Food, Gender and Cultural Hegemony - Kennesaw State University

Cualli 129
role of food and cuisine in the creation of creole identity and a
“national cuisine”. (Pilcher ix)
I. Food, Conquest and Culture
The relationship of cuisine and shared meals to social organization has been
noted by anthropologists as far back as Ernest Crawley (1869-1924). W. Robertson
Smith (1846-94) emphasized the community bonds created through the sharing of
food (discovered originally through analysis of the sacrificial meal). He argued that
"the act of eating and drinking together is the solemn and stated expression of the fact
that all those who share the meal are brethren, and that all the duties of friendship and
brotherhood are implicitly acknowledged in their common act" (Robertson Smith 247-
48). A. R. Radcliffe-Brown saw the "getting of food" as a social activity, and
underlined the social function of food in socialization and maintenance of the social
system. Taking this further Audrey Richards wrote about "the way a transaction in
food acted as an indicator of social relations. For example, "the preparation of
porridge…is the woman's most usual way of expressing the correct kinship sentiment
towards her different male relatives," (Richards 127; Goody 13).
Claude Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas looked at food and how it was
processed or cooked to discern meaning and a kind of language about social relations.
Levi-Strauss argued that the ritual role of fire in the transformation of food made it a
"human" endeavor. Douglas viewed the meal as a ritual act that includes elements of
all other rituals and constitutes a social language about identity and connection (Levi-
Strauss 1970; Douglas 1971).
“The autonomy of the cultural” is the core of a debate among anthropologists
about whether human cultures are formulated out of practical needs and environmental
availability or if they are created through “symbolic, meaningful or cultural reasons
which structure utility,” (Goody 32; Magagna 65). Carole Counihan recently defined
food as a “part of culture that is central, connected to many kinds of behavior, and
infinitely meaningful. Food is a prism that absorbs a host of assorted cultural
phenomena and unites them into one coherent domain while simultaneously speaking
through that domain about everything that is important,” (Counihan 1513). “An
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