Paper short abstract:

The aim of my paper is to discuss how cooking became a significant element of family survival strategies during the crisis of the 1980s. As a gendered practice it served as a mean of women’s agency and at the same time as an element of public/private aspects of crisis discourses.

Paper long abstract:

Home-made food was an important element of home-making in communist Poland. Unlike in Soviet Union, GDR, Czechoslovakia and other countries of the bloc, canteens and lunchrooms did not gain popularity. And in spite of the official declarations of gender equality women were responsible for household, especially for cooking. Although there were some attempts to conceptualize women's unpaid work, home-making was mostly perceived as a private practice.

Deep crisis of the 1980s. brought changes in the notions of private, family life. Home-making and especially home-made food became a tool of visualising the crisis situation. Food shortages, insufficient meat supply, the danger of malnutrition and even starvation were the issues of constants concern for ruling party, opposition and medical experts. They included such topics into political discourse of crisis in such a way crossing the boundaries of private/public. Hence women's coping strategies, especially home-made food, gained political meaning. They served as a mean of women's (restricted) agency.

The analysis of gendered survival strategies and their notions in various discourses may be productive for understanding the process of changing policies towards women's and gender issues during 1980s.

My approach would rely on a critical analysis of expert discourses (economic and sociological ones), public discourses (present in the popular magazines, radio and tv), culinary texts and personal diaries (published and in manuscripts) of the time.

Paper short abstract:

The research has looked at the material dimension of family relations as it is embodied by the homemade food parcels received by middle-class youth in urban Romania, but also at how the family roles are negotiated and reshaped as a result of this practice.

Paper long abstract:

Food parcels containing homemade preserves and cooked food represent a newly rediscovered material connection forged between parents in the hometowns and young adult middle-class sons and daughters living and working in the city.

The research has looked at the material dimension of family relations as it is embodied by the homemade food parcels received by middle-class youth in urban Romania, but also at how the family roles are negotiated and reshaped as a result of this practice and how the class divide is being erased or reinforced inside this intergenerational exchange. Reciprocity relations are played out in particular ways inside this exchange, as is the reproduction and negotiation of taste and food values between the senders and the recipients (e.g. cosmopolitanism, sustainability, traceability, nutrition and health). The research has also sought to describe and analyse the material culture and the infrastructure supporting the build-up of a sense of diffuse households.

The findings are supported by interviews with recipients and senders of parcels, ethnographic material from the recipients' homes and places of transit (trains, buses and collecting stations) but also through visual documents provided by the recipients.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to explore the ways in which hand made tea in Georgia is in itself the product of broader social and economic crises. It also challenges the western idea of small-scale, locally grown, home made food as an empowering process reuniting consumers with producers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents ethnographic material obtained between 2015-2016 and shows a part of the ongoing research project. By this presentation I also want to contribute to the current body of research, which seeks to problematise food production and consumption in the former state socialist societies.

In Georgian context, need for changing modes of production from public, industrial to private, home-made is in itself a sign of broader social and economic crisis following decomposition of Soviet Union.

While researching tea production we can observe interesting process - product implemented as collective and factory-made, never meant to be "home-made", had to be translated into individual, small-scale production. Likewise, skills, experience and tools had to be adjusted to the new, post-crisis reality.

Hand-made recreational beverage enabled the creative way of providing family with tea and at the same time created a crafty way of subsidising family income. Until now, money earned from tea is usually used to cover for example education costs of children or grandchildren.

My paper has two main angles. First of all, I want to show the process of re-privatisation of knowledge and skills necessary to produce hand made tea, usually referred to as "artisanal".

Secondly, my paper explores the ways in which knowledge about tea production and "proper" taste of tea are being created and re-created. Embodied skills are being commodified and exoticised as they enter new, global market. I take a close look into the clash between global "professional" tea consumers and local producers discourses.

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to show the politicality of home-made food in a Polish homestead, where the production of pork meats upholds farmers identity connected with commensality and home. With exchange of pork products, these meanings travel to other cities and countries extending with it the idea of home.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to show the politicality of home-made food based on a case study of a homestead in Eastern Poland. There, the production of pork meats can be read as a way of upholding rural/farmers identity. This identity is based on the complementarity of gender roles within the rural home and homestead, where work is shared to produce the most valued consumption items in the community - pork meats. These are exchanged within the family and community carrying the notions of home and locality beyond the local village. Meat products become symbolic containers of meanings connected with commensality, local identity and home, meanings which travel to family members migrating to other Polish cities, and other countries. At the same time, this identity connected with home production and the resulting social ties are challenged by political decisions linked with the restrictions in international trade with Russia, EU safety regulations or the threat of AFS.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of the paper is to discuss food preparation as unquestioned, cross-class, daily practice, which in contemporary Poland has both traditional and modern grounds. Perceiving cooking as a “natural” consequence of having a family intertwines with performative home-making role assigned to it.

Paper long abstract:

Basing on ethnographic material collected in contemporary Poland among people running households (qualitative interviews) combined with data coming from internet resources (selected blogs and web forums) I will analyze "homemade food" not as a label, but as a practice of "preparing food at home". I will show that in postsocialist Poland home food preparation may be interpreted as "transparent" because unquestioned. Since traditional concept of feeding family intertwines with limited economic capabilities and late modern ideas of food safety, everyday cooking or consuming food prepared by family members is common experience, which seems to cross class affiliations. Even in the situation of food habits and knowledge transformation homemade cooking still remains not only an obvious idea, but also a part of daily routine. This is eating out that needs to be explained, justified or linked to special occasions. At the same time, ready-made meals or semi-finished products - although not highly valued - have potential for being included into home production of food, which means that borders between homemade and non-homemade may be blurred and negotiable. Therefore it seems that in the combination of words "home" and "made" emphasis is put on home - meaning family - rather than food preparation process. The sense of cooking is linked to feeding and commensality, while resignation of it may be linked to living alone thus running a household perceived as not traditional or not full-fledged yet.