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- Convenors:
-
Håkan Jönsson
(Lund University)
Maja Godina Golija (ZRC SAZU)
Ester Bardone (University of Tartu)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Food
- Sessions:
- Monday 21 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Food heritage is a field where cultural, political and economic actors interact, often with conflicting views on how edible pasts should be expressed, and who can legitimately express them. The panel invites papers on power, participation and transgression in relation to contested food heritages.
Long Abstract:
Food heritage is a field where cultural, political and economic actors interact, often with conflicting views on both how edible pasts should be expressed, and who can legitimately express them. As other forms of cultural heritage, food or culinary heritage is a mode of cultural production that reflects the past and projects into the future. We can see processes of heritagization in action when it comes to the branding of food products and destinations, often connected to gastronationalism, (i.e., images of the culinary excellence of a nation or region). However, there are also many examples of a denial or avoidance of certain historical foods and foodways as they may have become uncanny reminders of social injustice - violence, poverty, xenophobia, racism, ethnic conflicts, and so on.
This panel invites papers on power, participation and transgression in relation to contested food heritages. Papers may elaborate on topics such as:
• the selective use and remembering/forgetting of food traditions from the past (in terms of time period, ethnic or social group, etc);
• contested interpretations of similar foods (or dishes) as heritage in different sociocultural and political contexts;
• food heritage as an arena for political struggles and competition between and within nation-states or regions; contested ownership of food heritage as a cultural property;
• food heritage, gentrification and socio-economic inequalities (between producers as well as consumers);
• limits of food heritage and heritagization.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 21 June, 2021, -Joana Lucas (NOVA FCSH)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper we will discuss the rereading to which food practices and products are subjected in order to be able to be part of a patrimonial enhancement, having Chefchaouen (Morocco) as a case-study, and in the aftermath of the classification of the Mediterranean Diet by UNESCO (2010, 2013).
Paper long abstract:
After the inscription of the Mediterranean Diet as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, some of its representative communities sought to find correspondences between the idea of food heritage and the territory. Here, we will discuss the case of Chefchaouen (Morocco) where, over the past few years, we have witnessed an attempt to increase the significance of products and food practices, an exercise not exempt from re-readings and revaluations of both: products and practices.
In Chefchaouen, the heritage classification associated with the Mediterranean Diet had, in a first moment, an institutional and strategic character, with aspirations for greater visibility and diversification of tourist resources in a national context already saturated with touristic products. Thus, at first, it was necessary to invent food heritages that did not correspond to the exhausted ideas about Moroccan gastronomy, and to find local or regional conceptions of food practices and products that could be elements of heritage distinction.
This exercise, promptly gave way to another, that of recreating heritage, through the inclusion of products and food practices that were somewhat dissonant in terms of their reading in the context of local meanings: or because they were associated with food shortage and scarcity, or because they were associated with practices that contemplate some subversion in the context of the majority religion in the country.
It is precisely these questions, the rereading to which food practices and products are subjected in order to be able to be part of a patrimonial enhancement, we intend to discuss here.
Ester Bardone (University of Tartu) Anu Kannike (Estonian National Museum)
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on contested aspects of regional food heritage and regional inequalities, focusing on heritagisation of food in the Estonian Inventory of ICH. We will discuss this issue on both the state and local levels and in the context of contemporary interpretations of food heritage.
Paper long abstract:
The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) is a recent heritage regime established in 2003 in order to raise public awareness about the importance of intangible cultural phenomena. According to UNESCO, knowledge, skills, practices, rituals and festive events related to food production and consumption in a particular community are the intangible part of edible heritage. In our paper we focus on contested aspects of regional food heritage and regional inequalities at the nation-state level focusing on heritagisation of food in the Estonian Inventory of ICH.
Estonia joined the UNESCO ICH Convention in 2006 and established a national inventory of ICH in 2010. The principles behind the inventory encourage all communities and groups to contribute to the list with the inscriptions about their ICH. Currently ca 25 different food and drink-related phenomena have been described in the list but regions have been represented quite unequally. The concept of regional food itself is a contested term as it may be interpreted differently in diverse socio-political contexts. Heritagisation of regional food often creates competition and inequalities and is not happening just at the local level, but is shaped by international policies and global processes.
We will focus on the following issues:
- policies implemented by the state to facilitate the development of food regions and their heritage;
- diverse capacities of regional communities to deal with their food heritage
- challenges of modern urban lifestyle and consumption habits upon traditional regional foods; local food replacing traditional regional food.
Mariya Lesiv (Memorial University) Jillian Gould (Memorial University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on contested interpretations of the beet-based soup borscht in Ukrainian and Jewish contexts. It shows that beets cross borders, producing multiple meanings. Borscht has historically been an affordable dish, a symbol of ethnic belonging, and a political weapon.
Paper long abstract:
The beet-based soup borscht recently generated a significant amount of attention due to its appearance in international media, including Radio Free Europe (11 Oct 2020), The Times (13 Oct 2020), The Washington Post (21 Oct 2020), The New York Times (4 Nov 2020), and CBC (4 Nov 2020). The main driving force behind this interest is Ievgen Klopotenko, a Kyiv-based chef, television presenter and entrepreneur. In response to the Russian government’s recent claim of Russian origins for borscht, Klopotenko initiated a number of projects directed at proving that borscht is an originally Ukrainian dish. The endeavours include a plan to apply for UNESCO recognition for Ukrainian borscht. The dispute over borscht cannot be viewed apart from the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis.
The dispute raises the important question of food heritage ownership, considering Ukrainians and Russians are just two among many ethnic groups who view borscht as their own. It also has its own place in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, and through this Jewish prism borscht became known to the broader North American population.
Drawing on auto-ethnographic accounts, cookbooks, culinary shows, media reports, and historical and political discourses, this paper focuses on selected (contested) interpretations of borscht in Ukrainian and Jewish contexts. The complex historical trajectories of borscht show that beets cross borders, producing multiple personal, local, diasporic, and larger-scale meanings. Borscht has historically been an affordable dish, a symbol of ethnic identity and belonging, and, most recently, a political weapon.
Maja Godina Golija (ZRC SAZU)
Paper short abstract:
The Upper Savinja Valley stomach sausage is a traditional dried meat product with a rich history. In the past it was enjoyed only for the most significant celebrations. With the development of tourism, it has become part of the tourist industry and the commercialization of food heritage.
Paper long abstract:
The Upper Savinja Valley stomach sausage is dry meat product which is embedded in particular economic and ritual practices of inhabitants of the Savinja Alps. It is named after the casing — pig stomach, which is filled with meat stuffing. Crucial for the proper production of the stomach sausage is the rich knowledge of the people who produce it, which is transmitted from generation to generation. In the past, knowledge was shared from father to son, but today also to women who compete with the best male makers of stomach sausage.
Traditionally it was served only at weddings, baptism of a child, during Easter, or periods of particularly tasking farm labour. Today, Savinja Valley stomach sausage remains a staple of celebrations as well the catering offers of the area. It has become the most crucial food product in the region, so its way of making has changed a lot. Before 1980, it was made from the best home-grown ingredients: pork, stomachs, bacon and garlic. Today, due to the high demand and sale of this product in inns and tourist facilities, mainly imported ingredients are used, e.g. cheaper Dutch meat, Chinese garlic and artificial stomachs for stuffing. All this leads to disputes between stomach sausage manufacturers - those who care about preserving the original recipe and make certified stomachs sausage only from local ingredients and those who produce cheaper stuffed stomachs from lower quality imported ingredients. In its heritagization political and economic interests play an important role.
Siyun Wu (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
Tracing rice and bread - most essential food elements in China and Estonia - and the food heritagization process in two rural communities, this paper explores how the dissonant and ambiguous label of "the rural" as heritage is perceived, presented and negotiated comparatively in the two countries.
Paper long abstract:
Heritage is not only the cultural transmission of a thing but also a system of practices and skills as well as a symbolic estate (sets of ideas and values, rights and ownerships, persona and status). Despite their geographical distance, differences in size of territory, scale of population and trajectory of history, China and Estonia both have profound agricultural backgrounds in history and strong discourses on "catching up" with "the developed west" and booming development projects on building modernity after becoming independent nations. Along with the pursuit of progress and advancement, “the rural”, as a part of the (individual and national) past and identities, has become a site with ambiguous emotions and dissonant meanings. Tracing the heritagization process of white rice cake (Mi-gao) and dark rye bread (Leib) separately in two small places, Xin-ye - a national-listed historical-cultural village in eastern China and Kihnu - a World Heritage island at the southwest end of Estonia, I explore people’s understandings and usages of rural traditional food as well as different socio-cultural changes the two communities experience as heritage space. By comparing the two cases, I wish to show how the heritage of rural identities and rural life are being perceived, presented and negotiated similarly and differently in the midst of various social changes unique in or shared by the two countries. I would further give some reflections on the limits and challenges rural communities face when seeking a sustainable development with the ambiguous and dissonant label of “rural” in heritagization process.