you; ritual purposes involving human sacrifice to ingest their power; emergency purposes (Franklin expedition) How do we explain Food Taboos? 1. A marker of a group; a way of separating your group from others (identity) 2. Protection against diseases ex. Undercooked pork is bad 3. Ecological theories (ex. Marvin Harris) Understanding Food taboos - Marvin Harris (1978) India’s Sacred Cow - see textbook - It is probable that the elimination of meat eating came about in a slow, practical manner. The ones who survived natural disasters where the ones who saves the cows; those who ate beef lost the tools of farming (oxen) - Over a period of centuries, more and more farmers probably avoided beef until an unwritten taboo came into existence

- Over the span of 3 thousand years Cows - environmental factors, disease and then codified in religion Explanations for Religious Prohibition against Pork - Symbolic/interpretive perspective - for ancient Hebrews pigs were classified as ‘unclean’ - Adaptive/materialist perspective - environment of  the Middle East made raising pigs maladaptive (Harris) - Ex. dirty vs. clean labels in every society - classification system of rooms of dressers, bookcases, matter is out of place - Clean = food; dirty= notions of bad - Old testament - include animals that don't chew cud or have hooves which pigs don’t - Environmental - need a lot of calories, need shelter, water, so in desert very difficult to domesticate; The work would outweigh the resources needed Consequences of breaking a food taboo are harsher than for breaking a food restriction Two types of food taboos: - Applies to all individuals - Applies to subset of individuals (in. women) Most food taboos apply to animal resources - Ex. Papua New Guinea, women are expected to never consume things that are red, because patriarchal male dominated cultural, femininity is polluted and unclean, menstruation is dirty, polluting power would increase Example: Dogs - Marvin Harris - dogs used for transport, hunting, protection, warmth, companionship - Services more valuable than meat - Therefore dogs will be eaten in cultures where their services are not needed and/or resources are scare - Example from text - Chaiken article, Philippines - more of a burden financially - Pets - very western view, we have more disposable sources of income to spend on them Food as Culture: Fetishism What is a Fetish 1. Excessive or irrational commitment 2. Sexual - where abnormal gratification is linked to a particular object - General use vs. Clinical - Secual vs. non-sexual

What can we learn from food fetishes? - Identity expressed through/defined by food and food use - Food meanings - Conceptualizations of food - Aberrant/accepted - deviant - Pleasure/consumption - Human behaviour Why does food become a fetish? - Ubiquitous - Food is tied to our bodies - sense it - Change in ideas about the role of food - ‘ consumption in the age of affluence’ - Phenomenological experiences of food - Greater exposure and discussion/decrease in taboos on behaviour - Popular culture - Foods related to status Fetishing Food - Sexualized - Chocolate, Strawberries, Oysters - Bachelor parties - penis shaped food - Food movement groups - vegan, slow food - Hyper excessive volume of food consumption Types of food fetishes: Sexual food fetishes Sitophilia - Preparation, taste, texture - Food play - Food as sex objects Ex. Body shots, Nyotaimori - eating sushi of naked woman, Phallic food objects Feederism - Act of watching someone eat/ be fed secual - Donna Simpson Vorarephilia - Desire to eat or be eaten - Popular media fascination - Ex. criminal minds, Hannibal, CSI

Fat fetishism - Body size, ‘chubby chasers’ - Sexual gratification Salirophilia - wet/messy fetish - Licking food off of someone Wednesday, 21 November 2018 Non-sexual food fetishes Health movement Food movement - Organic, local, slow food, vegan, vegetarian - No carb movement Foodies, ‘food porn’, gourmand - Food as art, pleasure Certain types of material culture (including food: - Are commodities - Commodities = things that acquire value in a culture and can be bought and sold * - They have a high economic value - They become perceived as a necessary part in our lives - Ex. chocolate, sugar, beef, coffee Because we think we need certain commodities … - It becomes easy to overlook how our consumption habits affect others around the world, or how our habits have g lobal effects - Moreover, it is often difficult for us to change our consumption habits. Why? - Advertising industry, lobbying that ‘sugar isn’t that bad’ etc - consumption= pleasure ex. Chocolate - Retail therapy .. a reward - Pleasure can never be satisfied Beef and the environment: - Causes of deforestation in the Amazon 2000-2005 Sidney Mintz - 1985, ‘sweetness and power’ - history of sugar consumption in Europe and its economic and cultural impact - SUGAR STUDY = SIDNEY MINTZ Food and Globalization - Most of the foods we consume are the by-product of cross-cultural **

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Ex. Catherine of Braganza married to King Charles 2, popularized tea with sugar after her marriage in 1662. Became sign of wealth, security and status, and were enjoyed among the upper classes and aristocracies of Europe - Cause of the expansion of the SLAVE TRADE, west coast of Africa - Reliance of sugar cause of colonialism and slave trade (1700s) - British and french government lower import taxes, then sugar lost it’s upper class popularity (demonized) Meaning of Sugar - Medical - sugar helps cancerous tumors to grow, diabetes, mental illnesses, potential poison - Sugary confections = macarons (status symbol, gift, treat) - Sugar - Intimately linked with European colonialism, the industrial Revolution and now, NEO-COLONIALISM - Donkey in front of sugar mill ruins, St. John, USVI - from symbol of exploitation to tourism attraction - Rich white people, and black descendants of slaves - Donkeys - draft animals for sugar plantations, set free to roam the island - White people - it’s cute; black people - complain - Donkeys are a new form of colonialism, harbour negative memories - Wedding pictures taken in front of the sugar plantations No Heads, No feet, no monkeys, no dogs, no lizards Personal Food Taboos - Palawan Island, Philippines - Interest in the sponantaneous relocations of populations happening all over Asia; paralleling a process of government managed relocation schemes; moving people from areas of high population density to frontier regions; government planned ‘transmigrations’ - Chicken head soup - two chicken feet and the head; food taboo built ‘no heads, no feet’ - Villages cultivate upland rice in slash and burn fields , mountainous terrain, - House - on stilts, bamboo slats woven into panels for the wall, thatch roof, mosquito net, bats mice lizards - Allergies, gave gracious way to refuse - Fresh food big challenge in isolated village, absence of a market - Every Household grew their own vegetables, men fish occasionally, gathered selfish - Excess, pack with salt and air dry - Buying rice in bulk - Gardening and chicken farming difficult - Diet of rice

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Collecting data on household food consumption and child nutrition Birthday would have a celebration of vegetables, tunnel markel, pig Pig intestine stew -> jewish taboo unclean Men drink and play cards -> pulutan (finger food, dog) Risk of rabies in dog rarely used as a pet Meat was so seldom available ‘meat hunger’ people would line up to buy meat after a hunt ‘Pig bomb’ to protect the rice crops; mashed bananas, shards of glass and phosphorous scrapped from match heads, big nose and cause them to explode Monkeys - impaled by a pole adjacent to a branch with rice, tripped on noose and counter-weight, snapped their necks Some people ate monkey … too close to humans Birds ‘slingshots’ Lizard meat -> monitor lizard -> Tagbanua people is taboo

India’s Sacred Cow The Hindu would rather starve to death than eat a cow or even deprive it of food - Spiritual values seems more important to indians than life itself - Compels people to overlook abundant, nutritious foods for scarcer, less healthful foods - All-Party Cow Protection Campaign in Nepal - Law punished by cow slaughter - Detrimental to the nation - More of a liability than an asset in view of our land resources - Historically cows used for sacrificial rites, then ceremonial feasts by priests - Strict taboo on beef consumption - Posters, movies, figures, carvings - SYMBOL of health and abundance - Used for yogurt and ghee - Female water buffalo preferred for milk - Oxen important transporting goods - Agricultural tied closely to monsoon rains, field preparation and planting must coincide with the rain - Loss of oxen = dependance, rent one, ultimately losing land - Cow, bulls, oxen, - cow most scared because it can make the other two - Droughts cows stop lactating and become barren, governments maintain barren cows - Oxen receive better treatment (better fed)

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Prohibition of beef consumption is a form of disaster insurance for india Could be improved with breeding programs, cultivated pastures and silage ¾ arable land in us grows food for livestock Indian cattle convert items of little direct human value into products of immediate utility Produce Dung -> fertilizes fields, used as fuel for cooking (43 million tons of coal … 1.5 billion dollars) 89% of indian energy is provided by local sources 17% of indian cow energy consumed is returned in the form of milk, traction and dung + Leather and meat American cattle only return 4% Methane gas and carbon dioxide is produced when dung broken down -> natural gas that could be used for cooking, heating, gasoline etc Dead -> untouchables skin animal for leather, eat it, given to poor to eat, (muslim and christians) There are many violations to prohibition (starve to death, calf poked and killed by mom, sell to muslims) cow worship is vital part of Indian Culture Droughts, floods, took away rich topsoil, farms shrank and domesticated animals harder to maintain Farmers that didn’t eat cattle survived natural disasters Similar to our sacred dog and sacred cars Human society is neither random nor capricious...