Module 2 Notes:

Lee, J. (2008, July). Jennifer Lee: The hunt for General Tso [video file]. Retrieved
from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6MhV5Rn63M

 More Chinese restaurants (40k) than McDonalds, burger king, KFC, and Wendy’s combined.
 Cuban missile crisis was resolved in Henching Palace in Washington DC
 John Wilks booth where he planed the assassination is now a Chinese restaurant
 Fortune Cookies are from Japan not china
 Benkyo-Do is the main manufacture in San Francisco
 WW2 imprisonment of Japanese allowed the American Chinese to capitalize on the gap
 Chop suey, was introduced in the early 1900s. is not known in china. Means odds & ends.
 Chinese exclusion act 1882-1902 only time in us history where we excluded a population based
on their national heritage
 1904 Lem Sen supposedly the original creator of chop suey
 Chinese food is the most pervasive food its served on all 7 contents
 McDonalds takes credit by standardizing the menu, décor, etc..
 Powerball drawing winner had 110 winners one year came from fortune cookies
 1970s General Tso’s started in New York. Took 10 years to spread across the US.


Royal Feed (n.d.) [video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzD9wcJIHY

 When the queen is on tour she is presented the food of the country
 Belize served a rat to the queen. But it was not a rat technically.


Food and Social Structure by Jonathan Maupin (medical anthropology)

 Food is a means of communication, what we eat, when, and with who we eat with and who we
don’t
 Structure of a meal can constitute a family and can reflect and reaffirm social structures and
relationships
 Sharing food is a significant way of cementing social bonds.
 Meals are about social relationships
 Ritual feasts are a great way of examining the production of group identity. Feasts, particularly
when they take place on a large scale, are an excellent way of establishing and maintaining
group identity and solidarity.
 Potlatch is a large ceremony in which food and goods are gathered by the chief and then
distributed among the population, involving days of feasting.
 Theories of ritual feasts: wealth leveling, food distribution and food security, reaffirm social
position of chief and secure loyalty
 Food can serve as a measure of reflecting and reifying class structures, gender inequalities, and
more through the process of exclusion.
o Hindu cast system and dietary restrictions Brahmins
o Brahmins = priests, acidemias.
o Kshatriyas = warriors kings
 Foodways may contain both overt and subtle processes which construct, reinforce, and contest
social structures and relationships.
o DeVault’s analysis of gender inequalities in cooking.
o Like many feminists, DeVaults points out the inequalities associated with domestic labor
and the underlying assumptions that there is a “natural” division of labor between men
and women in which women are tied to the “private” sphere of home and children
while men are tied to the “public” sphere outside the home. Essential to this division is
often the assumptions that household chores are “caring” and not necessarily “work.”
o DeVault argues that this is part of a cultural system in which women are made
subservient to men.
o In interviews with women, DeVault repeatedly finds that women plan their cooking
around their husbands’ wishes, including the times they eat and what types of dishes
they prepare.
o They also feel judged by husbands over the quality of their food. It becomes a basis of
how they define themselves and estimate their own worth.
o So, if this is a system of gender inequalities, why do some of the women Devault
interviews say that they like cooking?
o She argues that this response is part of a rationalization of subservience. In that women
rationalize these actions by saying it is their ‘choice.’ But DeVault notes that these
choices are constrained within a cultural system that suppresses conflict between men
and women and reinforces gender inequality. By making it seem as if it is their “choice,”
women defer any conflict that might occur if they did not cook in a way to appease their
souse. Also, the idea of choice helps to make them feel like they have some control
over their actions, even if their choice is only over how to accommodate others.
o Thus, DeVault argues that women notice their choices, but not their deferences.
o In contrast, men who cook seem to do it for individual reasons and have much less guilt
about accommodating others, making seem as if “caring” work is optional for men,
whereas it is obligated for women.
o Thus, as Allison and DeVault show, everyday acts such as acquiring food, preparing it,
planning and consumption are acts of communication in which structures, such as
gender relations, are continually constructed.
o Challenging these roles, such as women who work and don’t cook, may cause conflict,
not only over personal schedules, but because they challenge entrenched cultural ideals
and structures of gender relationships.
o DeVault raises a lot of interesting points regarding how larger social structures and
gender relationships influence the seemingly simple and routine process of cooking.
o But when I have students read this article and comment on it, they usually suggest that
DeVault’s argument is outdated and doesn’t reflect contemporary family structures or
 gender relationships, such as single-parent households, or households where both
partners work outside of the home.
o And this may be true. Dual-income households may have a very big impact on gender
relationships and who does the work of acquiring and cooking food in the house.
However, I think a lot of DeVault’s argument still holds, and I can see parts of it reflected
in my own house.
o But, one interesting question that DeVault’s argument maybe doesn’t address or
capture is lesbian and gay households. If her argument is about gender inequalities and
how these structure the division of labor in the household, what happens in lesbigay
households where there is no gender difference? How do lesbian and gay couples
divide up the work of shopping, cooking, and cleaning? And if these tasks are so
gendered, how does this influence the relationship between partners or affect concepts
of gender?
 This question is very nicely addressed by Christopher Carrington who conducted interviews with
lesbian and gay couples regarding the distribution of labor in regards to food.
o And he finds very similar patterns to what DeVault describes. While many couples
talked about having an egalitarian division of labor regarding food, he argues that
egalitarianism is somewhat rare.
o Instead, one person in a couple usually emerges as the “planner,” and the act of
planning takes a lot of knowledge, time, and energy. Planners have to think about what
meals they will have, what ingredients they need, what they have at home or have to
buy, where to find the stuff they need, and how to cook the food.
o But more than this, Carrington argues that there is a lot of “emotion work” or
“emotional management” that the planners must do. They have to know what their
partners like, what their nutritional preferences are, how they like their foods cooked –
something that can take a lot of energy and time to figure out. And here he suggests
that there is a lot of inequality, in that while planners know a lot about their partners’
preferences, their partners may know little about the planners’ preferences.
o Carrington also argues that while couples often suggest a cooking and shopping division
of labor, which may sound like it is egalitarian, this idea hides a lot of inequalities. Even
if the partner does a lot of the shopping, the planner or person who cooks is often
involved in this as well, whether they are making small trips to the grocery store for
specific items, or they are writing the shopping list for the other person to follow, they
are very involved in the shopping, and almost have to be since they have the knowledge
about what they have in the house or what they need to cook.
o Carrington also critiques the cooking and cleaning division of labor idea which is often
stated as an example of how chores are equally distributed. He points out, quite
correctly, that cleaning does not involve the same type of work as cooking. You do not
need to have the same extensive knowledge to clean as you do to cook, and it doesn’t
involve the same type of emotion work as preparing food does.
o And by making claims that cooking is equal to either shopping or cleaning, Carrington
argues that these divisions of labor really hide the extensive amount of work that
planners do, something which echoes DeVault’s arguments very well.
 o But what makes Carrington’s argument very interesting, is his analysis about how
gender identities are produced in the process of food acquisition and production. He
notes that gender is something which is produced in social interactions, it is not the
product of socialized roles that people fit themselves into, but is something that is
reproduced in everyday life.
o And this is something that presents an issue for lesbigay families. If food acquisition and
preparation are so gender stereotyped in the US, and that violating these stereotypes
may produce stigma by challenging ones masculinity or femininity, then how do lesbigay
families produce or perform gender?
o And Carrington provides an interesting analysis of this issue. He notes that there are
some contradictions between lesbian and gay couples in their responses to who cooked
their last meal. Some lesbian couples claimed that the other person cooked the last
meal, even when they themselves did. While some gay men claimed to have cooked the
last meal even when it was their partner.
o So why would some women give credit to their partner while some men claim to have
done the work when they didn’t? Carrington argues that these responses are a way that
couple attempt to construct or perform gender. By giving their partners credit for
cooking the last meal, lesbian women may be trying to “provide cover,” as he says, to
their partner who may be less involved in domestic work, making it seem as if they are
“doing gender.”
o In the same way, gay men may take credit for cooking meals even when they didn’t as a
way to protect their partner’s sexuality, to detract from their domestic work which may
make them appear less masculine and appear as a ‘housewife,’ as one of his participants
stated.
o And this is not just the partners. Carrington suggests that many of the male ‘planners’
may feel some ambiguity about their roles.
o So, Carrington argues that lesbigay families are still concerned about maintaining
traditional gender categories and avoiding the stigma of either not engaging in domestic
work for women, or engaging in domestic work for men.
 One final point to mention about Carrington’s article is the way that social class affects this
performance of gender and relationships within lesbigay couples.
 As he argues, social class makes a huge difference, as wealthy couple may be able to minimize
the amount of domestic labor in the household through things like eating out more where no
one has to buy food, cook, or clean. Or there may be more time-saving devices in the kitchen
that might minimize the amount of work one individual has to put into cooking. So this might
allow for more egalitarian relationships between partners and lessens the threats to gender
identity, but this egalitarianism is bought in the marketplace.
 So, Carrington’s analysis echoes a lot of DeVault’s interpretations. And while it might be a little
out-dated, DeVault’s argument regarding the links between larger gender relationships with the
process of food acquisition and production are very insightful and really emphasize the ways in
which social structures cultural models influence even the seemingly simplest things like
cooking.

Cuisines and Identity by Jonathan Maupin

 One of the most basic ways we attribute food with identity is the idea of “cuisines” which are
often attached on to nations. We all know what Mexican food is, or Chinese Food, Thai, Italian,
and American food, and I’m sure you could all give me examples of “typical” dishes that
represent these cuisines.
 These are very broad categories that we use to refer to a particular type of food.
 But what are cuisines? How do we define them? Are cuisines based on whatever country they
are from? We may, and often do define them in this way, but this hides a lot of variation within
cuisines. And what if people in other countries produce similar types of food?
 Do we base it on the types of food? If so, what are the criteria and how do we know when
something falls outside of this?
 The concept of cuisine, while very useful for making broad categories, has several problems with
the definition.
o One issue that that of temporality. When do “cuisines” start? Foodways change
constantly. Not only do individuals change their preferences over time, but even at
national or regional levels as people invent new techniques and combinations; as new
items become available or traditional items are no longer available.
o Many of the national cuisines we associate with particular foods are in fact quite recent
creations.
o For example, most of us would probably associate Italian food with tomatoes as the key
ingredient – things like spaghetti sauce, lasagna, chicken parmesan, and pizza all are
heavily based in tomato sauce right now.
o But what was “Italian cuisine” before the introduction of the tomato? The tomato is a
New World crop coming from the Americas and was not introduced to Italy until the
early 1500’s, and was not really popular until the 17 and 1800’s, when it became a
staple in Italian dishes.
o The same goes for green and red peppers and potatoes.
o But what was Italian food before? And when did it change from Roman food to Italian?
Roman food was based on a lot of herbs (such as rue) that are absent from modern
Italian dishes and the Romans had no pasta. Pasta from durham wheat was introduced
by the Arabs after the fall of the Roman empire, in addition to rice and sugar.
o So, what we think of as Italian cuisine is fairly recent, as are many other national and
regional cuisines. And it is not always clear how to define when it starts or stops.
 The definition of cuisine is also complicated by its geographical distribution. Can we really speak
about national cuisines? Think about the US. We may all think about a general category of
American Food, which we probably associate with fast foods. But what about all the regional
cooking traditions? Such as Cajun cooking, Southern Food, or California’s health food varieties?
Are these all part of the same cuisine, or do we have many different types of cuisines?
o Italy is a good example of this. In the States, we probably all have a very general idea of
Italian food as consisting of lasagna, spaghetti, and other similar dishes. But most of
these come from Southern Italy. The northern Italian region has a very different cooking
tradition, using animal fats instead of oil and not mixing tomatoes and green peppers, as
well as different uses of pastas, sauces, and cheeses.
o Sardinia also has a unique regional food tradition, drawing much more on Arabic
traditions and spices than other Italian areas.
 o So there are at least 3 regional cuisines within Italy.
o So how do we have a common notion of what Italian food is? How do regional cuisines
emerge and persist within national cuisines, and how does one regional cuisine come to
be associated as the national cuisine, at least to foreigners?
 In part, this is explained through concepts of the World System.
 The World Systems model was developed largely by Emanuel Wallerstein who saw it as a way of
explaining the history of political and economic development and relationships between
different polities around the world over time. The main point of the World Systems theory is
that no polity, whether it’s a state or a small community, is completely isolated from everyone
else.
o Instead, all communities or polities are connected to each other through some types of
interactions, primarily political and economic, through things such as trade. These
relationships aren’t equal. Instead, some polities are able to rise and develop at the
expense of others. For Wallerstein, this meant that the structure of relationships
between polities was between what he called the “core” polities that dominate trade
and are more developed, and “perhipheral” polities that are underdeveloped and
provide much of the raw resources for the core.
o Mediating these relationships are polities in the “semi-periphery”, these are polities
which are exploited or at a disadvantage to the core polities, but are able to exploit or
take advantage of the peripheral polities in their trade with the core.
o Wallerstein’s model is very useful for understanding modern political and economic
relationships, particularly in global capitalism. And, very important in this, is the
recognition that world systems are very dynamic. Countries, polities, or regions, don’t
stay in their same place of power within the system over time. Instead, there are a lot
of changes as certain polities are able to improve their relative status, while others fall
behind. The “core” polities of today, such as the United States, were once peripheral or
semi-peripheral to other regions, such as England.
o Cuisines and foodways travel along the paths of World Systems very well, and show the
history of these relationships, particularly of power differences over time. For example,
regional cuisines of some areas may show the influence of many different ruling polities.
This is the case with Cajun cooking in the South – it reflects a great mix of French,
Spanish, Native American, Anglo-Saxon, and African cooking traditions, all of which had
political and economic influence in the region, while adding its own innovations into
creating a regional cuisine.
o Foodways from all polities in the World System also borrow heavily from the others as
cuisines and new items travel across national boundaries to new areas. Cuisines of both
the periphery and semi-periphery adopted foods from the core, in part from access to
new foods, but also as a status symbol of using foreign foods
o Similarly, core polities may adopt foods from the periphery as a sign of its reach, or as a
symbol of its power and influence.
o The emergence of “national” and regional cuisines thus may reflect histories of political
and economic relationships with other areas, both near and far.
 So, given the temporal and geographic issues, can we define a cuisine? Several scholars suggest
that we can using specific principles or guidelines. For example, Rozin and Rozin argue that
 cuisines may be defined by a set of signature spices, such as the mixture of soy sauce and other
soy ferments as the key criteria for defining “Chinese Food.” This model is referred to as the
‘flavor principle.’
o A problem with this definition is that spices may change very quickly. England for
example, shared a cuisine with France that utilized many spices. While France kept this
tradition, England lost all of its spices quickly and is now known for very bland food.
o But, even with this limitation, scholars have used this flavor principle to identify 7
macro-regional cuisines, including: Northern Europe; Mediterranean Europe; Latin
America (excluding Mexico and Brazil); Near East; South Asia; Southeast Asia; and China.
o There is obviously a lot of national and regional diversity in this, as well as a lot of areas
located at the boundaries between these macro-regions which draw from several
different traditions. But it may help to distinguish some very large regions with distinct
cuisines, which are largely shaped by political and economic histories and interactions.
 These larger macro-regions definitely play a significant role in the cuisines of different nations
and smaller regions. But how do national cuisines actually emerge? Do they exist before the
creation of the nation? And how do national cuisines either incorporate or ignore the various
regional cuisines that already exist in the area?
o The reader has a couple of interesting articles on this, and I encourage you guys to read
Arjun Appadurai’s article on the creation of an Indian national cuisine and the
importance of cookbooks and the middle class in this process. But I want to talk about
the article by Richard Wilk on Belize, because it is an interesting example of a country
that only recently gained national independence and had to go through a very self-
reflexive process of defining itself after centuries of colonialism.
o Belize was a British colony up until 1981, one of the last colonies in the Americas. When
England finally gave Belize its’ national independence, the country had to officially
define itself. Not only did it need to have its own government and public services, it also
had to come up with some national identity that included all members of society.
o This is difficult in Belize because it has a very diverse population including Maya, mestizo
or Spanish populations, British groups, and also Garifuna who are descendants of
African slaves brought to the area.
o For a nation that did not have a clear origin myth or national history that could
incorporate everyone, for instance there was no revolutionary war against the British
where everyone joined together to fight for a common cause -- it could be incredibly
difficult to define itself as a nation.
 Wilk notes that the colonial status of Belize and led to a strict social hierarchy of food,as British
colonists living in Belize for the logging exports ate food that was almost all imported from
England. This food cost a lot more and carried a lot more symbolic value than local foods. It
was seen as being better, tasting better, being healthier, and signifying a higher social class.
o Middle-class Belizeans tried to imitate this diet, attempting to purchase the expensive
imports to appear that they were closer to the upper class British, and also to separate
themselves from the poor. As a part of this, they rejected local foods including lobster,
seeing them as low value and symbolic of the countries backwardness and poverty.
They also borrowed a lot of foodways from other countries, such as Mexico and Spanish
 recipes in an attempt to improve their status by distancing themselves from the poor in
Belize and making some type of connections between themselves and foreigners.
o The lower classes, unable to afford imported food, were forced to rely on local
resources such as fish and game, including lobster.
o The case of lobster changed dramatically in the 1970’s, however, when the global
market for them surged and they became a very high priced commodity, which
increased their value enough to make everyone want to eat them.
o There is now an annual lobster fest in Belize which attracts hundreds of tourists each
year.
o So food became a marker of a very stratified colonial social structure.
 Movements towards independence forced people in Belize to start thinking about these taste
hierarchies. As Wilk notes, early political leaders who were given some autonomy by Britain in
the 1960’s used the colonialist food model as an attempt to call for independence, saying that
they must reject the foreign foods and put greater value on local foods and resources, on
something like a national cuisine.
o Important in this was defining Belize and Belizean cuisine in opposition to the “Other”,
those that are different in some way. That is the local is good because it is not imported
from the colonists.
o This got a lot of opposition, particularly from the middle class, who took it to mean that
everyone would have to eat the local food of the poor, and would be a rejection of
modernism.
 The breaking point for the national cuisine didn’t come until after independence, when Queen
Elizabeth visited in 1985. It’s customary for countries to serve local cuisines to the Queen when
she visits as a sign of national pride and respect.
o Belize, lacking a real national cuisine at the time, served the Queen gibnut, a rodent
which is a specialty in Belize. The Queen attempted to eat the rodent out of politeness
and praised the chef, although the British papers picked up the story about how Belize
had served the Queen a rat and how offensive this was.
o Belizeans took this as an insult – it wasn’t a rat and it wasn’t an attempt to embarrass or
insult the Queen. Instead the gibnut was a source of national pride. Instead, they took
it as more British arrogance. This fact became a rallying point for Belizeans from all
social classes, and the Royal Rat became a source of national pride, served in
restaurants all over, and helped the movement to valorize traditional Belizean meals
rather than privileging foreign imports.
o Wilk argues that this has helped to spawn a national cuisine in Belize, where the old
taste hierarchies are broken down and identity is being defined more in terms of Belize
as a country in opposition to foreigners, including foreign foods. It may not matter that
many of Belizean dishes did not originate in Belize. The fact that they are appropriated
by Belizeans and defined as being original because they are opposed to other groups
particularly in the increasingly transnational context, helps to provide an identity
through a national cuisine that incorporates everyone and allows for a lot of flexibility
and performance in constructing what Belizean cuisine is.
o So even though we use something like the flavor principle to define cuisines like the
Anderson text suggests, we must also see cuisines as dynamic and changing, and that
 they may emerge in response to larger social, cultural, and political processes where
they are directly tied to ideas of identity.

Maupin, J. Food and Micro Level Identities

 This is Jonathan Maupin again. I’m originally from Idaho, and when I say that most people
immediately say – or at least think – potatoes. And, stereotypically, my brother is a potato
farmer. While people in Arizona may be familiar with Idaho, and know that potatoes are not the
only thing in the state since it is fairly close, when I lived on the East Coast this was often the
only thing that people knew about Idaho and they made an immediate association of me with
the food. The idea of place and food was something that influenced peoples’ perceptions of me
or ideas about my identity, whether it was correct or not.
 As we’ve mentioned several times, food is a means of communication. We express many
different things about ourselves through everything we do with food, from our social class,
gender, ethnicity, language, and social relationships.
 A very popular quote within nutritional anthropology is “you are what you eat and you eat what
you are.”
o This is a perfect example of the biocultural perspective of nutritional anthropology. The
food we eat is heavily influenced by evolutionary history and it obviously affects our
physical state, influencing the way we are. But, we also eat what we are. Food is a way
to express our identities. The act of eating says a lot about us, and even things that we
think are individuals preferences may be conscious or subconscious markers of our own
identities that we attempt to construct and present.
o For example, there are some very overt ways in which we mark our identities through
food. Things like Italian, Greek, and German food festivals are very popular ways in
which people can feel connected to and express their ethnic identity through the act of
eating. Or the fact that I proudly buy Idaho potatoes in the store. Even little acts like
these are expressions of individual identity.
 I’ll give another example from Guatemala with corn to help demonstrate this. As I’ve mentioned
before, corn is very significant among the Maya. It’s the material that their ancestors were
made out of and it is the basic staple crop in the region and comprises the majority of their diet.
o Corn is almost always present, particularly among rural populations. In most areas
outside of urban areas, it is very important to have your own milpa, a small plot of land
where you can grow your own corn for consumption, and perhaps for sale in the
market.
o Corn is served with every meal in various forms, most commonly in tortillas which
people can eat an enormous amount. I can maybe put down 4 or so tortillas with a
meal, but Guatemalans eat maybe 8 to 12 in a single meal, and every meal has to have
tortillas. Everyone would tell me that you cannot get full unless you have eaten your
tortillas and people will buy them and take them into restaurants if the restaurant
doesn’t serve them.
 o The ability to eat tortillas is very important, and it’s a way for people to try and relate to
you, or to try and figure you out. I heard many times when friends or family would
introduce me to new people, they would say “el come tortillas,” or he eats tortillas.
o This was an important attribute. it was something that made me more relatable; they
could identify with me because I ate like them at least somewhat; opposed to the ideas
that they have of Americans that we only eat white bread, donuts, and McDonalds.
o The ability to find tortillas is thus very important, but a potential difficulty for migrants
in the US. Guatemalans, at least those that I know, want tortillas with every meal, and
they do not feel satisfied or satiated until they have them. But it’s not that easy to find
corn tortillas in the US. Flour tortillas are easy enough, but they definitely don’t have
the same taste or texture.
o So, many migrants rely on MASECA, a dehydrated powder of corn mix that allows
people to easily make corn tortillas in their own homes without having to grind the corn
themselves. I say easily, but I’ve tried to make tortillas with MASECA a couple of times
and have never had a good result. Everything came out looking like pancakes.
o There’s an interesting article in the reader on MASECA which argues that it represents a
process of globalization and delocalization which is potentially destroying local tortilla
producers in Mexico. But one positive side of it is that it allows migrants away from
their homes and communities to consume corn tortillas wherever they are, which is
hugely important not only for a sense of nutrition and diet, but also for their own
identity. It is a way that they define themselves, particularly when they are migrants in
a different country.
o This is the idea of “gastric-ethnicity,” that people continue to identify themselves
through their diet, and it can be an important way that people continue to express their
identity and to reject the processes of acculturation, or adopting new cultural values
and beliefs which often occurs among migrants over time.
o But, while migrants may adopt languages and other behaviors and beliefs, they often
maintain foodways. They are a way to keep expressing their own identities in spite of
pressures to acculturate in multiethnic contexts
 Food is not only a way that we define ourselves. It’s also a way that other people define us. We
all make some assumptions about other people based on our concepts of food. Food may be
the only way that we have an opportunity to experience the “other”, that is to get an idea of
what other cultures are like.
o And this can lead us to be very interested in trying new ethnic foods, as a means of
experiencing different cultures through their food. Ethnic restaurants in the US are
incredibly popular and there is a very wide variety of food available claiming to be from
many different parts of the world – often in the same strip mall as shown by this sign.
o But why do we crave to eat at ethnic restaurants – whether its Thai, Indian, Chinese,
Mexican, Brazilian, or any other type of restaurant that varies from our own definition
of ‘regular’ food? Some argue that we are interested in these restaurants not just to try
what may seem to be exotic food, but that the ability to eat there is a way to try and
experience, and consume, a different culture.
o This is not something unique to the West. For example, a lot of people have written
about the expansion of McDonald’s in China and other Eastern countries, and suggest
 that one of the main reasons people cite for eating there is the opportunity to “taste”
“American-ness.”
o More than just getting a taste of other cultures through food, food can also become a
means for stereotyping and discriminating against specific groups. We in fact have
several slurs for different groups related to food, such as Mexicans with beans; the
French with frogs; Germans with sauerkraut, and African-Americans with fried chicken
and watermelon. Or the association of donuts and policemen as a means of challenging
their authority.
o Food can thus take on a lot more meaning and be a means to discriminate against other
groups based on associations between identity and diet
 An interesting example and analysis of this is Williams-Forson’s article on Chris Rock’s sketch
“The Big Piece of Chicken” from his Bigger and Blacker comedy tour.
o If you haven’t done so already, please purchase the Big Piece of Chicken audio track
available at itunes or Amazon.com to be able to hear the full sketch. It’s much better
than reading about it or hearing me talk about it.
o The main point of Williams-Forson’s article is to question the origin of the association
between African-Americans and fried chicken, and then to analyze how this stereotype
is played out, particularly by how African-American performers are challenging these
stereotypes.
o He argues that to understand the emergence and meaning of stereotypes such as those
surrounding food, you must look at how class, race, ethnicity, gender, and power all
intersect and construct different relationships and identities.
o In this, he argues that the stereotypes of African-Americans and fried chicken emerged
in the South during slavery as a way for whites to control the economic gains of African
slaves. African slaves were often permitted to own chickens and keep them on the
plantations, although they were free range, along with the plantation owners, and it was
not often clear whose was whose.
o African slaves could also sell their chickens in the market to other African slaves, as well
as to white populations. And it’s here that Williams-Forson argues that white people
felt the most threatened – because their position of control was directly being
challenged by Africans in the market. It is in this context that the stereotypes of chicken
and African-Americans emerges as a means of discrimination, which was picked up by
the popular media and promoted throughout the US.
o But if this is a negative stereotype, why does Chris Rock use it in his sketch? The idea of
“performance of race” is important here – the way in which individuals draw upon ideas
of race and behavior and can play with these concepts in ways that may both reinforce
or challenge dominant stereotypes and concepts.
o In this case, Chris Rock uses the stereotype of fried chicken to offer commentary on
African-Americans in the US, with issues of gender roles and wider ethnic relations, such
as showing the differences in expectations and valorization of gender roles – with the
husband expecting the big piece of chicken for working outside the home where,
according to Williams-Forson he may not get respect, whereas the mother does not get
credit for her inventiveness in sewing up the chicken after the kids have eaten the big
piece, hiding her value and ingenuity.
 o By playing with these racial stereotypes, and performing race, Chris Rock effectively
challenges these ideas and provides some incredibly thoughtful analysis of social and
ethnic relations.
 Finally, the last part I’ll mention about food and identity is the role of tradition. Foodways are
central in family traditions and a way in which we pass on family histories, values, and a sense of
belonging. Holiday meals are the best way to think about this – what do you and your family do
for the Holidays, any Holiday? What do you eat? We all usually have a pretty set menu,
especially for things like Thanksgiving. And we usually all have some type of family recipe for
specific meals, things that have been passed down from generation to generation. This
continuity is important and says something. It’s a way for us to maintain a history in our families
even when other reminders are gone. We have recipes, sometimes oral and sometimes written,
that connect us to other family members over time.
o The act of cooking and eating also helps to cement these bonds and identities. For
example, as people learn how to prepare the recipes, there are often stories of where
they came from, who came up with them, what they did, and parts of their life histories.
Food creates the context for a lot of interaction and learning family history.
o And, though meals often have some type of recipe handed down, this doesn’t mean that
they are static or unchanging. Foodways always change, even when they are written
down. People experiment, change the recipes slightly, add their own spices or
additions, and these become incorporated into the recipe and get passed down with
new parts from new people, which helps to pass on their own memories and identities
to future generations.
o The two videos linked here give a short discussion about the Italian Feast of the Seven
Fishes eaten on Christmas Eve. They give nice examples and contrasts of how
traditional meals serve to remind us of our relatives and histories through their
repetition, as well as how these traditional recipes are changed over time as individuals
modify them, adding parts of their own identities.

Invention of Thanksgiving by Janet Sickind

 Thanksgiving is highly structured and emotion laden.

 Thanksgiving far more subtly expresses and reaffirms values and assumptions about cultural and
social unity about identity and history
 Thanksgiving is secular celebration for most it is also religious (only in an anthropological sense
referring to the supernatural) as a pray is said before the meal
 Reaffirms the national history of immigrants
 Turkey is consumed because it was native to America and it is a symbol of bounteous richness of
the wilderness
 Stuffed turkey represents the natives sacrificed and consumed to bring civilization to the new
world (Robertson)
 Thanksgiving was originally a harvest festival descendent from Harvest Home used to maintain
alliance with Wampanoag Indians but also resembles the Algonkians fest related to the yearly
cycle of corn where dancing, hunting and playing games was done
  There are no direct continuity between the feast at Plymouth in 1621 and our November
thanksgiving fest there are rhetorical and ideological continuities to puritan beliefs of their
destiny and mission
 New England settlers sought help from the Native Americans then took their land and fields but
regarded them as heathen savages or devils.
 Puritans believed themselves as a chosen group of saints, England as Babylon and America as
the new Canaan (bercovitch)
 Rev. Love constructed a calendar which records every documented announcement of a fast or
thanksgiving in the New England and Middle Colonies from 1620 to 1815 by town, colony, state
or nation.
o First documented day of thanksgiving was announced in 1637 to celebrate the defeat of
the Pequot indians.
 From John Adam’s time until 1815 no days of thanksgiving where set. President James Madison
set a day of thanksgiving for 13 April 1815 to celebrate the peace with Britian
 Lincoln proclaimed several days of thanksgiving for Northern victories during the Civil War
period (pg 46)


William-Forson, P. (2008). More than just the "Big Piece of Chicken": The power of race, class, and food
in American consciousness. In C. Counihan & P. Van Esterik (Eds.) Food and culture: a reader, 2, 107-118,
Routledge.

 Black people have long been engaged in ideological warfare involving food, race and identity.
Most commonly around the stereotype of fried chicken and watermelon.
 Externally defined stereotypical images can be unconscious or conscious acts of resistance
 Kenneth Goings stated the white southerners began using emerging technology as one means of
reasserting control and reclaiming power over recently freed black people from the Civil War
o The camera was particularly useful here where white southerners could spread photos
of impoverished blacks and cultivated a visual communication ideology of black
inferiority

DeVault, M. (2008) Conflict and deference. In C. Counihan & P. Van Esterik (Eds.) Food and culture: a
reader, 2, 240-258, Routledge.

 In two-paycheck families, women continue to do more household work than men even when
such a pattern is not economically rational. Berk explains that the product of gender of a sense
that husband and wife are acting as adequate man and woman takes precedence over the most
economically efficient production of household commodities
 Expectations of men’s entitlement to service from women are powerful in most families that
these expectations often thwart attempts to construct truly equitable relationships and
sometimes lead to violence
 Charles and Kerr (1088) found that many women rationalized their sole responsibility for
cooking in terms of their husbands wage work.
Wilk, RR. (2008). Real Belizean food. In C. Counihan & P. Van Esterik (Eds.) Food and culture: a reader, 2,
308-325, Routledge.