At the beginning of October I started a Masters in the Anthropology of Food. I wanted to wait till I had done a few classes before telling you about it. I could say this was because I wanted to give you a taste of what the lectures are about, but actually it’s cause I didn’t really know what to expect.
When you tell people you are going to study the Anthropology of Food, you are either met with a blank stare or an encouraging smile, inevitably followed by the question:
“... and what exactly is that?”
Well, until a few weeks ago I didn’t really know the answer.
“You know what anthropology is?” I’d reply.
“Yep.”
“Well, it’s like that... but related to food.”
It was trickier if they didn’t know what anthropology was. Most people know that, put crudely, it is the study of human culture and society, but they tend to think this it is entirely historical:
“So, like what cavemen were eating back in the day?”
“Hmm... well, I suppose it could cover that, but current stuff as well like why we eat what we do, how cuisines developed... socio-cultural stuff... umm... there’s also a political and economic element, so, like, famine, and... ah... the global food economy.”
Basically I had very little idea.
It is all of these things, but my explanation is vague at best and it doesn’t even begin to cover the range of topics the anthropology of food encompasses. It is so broad that explaining it succinctly is pretty much impossible. The introduction on the course overview says this:
Food is a fundamental human necessity, essential to the sustenance of the human body. At the same time, food may be associated with pleasure, passion, even luxury. Food is also essential to the social body. Who eats what, who eats with whom, and whose appetites are satisfied and whose denied, are all profoundly social dynamics through which identities, relationships, and hierarchies are created and reproduced.
Does this help? I didn’t find it especially useful when I was trying to explain the course before I started, but with the benefit of a few weeks’ study it is all starting to fall into place.
Our first topic, ‘From hunting and gathering to agriculture? Modes of food provisioning’, looked at the origins and spread of agriculture. The articles we read looked at how cultures based on food production have become the norm, while other modes of subsistence, such as hunting and gathering, are socially constructed as backwards or inferior.
The most interesting article I read on this was by Hugh Brody, a chapter from his book The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-Gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World. In this chapter, Creation, he presents Genesis as “the myth of agriculture and pastoralism, the story that sets the character and consequences of farming and herding” (100). It is a radical idea, but his argument is convincing.
In my undergraduate degree, which was in human geography, we looked at the rural idyll as an idealistic concept that is embedded in our imagination and reinforced by art and literature. Brody’s Creation gave me a fresh perspective on this; it made me consider how these images might serve to reinforce and normalise agriculture as a way of life.
The next week we looked at the industrialisation of agriculture. Our lecturer asked us what words we associate with that. He made an interesting point that our list, which included terms like “environmental degradation”, “sustainability” and “dispossession”, looked quite different to the sort of list that might come up if the same question were asked of a class of economics students. However, the key point he made was that any term which leads to 20 or more associations is complex and cannot be taken at face value.
This complexity was evident in the readings we did, which all offered quite different theories on the historical roots of the industrialisation of agriculture. The most radical was in Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. In his chapter, Production, Mintz challenges classical, Eurocentric ideas about the roots of industrialisation, suggesting that it can be traced back to the slave plantations of the New World, particularly the division of labour on those plantations.
This week we looked at food safety, a topic I thought would bore me senseless. I hadn’t considered the extent to which politics would have a bearing on the subject. All of the articles I read highlighted how common misunderstandings about health risks are disseminated and perpetuated, a political issue that I find particularly interesting.
The most extreme and horrifying example of this was the case of mad cow disease detailed by Nicols Fox in his book Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire. Basically, the beef industry and governments around the world had known for years about the bovine form of the disease, but they held onto the notion that it was unlikely to affect humans, despite mounting scientific evidence to the contrary.
The cause of the disease in animals was already known – it was a result of giving cows commercially prepared feed containing meat and bone meal. Despite this, the practice continued and, what is worse, the animals that were known to be diseased were among those sent to the rendering plants to be turned into feed. This served to heighten the problem.
In March 1996, a report from a government advisory committee cited 10 cases of a variant of the disease in humans and suggested that the most likely explanation was consumption of or contact with infected beef. The next day the Health Minister, Stephen Dorrell, announced these findings to the UK parliament. Even if you didn’t live in the UK at the time, you will no doubt remember the consumer panic and media hysteria that ensued.
The effect was felt by the beef industry globally, but none so much as in the UK. Perhaps the most shocking thing is that the UK government later sought to discredit the evidence; “they rushed to defend British beef to the European Union, saying the reactions were excessive and driven by a hysterical press”. Fortunately, their protestations were ignored.
This article was all the more fascinating to me because it happened in my lifetime. Reading the article was as excruciating as it was engaging. I was shocked to discover that it might have been prevented. I felt frustrated and infuriated, a powerful emotional response. No wonder I was riveted.
In addition, the connections between this topic and the industrialisation of agriculture were interesting. It highlights some of the risks associated with mass production, centralised processing and global distribution. “Whatever horrors were in store for us” Fox writes, “we had clearly brought it on ourselves in the relentless search for cheaper and cheaper ways to produce more food”.
Bored yet? I’m not.
To supplement the core class, there is a lunchtime seminar where academics and industry professionals with an interest in food come and discuss their work. The first seminar was on Samburu Milk Culture and Practice in Kenya, which you can find out more about here. It was a great introduction to the sorts of things we might expect in the weeks to come. Oh, and in January my new favourite, Claudia Roden, will be giving a guest lecture on her life as a food writer.
One of the nicest things for me is being surrounded by other people who are as interested in food as I am. When you are like me, a simple comment about, say, bolognese, could launch you into an hour long debate about its origins, whether or not white or red wine should be used, veal or beef, mince or finely diced meat... but I have learned to restrain myself. It is hard to hold back sometimes, but I know that people don’t appreciate a smart arse so I tend to keep my thoughts to myself, or at least, to keep them brief. Now I don’t have to.
In the first seminar we all introduced ourselves. It was great to find out that, although we all share a common interest in food, we are doing the course for quite different reasons. There are a couple of others like me who are into the cooking and eating side of things, some food writers and a few chefs. Some of the others are more interested in sustainability, agriculture and organic farming and there are a couple of people with an interest in food aid and the link with development studies. One girl, Sofia, studied culinary art history and the only boy, Marcelo, just wrote a dissertation on the relationship between haute cuisine and art at the University of Gastronomy in Italy.
I’m really excited. It’s going to be hard work, but for the first time in my life I am studying something I actually care about. And I am surrounded by other people who do too. My food lecture flies by and I am often sorry it's ended. Nerdy I know, but a nice feeling.
OK, rant over.
