FOR MOM AND THE APPLE PIE

FOR MOM AND THE APPLE PIE

Perianova, Irina

As an extremely important social interaction food is not about eating only but may be viewed as discourse, because in many ways, just as language, it is socially determined and pre-conditioned. Awareness of the conceptual significance of food as social practice is important for teaching and learning languages because the familiar or unfamiliar foodways and food patterns are an integral part of one’s socio-cultural identity. This is why food description and food-related practices are always included in course books on intercultural and cross-cultural communication and in culture studies curricula. (See, for example, Damen, 1987; Byram, 1989; Levine, 1992; Valdes, 1988) As eating is probably the most important political act, it is not surprising that for better or worse, social or ethnic identity may be imposed on certain foods or withdrawn from them by virtue of political, socio-cultural or simply rhetorical manipulation, because food symbolizes many aspects of everyday culture and is a vehicle for social relations.As a statement of national identity few things may match food in clarity. Even children are aware of the relevance of certain foods as a guide to collective identity. Pupils of a state school visited by Gordon Brown in November 2006 mentioned fish and chips and full English breakfast as traditional British food, a symbol of Britishness. Eateries serving pizzas and other Italian foods are often called a slice of Italy, not to mention numerous names with the word Taste (of Thailand, China, Asia, etc.).Consequently food and meals have always signified and symbolized national identities, politics and collective affiliations (served as personal statements of identity). Hamburgers and hot dogs have become for many an embodiment of America, sauerkraut and frankfurters conjure up the images of Bavaria or Berlin. By the same token, eating guinea pigs in the Central Equadorian Andes is a statement of the Indian identity, comments anthropologist Nicole Bourque. This is why, when Indians say that “some mestizos do not like eating guinea pig”, they are not referring merely to a like or dislike of the flavour and texture of guinea pig meat but rather the association of ethnic identity that accompanies the act of eating some, … prepared in the Indian way (Bourke, 2001: 95-96).

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2014

3449