Paper Short Abstract:

Activities in kitchens from Mexico and Spain do not suggest a plain opposition between the written and the non-written, but rather its articulation. A multiplicity of ways of inscription, description, and prescription punctuates the flow of activities where they coexist, merge, and/or collide.

Paper Abstract:

What role does writing play in kitchen life? How do various forms of inscription coexist, blend, or conflict with non-writing activities and practices? We explore this question through a comparative lens, focusing on kitchens in Mexico and Spain. The everyday acts of cooking, chatting, and eating—alongside other intimate activities happening in kitchens—reveal a rich interplay between inscription, description, and prescription. This triad punctuates the interaction rhythm, shaping how people connect, create, and share in these domestic spaces.

Our comparison draws on self-ethnographies of kitchen life conducted by students in the two countries, representing diverse ages and backgrounds. The “A Cultural World in My Kitchen” exercise invited participants to document, photograph, describe, and analyze the activities and interactions in their kitchens. The resulting corpus comprises hundreds of texts, and photographs filled with vivid accounts of habits, actors, spaces, and dispositions. This collection forms part of the larger In Kitchens project—a multi-sited ethnography spanning six cities, led by twelve researchers.

The task of description requires the student, dweller, and author to adopt an intensely self-reflective attitude. It quickly becomes evident that analyzing one’s kitchen intertwines with personal biography, tastes, relationships, and individual context. Discussions of cooking, eating, and nourishment are never neutral, detached, or dispassionate. On the one hand, this exercise highlights the profound and often unspoken influence of these non-written activities. On the other, it reveals their inextricable connection to a nuanced repertoire of ancient and modern forms of inscription—textual, analog, and digital—such as the clock, the recipe, and the planner.