Food is Culture

My introductory readings for this personal study were chosen to supply me with a historical baseline from where to proceed. Those readings are “Food is Culture” by Massimo Montanari, “Indians of the Oaks” by Melicent Lee and a short essay by Margaret Mead, “The Problem with Changing Diets.”

If “Food is Culture,” then what is culture? Montanari has a reply: “What we call culture takes it place where tradition and innovation intersect. Tradition is made up of knowledge, techniques, values, which were handed down to us. Innovation exists insomuch as this knowledge, these techniques, these values modify the place of man in the environmental context, rendering him able to experience a new reality (Montanari 7).”

This book is a short, fantastic piece that immediately set me back on my heels, forcing me to reevaluate assumptions that I held as I approached this course. I had hoped to learn about the diets of the peasantry, who would have made do with only locally available foodstuffs as opposed to the higher classes who could afford the high price of imported goods from traders. But what can I learn if no account has been made.

Because the lower classes did not commit their own experiences to writing but relied on oral transmission, they have seemingly left us nothing (Montanari 36). Theoretically speaking, orally transmitted cooking is destined not to leave traces of itself over time (Montanari 35).

Additionally, I expected that this course would solidify my belief that the introduction of new foods into traditional diets was mostly harmful. Montanari has challenged that belief.

The food system is therefore an extraordinary vehicle of self-representation and of cultural exchange. Food can serve as a mediator between different cultures, opening methods of cooking to all manner of invention, cross-pollination, and contamination (Montanari 133). Every culture, every tradition, every identity is a dynamic, unstable product of history, one born of complex phenomena of exchange, interaction, and contamination. Food cultures are so much richer and more interesting when the encounters and exchanges have been lively and frequent (139).

The writing of Melicent Lee did not disappoint either. “Indians of the Oaks” is a fictional story based upon the author’s time spent with members of the Kumeyaay Indians of present day Southern CA and Northern Mexico. I learned a great deal about the foods eaten by the Indians as well as the rituals that were equally important aspects of those meals. I look forward to my interview with a young tribal member of a Kumeyaay band to learn about his diet and his attempts to retain his food heritage.

Mead’s 20-page piece was a technical look into the physiological arguments of why retaining one’s traditional diet is most efficient. It was chock full of technicism and read longer than the immaculate 140 pages of Montanari. In retrospect, I would have chosen an alternative reading to begin the course as I do not feel that the essay delivered what it’s title evoked. I was relying on the author to reinforce my belief that Montanari had challenged and came away quite disappointed. As the old saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case, an essay by its title.