Paper short abstract:

Women play a role shaping collective memory among the Jews of Argentina through traditional cuisine. The poster focuses on "Gefilte fish" (stuffed fish). The symbolic dish emphasizes gender roles through folk tales calling to preserve tradition while adapting it to present, thus breaking the rules.

Paper long abstract:

Women of the Jewish community in Argentina play a key role in shaping personal and collective memory while setting boundaries through traditional cuisine. The Poster focuses on a culinary tradition, the "Gefilte fish" dish (Stuffed fish), prepared for ritual meals and its symbolic meaning. Ethnographic fieldwork suggests that the traditional dish is associated with Jewish identity in Argentina and folk tales have been linked to it. The dialogue between preserving tradition, reshaping and adapting it to present times, thus breaking the rules, tells the story of the group in a unique way.

The Jewish community of Argentina has its roots within the great waves of immigration from Eastern Europe that took place from the end of the nineteenth century to mid twentieth century. The Eastern European Jewish cuisine, Jews brought with them, symbolizes what's Jewish in Argentina, for most of the community and for the non-Jewish majority. A close ethnographic look at culinary traditions of a minority group against culinary traditions of the hegemony, suggests that the minority domestic praxis, perceived as feminine holds a permanent dialogue with the national public praxis, perceived as masculine in this culture. In the interpretation of the cultural significance of floodways, paradoxes emerge through gender roles and folk tales, attesting to the complexity of the interrelationship between genders and between the community and the other. Thus, an examination of the dialogue that the community maintains with traditional Jewish cuisine, negotiating and reshaping it reveals aspects of power, participation and even transgression.

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