cft 3-1-13
TRANSCRIPT
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Culture, Food, and Talk (ANTH 289)
March 1, 2013
Practicalities Discourse about food
Assignments explained and illustrated:
mealtime discourse project (MDP Step 1) article notes:Jarvenpa
Food as material stuff (nutrients, technology, and
social evolution): Fernandez-Armesto, Pollan,Harris Break: show, tell, and eat (alligator, reindeer, cactus)
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Practicalities Attendance question: Have you ever foraged for your food (e.g., collected
fruit, nuts, mushrooms, herbs, shellfish; gone fishing, hunting, trapping;
dumpster raiding)?
Class time: 10:55-1:35 with 10 min break
Whats on Blackboard so far: syllabus revised slightly last night, course
powerpoints, assignment guidelines (all MDP Steps, consent forms, article
note-taking, food presentation possibilities), dropboxes
Sign-up sheets coming around: film analyses, food presentations, articlepresentations
Third foodways journal entry due on BB today previous ones are all
graded
For Friday 3/1:
Submit your fourth foodways journal entry on BB Read: Clark
Skim: Mead (1), Mintz (8), Lubell
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Syllabus changes
Our final exam date has been set for May
24 @ 11-1, so I have usurped May 17 asour final class day, assuming that this will
not pose any conflicts for you (but let me
know if it does). On the syllabus, everything has been
pushed back one week this includes all
due dates (Ive changed the sign-upsheets to reflect this) EXCEPT the journal
entry due dates please just continue on
with those as originally asterisked
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Food presentation possibilities
(suggest others if you like) Tropics (Oceania, Central Africa, Lowland South America,
Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean): Breadfruit, plantain,
sago, taro, yam, manioc, pig, chicken, peas, sugar cane, collard
greens, okra, mango
Highland South America, Central and North America: Corn,
sweet potatoes, potatoes, quinoa, rabbits, guinea pigs, chili
peppers, chocolate, tomatoes, beans, nopales, agave
Eurasia, Middle-east, North Africa: Wheat, milk, sheep, goat,
horse, cow, cabbage, cucumber, carrot, apple, coffee, salt,beets, garlic, rosemary, oregano/thyme, mint, olives
East Asia: Rice, eggs, frogs, fish, mushrooms, seaweed,
orange, tea, ginger, horseradish, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg,
coriander
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Discourse about food
Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture (American
Museum of Natural History 11/17/12 8/11/13)
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-
exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culture
Addictive junk food, stomach share and bliss pointhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-
extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.htmlhttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culturehttp://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/our-global-kitchen-food-nature-culture -
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ANTH 289s food
preferences/prohibitions No meat (vegetarian for moral
reasons)
No beef (Hindu sacred cattle)
Not much red meat or pork
2 No pork (Seventh DayAdventist: unhealthy;
No non-scale fish SDA
prohibition (squid, shrimp,
lobster, oysters),
No fish -- personal smell toostrong
3 No dairy products (lactose
intolerant, 2 personal dislike
(E. Asian))
No cheese
No onions/scallions
(personal dislike of
strong)
No mangos (allergy:mouth and face itchy)
No mushrooms
(allergy: anaphylactic
reactions -- hives,
swelling, death)
No restrictions
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ANTH 289s recommended
eateries Tanling: Samdado Korean (and Japanese)
Restaurant (Bayside, across Horace
Harding Expressway and Springfield
Boulevard)
Manmit: Tanga Asian (fusion India,
Manchuriacurries, noodles, rice)
Queens Blvd and Grand (fresher) or in LIC
Cynthia: Cabana (Cuban), Forest Hills,
Austin or 71st
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Foodways journal entries
Illustrations
Peige
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MDP Step 1 due 3/15
CITI training how many modules are youdoing?
Proposal
Imagining an interesting but practical locale and setof participants
Recruiting your subjects (use script)
Schedule the interviews and the mealtime event
Consent forms
Read adult participant form aloud
Will you be involving minors? Look in advance at
the parent-guardian form and the oral assent form.
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Article note-taking guidelines
(details on BB) Sign up for 10 articles
Take notes on the subjects, settings,
methods, data, findings, theoretical and
local terms, value and validity of the
articles
Hand in your notes (typed, printed, bullet
point format, around 300 words) the day
we discuss the article
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Jarvenpa1. When, where and how does Jarvenpa conduct
his research?
2. What kinds of traditional (bush/country),
nativized, and imported foods do his subjects
(Dene and Finn) eat and how are theyprepared, served and eaten?
3. How do these diets of experience within work
groups, family households, and publicceremonies, operate as symbolic mediation,
allowing them to express social identities, local
knowledge, or resistance to supra-local forces?
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Jarvenpa, Robert (2008) Diets of Experience: Food Culture and Political Ecology in
Northern Canada and Northern Finland. Food and Foodways 16:1-32
s/s: 1971-92 hunting/fishing Kesyehotine Chipeweyan (Dene) Indians (Patuanak, Saskatchewan, northern Canada on the trail, in a
home, at the school); and early 80s-1999, dairy farmer/forestry workers (Suomussalmi, Kainuu Province, northeastern Finland, hay-making
bogfields, lunch at home, homestead on midsummer nights eve)
m/d: observation via active participation or immersion in food procuring/preparing/consuming practices (as a hunting/fishing partner among
Dene and a farm laborer among Finns) as well as interviews, questionnaires, mapping, etc. (observations, narratives, menus, quotes)
Findings:
Both groups use fewer and more bush or traditional foods, cooked in a more traditional manner, in the work groups and to some
degree the family settings; traditional foods represent ecological knowledge and thus diets of experience and yet are lacki ng from
larger scale public performances of identity
Both groups use many more imported foods and preparations in the ceremonials settings; these imported food s represent tensions
due to changing supra-local social relations ambivalent contact with Cree (who fry meat instead of boiling/roasting it), and with
school and church for the Dene (older generations cant stomach new foods, served in a new setting by youth -- a reversal of
traditional means); for the Finns, the cosmopolitan foods represent contact with urban centers (youth drawn there, young women
resisting agricultural work, deserting farms)
Bannock and lard are nativized foreign foods for the Dene; coffee is the nativized food for the Finns both are served in specific
settings, reflecting the process by which local communities resist yet adapt to supra-local forces
women do more of the food preparation and service in both groups, women do some of the same productive labor (fishing/trapping or
barn work), and Finnish men do some of the service in the ceremonial settings (gendered food cultures?)
Theory and local terms
Political ecology = the study of how local adaptations to the environment confront supra-local political-economic forces
Diets of experience (Dove) = food production/processing/consumption used as a way to resolve experiential contradictions between
past traditions and present impositions (old foods retained in the midst of new food patterns) Food as code (Douglas) = food is a symbolic system that allows people to express and negotiate identity and other symbolic issues
(resisting or excluding encroaching forces)
Mediating foods (Power & Power) external foods adopted and nativized by a group in ways that allow for a kind of symbolic
processing of the tensions between the dominant political economy and the subordinate local community
Commensal units = social groupings that engage in specific types of food events (on-site meals by work crews/task groups, meals
prepared and served within family household s, and ceremonial meals prepared and consumed in public)
Local terms: etsins = dried food (Dene), inkonze = animal power (Dene), juustoleipa = cheese bread (Finn), salaati = salad (Finn),
v/v: great ethnographic descriptions and initial analyses, but the final points about how food operates to negotiate political ecological
contraditions are sketchy and unsubstantiated
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Break (show and tell and eat)
Foragers: hunting large game (reindeer, buffalo,
alligator, kangaroo, ostrich)
Distribution: small-scale societies (bands)
exchanged food via kinship and labor
connections and at larger scale inter-band ritual
occasions
Processing/storage: drying and smoking fish,
meat, fruits (jerky)
Consumption: at the hearth, hands and knives,
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Dried game and pickled plants(caution: very superficial Wikipedia research)
Kangaroo (Australia)
hunted by Australian aborigines and eaten now by Australians (ground up or
cubed as beef/lamb would be)
Environmentally correct: less methane
Nutritious: more protein and less fat, anti-carcinogenic and anti-diabetes
Ostrich (Africa) Hunted for millenina (meat and feathers), nearly extinct in 18th c, but farmed
since 19th c.
Nutrition: low fat, high in protein, calcium, iron
Alligator (US and China)
Hunted by Seminoles? Farmed in the 20th c. in the US
Used in Cajun and Chinese cuisines
Chinese medicines
Caribou/reindeer (Arctic/Subarctic)
Hunted since Mesolithic and still by Inuit, herded by Sami for milk and meat,
farmed now
Scandinavian cuisine: dried and smoked, sauteed, sausage, canned meatballs
Nutrition: low fat
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Cactus: Opuntia, nopal(es),
prickly pear (fruit and paddles) Origins: Mexico Nutrition: anti-diabetes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia
http://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct
_pa/du_prkpear.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntiahttp://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pa/du_prkpear.htmlhttp://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pa/du_prkpear.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopalhttp://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pa/du_prkpear.htmlhttp://www.desertusa.com/magoct97/oct_pa/du_prkpear.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia -
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Break (and eat)
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Food as nutrients
(the material dimension of foodways)
As biological creatures, humans need to eat to work,to grow, to heal (energy, nutrients, medicine) andso have engaged in diverse material practicesthroughout evolutionary time and around the world: Procuring food: foraging = gathering, scavenging, or hunting
flora and fauna Producing food: agriculture, animal husbandry, laboratory
GMOs and chemical flavors
Processing food (e.g., beets to sugar, grapes to wine)
Preparing food (roasting, baking, boiling, fermenting)
Distributing food (bartering, markets, flown in fresh sushi,iceberg lettuce, CSA)
Packaging and storing food (calabashes, plastic bags)
Consume (chopsticks, couches, TVs, subway)
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Diamond, Jared M. (2005) Guns, germs, and steel: the
fates of human societiesNew York : Norton. HM206 .D48Entire film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c63qKwHhPQQ (1h49m)
Episode 1: Out of Eden1. Why inequality? (8:03)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=related
2. Hunter-gatherers -- PNG (9:43)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=related
3. Agricultural beginnings (8:38)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxHZPdH690&feature=related
-- wheat and barley in Mid-East
-- rice in China
-- corn in Americas
-- millet, sorghum, yams in Africa
-- taro, bananas, (spiders) in PNG 10,000 ya
4. Mid-east husbandry, sheep/goats milkand meat (8:25)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=related
5. towns, diversified labor, specialistsbased on food surpluses (9:19)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0edh5Itvhy8&feature=related
-- husbandry v. insects, elephants, horses, camels,
-- mideast: cows, pigs, sheep, goats
-- fire => steel
6. Intensive agriculture, overexploitedenvironment, diffusion, artists,expansion, industrial revolution (9:49)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHs_1_xCN8&feature=related
Episode 2: Conquest
7. Spanish Conquest 1532http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuD4vchi3ho&feature=related
Episode 3: Into the Tropics13. Why germs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC76ywLyBvE&feature=related
Geography determines everything??
What about culture and agency??!
F d A t Wh F ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c63qKwHhPQQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxHZPdH690&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxHZPdH690&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0edh5Itvhy8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0edh5Itvhy8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHs_1_xCN8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHs_1_xCN8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuD4vchi3ho&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuD4vchi3ho&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC76ywLyBvE&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC76ywLyBvE&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC76ywLyBvE&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC76ywLyBvE&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuD4vchi3ho&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuD4vchi3ho&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHs_1_xCN8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHs_1_xCN8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0edh5Itvhy8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0edh5Itvhy8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRG7-282QXM&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxHZPdH690&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxHZPdH690&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-ina_bhJ0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c63qKwHhPQQ -
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Fernando-Armesto: Why Farm?
(given the advantages of foraging)http://www.pearsonhighered.com/showcase/armesto2e/assets/armesto_ch2.pdf
What are the pluses and minuses? (p. 38 comparison chart)
Animal husbandry (herding) increases docility and availability of food animals, but animal-driven human
diseases thrive
Plant husbandry (agriculture) is a lot more work than foraging and upsets the environmental balance, but
in changing climates, farming allows for some control (unnatural selection, conveniently located and
timed)
Husbandry drives population increase and more complex systems of communication, food distribution,
specialized labor, political controlwhich easily go off-kilter, resulting in social inequality and instability,
disease and famine
Environments were differentially fit for herding and tillers
Herding (grasslands, northern tundra and evergreen forests soil untillable)they dont settle though
they have been known to create great monuments (central Asia)
Agriculture: 15000 ya healthy, foraging settlements were thriving in the Mediterranean, Japan (fish, nuts,
seeds): swamps (Ganges, PNG, Cameroon), highlands (Oaxaca, Andes), floodplains (Jordan, Yangtze)
Why did farming begin?
Population growth and pressure probably a consequence more than a cause Abundance and so experimentationbut why do MORE work if you dont have to?
Politics leaders require more production for competitive feasting with which to show off status
Religion husbandry = worship (fencing, sowing, watering, sacrificing to the gods of plenty; incense,
drugs, alcohol -- eucharist made of wheat)
Environmental changes (mini-ice ages and droughts in the Mid-East, nut trees receded, grains
flourished in the dry heat)
Accidentprimitives incapable of forethought? An attempt to conserve old ways of life
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/showcase/armesto2e/assets/armesto_ch2.pdfhttp://www.pearsonhighered.com/showcase/armesto2e/assets/armesto_ch2.pdf -
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Harris (1985): The Abominable Pig
Harris, the great materialist, abominates symbolic explanations for food preferences
and prohibitions
Jews and Muslims did not abominate pork becausea) theyre unclean (eat dung, wallow in mud other domesticated animals do this
chickens, dogs),
b) they cause disease (other undercooked meats also cause disease),
c) pigs were somehow out of place in their animal taxonomies and so
impure the explanation he really scorns (Douglas) Though pigs convert plants into meat better than any other animal, they pose
problems in the ecological niches created by the end of the ice ages in the Middle
East whereas goats, sheep, and cattle were better suited pigs need human food,
not grasses (theyre not ruminants), and they need shade and moisture (they dont
sweat, get sunstroke). Thus, herding pigs in the Middle East and North Africa was
maintained only in the woody margins as even the elite gave up eating them overtime (the stigmatized pig-herders provided them at first, but the masses werent
happy). Eventually Islam only spread to the limits of the forested parts of the world
(China, Europe) though they sometimes sent in their goats to deforest at the
margins.
The great religions of the world dont impose rules on peoples that will make getting
a nutritious meal impossible, but instead reflect the realities of their prior foodways