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Paper short abstract

In this paper I would like to present how the nahuas of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico, identify their values and emotions through the taste of food and which moral and social rules they follow in order to accept to incorporate new food.

Paper long abstract

Eating food means to incorporate its properties into the body, "building ourselves through food", as Fishler said. To do this, it is necessary to identify the food we eat, know what we eat, its origins and, above all, its taste, that is what makes the food we are going to be fed with, accepted.
Based on the material collected in my fieldwork among the Nahuas of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico, I would like to show how their "principle of flavor" (Rozin and Rozin), chili, is present in their traditional diet and in modern food and how they can manipulate what they consider dangerous and bad tastes domesticating them intentionally through cooking in order to convert them into food good to eat. 
When introducing food into the body, we also embody the culinary system of the group to which we belong that apply a dietary rules that exclude or include food that need to be adapted to formal, social and moral requirements.
If the "eater" stands against the incorporation of a particular food, he is going through a manifestation of disgust that activates a cognitive operation that consists in verifying if the potential food meets the cultural categories and the culinary rules of reference. In this paper I would like to present how two nahua women experiment this phenomenon directly related to personal experiences and feelings of the idea of eating new food.