Understandings of Food as Culture

Author(s): JANE DUSSELIER

Source: Environmental History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (APRIL 2009), pp. 331-338
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Forest History Society and American
Society for Environmental History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40608476
Accessed: 19-10-2016 07:23 UTC

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 JANE DUSSELIER

FORUM

understandings of food
as culture

I CAME TO THE STUDY OF FOOD food via material culture studies. Influenced by
Sidney Mintz's scholarship on sugar, I began thinking about the gendering of candy in
America.1 My work was shaped by anthropologists who, dating back to the nineteenth
century, have been at the forefront of food studies. I read articles by Roland Barthes
and Claude Lvi-Strauss who advanced semiotic frameworks and argued that food is
a system of communication, a language with rules not unlike grammar.2 While the
weaknesses of semiotics and structuralism have been well debated, I was drawn to the
work of Barthes and Lvi-Strauss because they positioned food, which many thought
of as mundane and not worthy of scholarly attention, as an important field of study
comparable to linguistics and language. Always drawn to interdisciplinary work, I
found encouragement in their calls to cross academic boundaries and reach beyond
understandings of food as solely nutritional and physiological.
Mary Douglas pushed me further with her essay, "Deciphering a Meal."3 While a
committed disciple of semiotics, Douglas pays special attention to specificity or what
she refers to as "small scale social relations" rather than overreaching generalizations
which are embedded in structuralism. Here I found a remedy to thinking about food
solely as a structure that imposes order on everyday life and identifying universalisms
at the expense of difference. Douglas reveals that there are different systems for specific
contexts and in this way she creates space for a wide range of meanings encompassed

Jane Dusselier, "Understandings of Food as Culture," Environmental History 14 (April 2009):

331-338.

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332 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 14 (APRIL 2009)

by food. Even with an emphasis on structure we begin to see room for unp
flexibilities, and differences in how foodways are created to both refle
human experiences. Douglas's work helped me think through the specif
that shaped the gendered understandings of candy at the turn of the twen
Mintz's scholarship was even more important to me on matters of s
historicity. Focusing on change over time, Mintz reveals how knowledg
is inseparable from social, political, historical, economic, and cultural co
work argued that America's taste for candy was culturally constructed.
appetite for candy is sometimes seen as natural and universal among pe
some convincing to convert Americans living at the turn of the twentieth
committed candy eaters. Paying special attention to the gendered power i
commodity, I concentrated on how images of white middle-class women
seductive bonbon consumers aided in mediating tensions between c
Victorian values and hedonistic ideals associated with the Gilded Age. Once
had been converted into faithful, dedicated bonbon consumers, candy w
food that men desired. In the process of being legitimized for consump
candy acquired a new shape. By the second decade of the twentieth centu
dainty breast-shaped bonbons was giving way to manly candy bars.
When I teach my article, students are most drawn to how candy
challenged Victorian eating rituals which dictated that human appetites
in private. Class discussions often revolve around how turn of the centu
reflected a new dialogue surrounding sexual mores and broke with Vict
of women as passionless and sexually restrained. In their response paper
mention that they never thought about food being connected with wome
sexuality. And we usually have a good dialogue about intersectionality an
Many students are surprised that a mundane, everyday object reveals how
gender, race, class, and sexuality intersected and became materialized in e
Women in my classes often remark that they see similar constructions o
and masculinity in contemporary candy advertisements and in the types
eat today.
While candy was my introduction to food studies, my continuing commitment to
this field is explained by my interests in the histories and cultures of Asian America.
Doreen Fernandez has influenced my own work on Asian American foodways and
should be of special interest to readers of this journal because she employs the idea
of the environment in her scholarship. A specialist in foods of the Philippines, one of
Fernandez's major contributions is challenging the concept of authenticity arguing that
food is not preserved in some original form. As Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett astutely
observed, Fernandez is not concerned with what Filipino food is but how food becomes
Filipino.5 Here we can see what Fernandez refers to as indigenization, a process that
"brings in, adapts, then subsumes" outside culinary influences.6 Indigenization is
especially important for Fernandez since Filipino food reflects Chinese, South Asian,
American, Arab, Spanish, Mexican, and indigenous practices. But her work reaches
beyond the Philippines or Asian America. Thinking with the idea of indigenization
is a new path to studying food. From Fernandez's perspective cuisines are dynamic,
emergent, fluid, evolving, momentary, and improvised. Here we see how far food studies
has traveled from its anthropological beginnings of interpreting food as a structure
that imposes order.

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 FOOD'S PLACE IN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY I 333

Figure 1. Manzanar Community Garden.

Courtesy: National Archives and Records Administration. Photographer: Lange, Dorothea. Man

Fernandez does not let her critique of authenticity exc

indigenous food practices. Authenticity and indigenous
linked together but Fernandez grounds indigenous food pra
and place. Tied to ingredients and farming techniques found
rather than people creating food that remains unchanged o
practices are not always acts of cultural preservation but al
agency, and adaptability. As new ingredients, plants, and fa
available, indigenous cuisines are adapted to incorporate the
hurricanes, and tsunamis affect indigenous foodways be
altered by these weather events. By placing concerns about
center of her analysis, Fernandez uniquely advances the notio
as ever changing rather than static elements of culture.
Many of my Asian American Foodways students have not
authenticity as problematic but Fernandez's take on food clea
They begin to understand that by making and consuming fo
of culture. Some students tell me that after reading Fernand
they cook in their own kitchens and the food they consum
Express. Questions concerning authenticity are raised, such

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334 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 14 (APRIL 2009)

Chinese American food and what makes a "real" bowl of pho? This, I
Fernandez. She was a populist at heart entering the field as an educ
pedagogical gifts that Fernandez offers is the acknowledgment that s
likely elicit memories, thoughts, and discussions of issues and topic
associated with the culinary world. Hence, teachers of foodways mus
that discussions go astray occasionally.
Food as a lens into the "whole cultural package" best summar
culinary outlook.7 From her perspective, cuisines reveal and shape s
connect the past with present concerns and future possibilities. Payin
to the many differences encompassed by Filipino foodways, Fernan
food scholars to critically assess the notion of a national cuisine. St
supposedly unifying framework confined by constructed boundarie
masks transnational flows and ongoing processes of cultural change
Fernandez points us in the direction of relating food to memory and i
In this way she urges food scholars to join personal with collective ide
This thinking helped set the stage for the recent emergence of Asian
memoirs, an important new literary genre.
Asian American culinary memoirs are a flourishing new area of f
recent contributions include Shoba Narayan's Monsoon Diary, and Le
of Heaven.8 Li's memoir uniquely combines explorations of how food
and consumed all within the context of a single family. In 1958, Li's
her paternal grandmother came to live with her family in Riverdal
was the nucleus of Nai-nai's life with the freshest, preferably home g
and labor intensive preparation guiding her cooking philosophy. Foo
environment converge when Nai-nai happily discovers gow-gay, a lea
common in southern China growing in the median dividing the nort
lanes of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Many New Yorkers likely look o
weeds, but Nai-nai carefully negotiated city traffic to gather this v
to make soups. This narrative in Li's memoir illustrates that while t
provides us with an abundance of edibles, defining them as food is
and culturally contingent.
Gow-gay gathering is just one example of Nai-nai's passion for fo
inspires Li's interest in her identity as a Chinese American woman.
awareness includes powerful feminist strains that are reflected in the ti
Son of Heaven is a sobriquet for the Emperor of China but there is n
the Empress. Thus Daughter of Heaven suggests a feminist angle sinc
grandmother, and mother all resisted patriarchal practices of their
the title of her memoir to reveal and claim some of the power custo
men and she accomplishes this by using food as an accessible point
sophisticated yet comprehensible use of food to illuminate importa
processes of identity formation. Her work points to how the idea of
developed in the academy by separating the self from the cultural.
Disciplinary boundaries have developed psychological meanings of i
the individual while the humanities have focused on cultural and co
But in everyday lived experiences these two versions work together. I
is a continuous process of developing understandings about oneself an
those insights to larger groups of people. Li's ability to show how foo

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 FOOD'S PLACE IN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY I 335

Figure 2. Barrack Garden at Tanforan Assembly Center.

Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration. Photographer: Dorothea Lan

memory, collective histories, and identity formation are

meanings mutually constructed are strengths of this de
an important contribution to food studies. Li also clearl
about food speak to a whole range of hungers. As she
really about food. It's about hunger. Hunger for commu
continuity."9 Most food scholars would likely agree with
also encompass issues of hunger in its many forms, scar
Shoba Narayan's MonAoon Diary addresses issues of iden
and concerns of the environment. Train trips taken by Na
around food. At train stops, regional specialities were co
highlights of family vacations. There were over a dozen
enjoy at Renigunta in the plains of Andhra Pradesh. Nor
on thick yogurt in tiny terra cotta pots. A speciality of
pancake-like food fried in coconut oil as trains rolled into
famous for deep-fried potato pancakes spiced with ging
cumin served on buns with spicy chutneys. Narayan's na
and consuming regional specialties are endless and remind
identity builders.
People living in regions described by Narayan underst
environment that supports the growth of specific foods.
find cultural meanings and significance in their juicy ma
form collective identities and create activisms built around environmental concerns

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336 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 14 (APRIL 2009)

and food. But in a world increasingly defined by corporate farms and glo
lines we find activisms created by everyday people declining and c
food sustainability and security increasing, especially for poor people
Just as with Li's memoir, Narayan brings to mind issues of the environ
abundance, and hunger. In this way, these culinary memoirs and many
issues shared by environmental historians and Asian Americanists. Hop
concerns will encourage cross-disciplinary dialogues that will resul
control of both producing and consuming food. This is especially critica
a world struggling with the effects of global fuel crises.
So here I will do some cross disciplinary work briefly sharing some of
ideas emerging in Asian American foodways and among my Asian Amer
students. I hope there will be responses from scholars working in
history and other fields sharing like perspectives. I do this with the i
Laura Kang who suggests the development of something she refers to
interdisciplinarity, an "agnostic but nevertheless situated relatio
disciplines. Kang argues that the prefix "inter" is employed as a sp
implicitly reveals academic disputes over territory and the imbuin
with a seeming "fixity." In contrast to this territorial configuration, K
"inbetweenness" or "being in the midst of" disciplinary knowledge and
a productive approach.10 This is the direction I hope food studies pursue
sharing of ideas built on cross-disciplinary dialogues.
Connections between food and identity development, as discussed abo
to studying Asian American foodways. Debates about this notion occur o
with some practitioners in the field arguing that foodways offer a pa
preservation while others lean more toward the idea that food serves
purposes. Food as encompassing agency, power, and subjectivity is yet a
that Asian Americanists employ when studying food. These identity angl
relevant in the context of Asian American studies since food has historic
the first entry points for many non-Asians into Asian American culture
of Asian American foodways understand this as a process of food being
mainstream American palates, which is especially illuminated by tracin
Chinese food in America. These approaches to Asian American foodway
fruitful but remain undertheorized with much work yet to be complet
Issues of identity and food are movingly expressed by my students as
Korean American young woman adopted into a white family. She talked abo
how this food represents her dual identity of being Asian and American. A
food and a dish that appeals to American tastes, bulgogi symbolizes a mid
this student, a place she desires to reach for herself someday. As she expr
I hope to find the Korean barbeque-the middle ground-of my identity." A
explained how food sustained a relationship with her father. "It took me
the communication between me and my father occurring through food. ...
me how my day is or how school is; he asks me these things through foo
tells me, I know you are tired and stressed out from school or work; relax
a home-cooked meal." As these examples clearly illustrate, food is a po
for Asian American students struggling with identity issues. I find that
Asian American foodways courses are more easily able to connect themsel
histories and cultures by thinking with food.

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 FOOD'S PLACE IN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY I 337

Closely related to identity formation is food shame

American Foodways classes and discussed in Li's memo
when eating lunches of tree bark (dried beef) and ma
her classmates of their food fears in regards to guy-y
plums came in two forms, the first wrinkled, moist, l
and sour. The second variety was smooth, dry, salty, a
in silence all the while enduring stinging comments w
eating "animal turds." Other accounts of food shame
American children whose school lunches include kim
aged Vietnamese Americans for eating foods containin
accounts of these food memories are so common it's dif
especially for children and teenagers attempting to fit
Issues of place and space resonate in Asian American
attempt to understand how people undergoing vol
displacements create portable senses of place. Food is o
themselves and become rooted in unfamiliar and often
global flows of people and resources disturbs convent
places as defined by constructed boundaries of nation
spaces from which place can be at least partially recu
in my own work on food in Japanese American conce
camp landscapes with individual vegetable gardens
projects, imprisoned Japanese Americans not only addr
also reimagined and enacted portable senses of place. O
undertheorized and relationships between space and pla
This is especially true in context of global capitalism, w
range of displacements based on the need for cheap la
Asian Americanists and anthropologists alike are cu
as repositories of memory and where populace histor
continue to push us toward studying the many purpos
identifying culinary structures of order. In this way w
of change rather than systems that regulate huma
attention to research that addresses the following que
better serve the creation of more humane presents and
to join together, even if only fleetingly, to create change
also reachingbeyond provincial thinking and activisms
distant locales? Part of this project includes being bett
and employing food to build collective identities. Asian
ethnic studies, anthropologists, environmental histor
studies make up an ideal coalition to begin this work.
Kang style, will likely support our efforts. If we begin
and productive scholarship and activisms will result.
This roundtable has revealed productive differences i
and its relationship to the environment. For some the i
ecology and "nature," a loaded word for all of us. Here
concerns for the environment including implications
land and the harmful effects of pesticides. For others
landscape and place, in the most basic terms how the p

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338 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 14 (APRIL 2009)

the cultural meanings of food. A place-influenced interpretation of

leads us to wonder: How do people employ particular places and envir
understandings of food to create collective understandings of them
about food from this perspective is most firmly rooted in the discip
but has been taken up by anthropologists and other interdisciplinary
the everyday cultural meanings of food practices among diverse grou
is an oversimplification of our differences, but beginning an envir
dialogue about the assumptions that underlie our work may help us
avenues to more humane and environmentally centered food futures.

fane DuAAelier a oAAAtant profeAAor in the Department of Anthropo

UniverAity. She a the author of Artifacts of Loss (RutgerA, 2008).

NOTES
1. Sidney Mintz, "Time, Sugar, and Sweetness," Marxist PerApectiveA 2 (1979-1
and Sidney Mintz, SweetneAA and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern HiAtory (
Viking), 1985.
2. Roland Barthes, "Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption
conomieA,Aoci tA, civiliAationA (September/October 1961): 977-86; and Claude L
"The Culinary Triangle," PartiAan Review^ (1966): 586-95.
3. Mary Douglas, "Deciphering a Meal," in Implicit MeaningA: EAAayA in Anthropolo
Douglas (New York: Routledge, 1975), 249-75.
4. Jane Dusselier, "Bonbons, Lemon Drops, and Oh Henry! Bars: Candy, Consumer Cult
Construction of Gender, 1895-1920," in Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Repre
of Food, Gender and Race, ed. Sherrie Inness (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylv
2001), 13-49.
5. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Doreen G. Fernandez, "Culture Ingested: On the
Indigenization of Philippine Food," GaAtronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 3 (2003):
60.

6. Ibid., 61.
7. Doreen Fernandez, FruitA of the PhilippineA (Makati City, Philippines: Bookmark, 1997), iv.
8. The list is long but this is a partial accounting of Asian American culinary memoirs: Cecilia
Chang, The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey From Beijing to San FrancL&co (Berkeley:
Ten Speed Press, 2007); Linda Furiya, Bento Box in the Heartland: My JapaneAe Girlhood in
Whitebread America (Avalon Publishing Group, Inc., 2006); Nanabi Hirasaki with Naomi
Hirahara, A ToAtefor StrawberrieA: The Independent Journey ofNiAei Farmer Nanabi HiraAaki
(Los Angeles: Japanese American Nation Museum), 2003; Jennifer 8 Lee, The Fortune Cookie
ChronicleA: AdventureA in the World of ChineAe Food (New York: Twelve, 2008); Leslie Li,
Daughter of Heaven (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2006); David Mas Masumoto, Epitaph
for a Peach: Four SeoAonA on My Family Farm (New York: Harper Collins, 1995); David Mas
Masumoto, HarveAt Son: Planting RootA in American Soil (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1998); Shoba Narayan, MonAoon Diary: A Memoir with RecipeA (New York: Random House,
2004); Bich Minh Nguyen, Stealing BuddhaA Dinner: A Memoir (New York: Penquin, 2007);
Krishnendu Ray, A Migrant A Table: MealA and MemorieA in Bengali-American HouAeholdA
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004). Another compelling personal read on Asian
American foodways is contained in Patricia Klindienst, The Earth KnowA My Name: Food
Culture and SuAtainability in the GardenA of Ethnic America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).
9. Email exchange between Li and myself on June 8, 2006.
10. Laura Hyun Yi Kang, CompoAitional SubjectA: Enfiguring AAian/American Women (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2002).
11. Jane Dusselier, "Does Food Make Place? Food Protests in Japanese American Concentration
Camps," Food and FoodwayA 10 (July-September, 2003): 137-65.

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