Discussion Leader: Aya
Readings
Anny Gaul and M. Lynx Qualey, "Kitchen Talk," Bulaq Podcast, June 5, 2020.
Sami Zubeida, "A Culinary History of "National" Cuisine: Egypt and the Middle East," Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt: Cairo Papers V. 27 Nos. 1 And 2 (Cairo: AUC Press, 2006): 143-155.
Anne Menely, "The olive and imaginaries of the Mediterranean," History and Anthropology 31: 1 (2020): 66-83.
Rachel Laudan, "The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connection," Aramcoworld 55:3 (2004), https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200403/the.mexican.kitchen.s.islamic.connection.htm.
Ronald Ranta, "Food and Nationalism: From Foie Gras to Hummus," World Policy, September 8, 2015, http://worldpolicy.org/2015/09/08/food-nationalism-from-foie-gras-to-hummus/.
Optional
Anny Gaul, “‘Kitchen Histories’ and the Taste of Mobility in Morocco,” Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies 6, no. 2 (2019).
Browse this wonderful online bibliography of Food Studies of the Middle East/North Africa!
In-Class
Primary Source Exercise:
Breakout Group 1: Hadley, Aya
Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1972)
[Excerpts]: Introduction (1-30), "Melokhia" (111-114), "Puddings, Cakes, and Sweets" (372-375)
Joudie Kalla, Baladi: Palestine - A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea (2018)
[Excerpts]: Introduction (pages not numbered)
Breakout Group 2: Saif, Diva, Mostafa
Yottam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Jerusalem: A Cookbook (2012)
[Excerpts]: "Introduction," "Jerusalem Food," "The Passion in the Air" (pages not numbered)
Paula Wolfert, Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco (1973)
[Excerpts]: "Preface," "The Prerequisites for a Great Cuisine," and "The Philosophy of Abundance"
In this week's readings I’ve discerned a common pattern amongst all the readings. I’ve perceived that many states have interconnected through food. The world’s most popular foods have traveled all over the world creating linkage between one another. Although, some states have unified and integrated through similar food; some states haven’t; and as result tensions have occurred.
ReplyDeleteIn Rachel Laudans text “The Mexican Kitchens, Islamic Connection” readers have understood that the high cuisine of Medieval Islam has influenced Mexican cuisine. We percieve that Mexico has adapted and extracted Middle Eastern and South Asian cuisines and cultures. For example, Mexico has constructed a dish called molay, a dish that is quite similar to Indian curry. Additionally, Mexicans have modified Middle Eastern cultures and traditions. As in many Middle Eastern cuisines they open their fast with soup. Similarly, Mexican cuisines have grasped upon this tradition and open their fast with a watery soup.
On the other hand, in Ronald Rantas text we discern that food can cause tensions amongst some states and that gastronationalism and culinary nationalism plays a major role in politics and economy. This is seen in the discussion of Palestine and Israel. Through Rantas text and Anne Meneleys text we learn that Israel has imitated many of the Palestinian/Middle Eastern food. The imitation of food and false claiming has only increased tensions between both groups. “One of Israel’s most recognized postcards, sent by many tourists every year, depicts a pita bread and falafel, topped with an Israeli flag & the caption – ’Falafel: Israel’s national snack’… The Lebanese can claim whatever they want, but the hummus is ours, Israel’s. We, in any case, prepare it better” (Ranta 1 & 7). Marketing Arab food as Israeli has only triggered the conflicts between such groups. However, this is defined as cultural appropriation. For many people food can be both personal, and political.
It’s well known that many foods popular in certain countries didn’t actually originate there but were in fact carried over by travelers or traders at some point. For example, in Sami Zubaidas text we learn that Egypt has adapted to modern times and has many American franchises such as McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut implemented in Egypt. However, Zubaida notes that only certain people can afford those foods and those are members of the elite. It’s crucial to note how classes affect what a person can afford to eat and what not. For example, both of my parents are Egyptian. My father's family is considered to be from the Upper-Class Egyptians who can afford burgers, meat, pizza, and etc. My mother's family is part of the lower class where they don’t eat burgers, pizza, and meat on a normal basis. As Zubaida notes classes within Egypt eat specific food and that’s true. He states that the village people eat countryside cuisine such as ferik, rabbit, and a number of other foods. Hence, this is what my mother's family can afford, it’s interesting to understand how class can affect your intake and your identity. Hence, food can be a sensitive topic to discuss because it discloses a lot about a person’s identity and at times their beliefs.
Keywords:
Gastronomic geography- “It focuses on patterns of food production and consumption on the local to global scale. Tracing these complex patterns helps geographers understand the unequal relationships between developed and developing countries in relation to the innovation, production, transportation, retail and consumption of food” (Wikipedia).
Gastronationalism & Culinary Nationalism- “Although many such measures have been advanced as supporting the agricultural sector and rural communities against unfair competition, and are based on economic and environmental factors, they can be seen as part of a growing trend of attaching national rights to food” (“Food & Nationalism: From Foie Gras to Hummus” pg.2).
good to note the key arguments of each text as you do, and also to point out that food can become a point of connection or tension when conflicting claims are made to its origins and identity.
DeleteOne theme that caught my attention throughout the readings was the relationship between culture, geography and class in determining a region's cuisine. "A Culinary History of "National"Cuisine: Egypt and the Middle East" was a really interesting look into how Egypt and the Middle East's cuisines came to be. The paper gives us several examples of how culture, geography and class have shaped what food looks like for different Egyptians. I have always assumed olive oil to be historically prevalent in all cultures across the Middle East. Used for cooking and flavoring in all foods across the region, a staple of "Mediterranean food" I assumed it was favored by these countries due to the olive tree's abundance in the region. However, the paper's exploration of how over the course of the Ottoman Empire, animal fat and butter were favored over olive oil, showed me that this may not have been the case. Instead of olive oil being something that all Mediterranean countries naturally adopted, this paper showed me that it was more prevalent in North Mediterranean culture such as in Greek or Albania. While olives and grape trees were just as present in the southern and east Mediterranean, they weren't adopted until much later when introduced by Migrants from Europe. This was an interesting look into how culture also plays a role in preference, a factor I always perceived as being the least important.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as how olive oil was introduced to the Arab nations through migration and travel, I revisited my understanding of which factors were most impactful in the determination of a culture's cuisine. "The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connection" made it clear that immigration, mobility and interactions between cultures are what primarily shaped cultural cuisines. The paper explores how Mole came from Persian meat stews which were enjoyed across the Islamic Caliphate, to reaching Al-Andalus at the height of the Caliphate's power to being emulated by European culture, to then being introduced to Puebla by the Spanish. This exchange across cultures over centuries is to me what I vew as the most powerful factor. While local geography, ingredients and culture greatly shape the ingredients, a culture's dish is greatly impacted by who said culture interacts with, who they trade with, who they took over and who took them over. I realized that a culture's national cuisine is more rooted in ingredients. Kushari is just Kitchari but with pasta, tomato sauce and chickpeas, Mole is just Mesopotamian or Indian Curry but with local Mexican ingredients. Ingredients are often local, geographic and cultural, but the idea itself, the dish that these ingredients come to, this element is dependent on inter cultural interactions.
I personally cannot stand Falafel, but I love nothing more than a 'Ta3meya' sandwich. The yellow beans and herbs used for Falafel seem inferior to me when compared to the green inside of the Egyptian version of the dish. This to me is a perfect example of the fact that, the idea may isn't what makes it Egyptian, it's the ingredients which are subject to Egyptian cultural preferences and geography/environment. The idea to fry balls of plant matter is one that is shared across the region, but each culture makes this idea its own through their own spin often subject to what ingredients are locally available to them and what flavors are preferred.
Keywords:
Mediterranean Diet: "The Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil and vegetables is far healthier than traditional north European diets"(The olive and imaginaries of the Mediterranean)
This is how the text defines the generalized view of the Mediterranean diet.
Gastronationalism: This is a term used to describe the tendency to label an ingredient or food with a national identity, often incorporating a region or mention of a country's name.
- Mostafa
Deletei like how your response charts your personal journey into reassessing the cultural aspects of cuisine-making on both national and transnational levels. onto food we project a myriad of understandings of what "our" culture is. tracing the lineage and histories of different culinary products often completely change our understanding of who "we" are and what we prefer in terms of food.
DeleteThis week's readings and podcast all revolved around Middle Eastern cuisine; I found that each of the pieces brought interesting and innovative perspectives to the topic, especially through emphasizing personal and historical anecdotes.
ReplyDeleteIn the podcast by Anny Gaul and M. Lynx Qualey titled “Kitchen Talk”, there were many things that I found thought provoking. First of all, I was intrigued by the speaker, Anny’s, view of recipes. She brings up how it is important to understand that there is tradition and unspoken ritual passed down through generations that is not present in recipes because it's almost taken as a given for certain cultures. Due to this, we need to be conscious of the aspects of recipes that might be missing, as well as aware of the fact that all of these dishes probably tasted different in the 13th and 14th centuries because of different unspoken techniques that can’t be found on paper. I also enjoyed her connections to people wanting to be “exotic”, and therefore eating foreign foods. Anny exclaims: “[people are] wanting to use hummus for its exorcist potential without thinking of the cultural side”. I think that this is a great point because it is lost on so many people that food is inherently political, as we see in the Ronald Ranta reading, “Food and Nationalism: From Foie Gras to Hummus”.
In this piece, Ranta gives us an idea of the politics of food. Through explaining conflicts such as the Hummus Wars, Pita Riots and the Tortilla Riots, it is clear that there is something deeper that is a part of the consuming and making of food. To quote Ranta when talking about hummus in particular, “the debate over [hummus’] ownership is part of a wider dispute over borders, refugees, appropriation, and occupation”. I also learned a lot in this reading about the ways in which countries can successfully acquire litigation over foods, like Greece did with feta cheese. This is something that I want to learn more about, and to discuss the pros and cons of. This concept connects to the“The Mexican Kitchen’s Islamic Connection” reading by Rachel Laduan, which highlights the overlap between Mexican and Islamic cuisine. As a result of reading this piece, I have come to understand that Mexican cuisine came from Spain, which came directly from Islamic cultures, proving that Muslim kitchens were the starting place for the majority of these dishes, especially mole, which the piece discusses in detail.
“The olive and imaginaries of the Mediterranean” by Anne Menely brought up some interesting points about the “social” vs “scientific” studies of diets. In the conclusion, it also brought up some interesting points about the way that cuisine is creating false allies; people of different cultures feel that by eating foreign foods they are being an ally, when in reality, if they are not truly understanding the cultural and sociological aspects of the food they are not an ally at all. In relation to this “social” study of the Middle Eastern diet, I want to bring up a quote from “A Culinary History of ‘National’ Cuisine” by Sami Zabauia. On page 153, the piece states that “the Middle Eastern cities that feature public drinking of alcohol in which a restaurant developed”. I am intrigued by this study of restaurants, and especially how places like London have more Indian restaurants than India (due to Hindu restrictions, says the piece). I also want to learn more about the role of alcohol, as it seems to definitely be an important part of the spreading of food cultures. How important is the social role of restaurants? Is this what has led to such a wide spread of food cultures?
Gastronationalism or Culinary Nationalism – the growing trend of attaching national rights to food
DeleteThe Hummus Wars – Sabra (U.S. hummus brand) vs Strauss (Israeli hummus brand) fought to create the world's largest hummus plate, designed to increase the sales of its salads and dips in the U.S. Then a group of Lebanese chefs ended up breaking the records, to promote the idea that hummus is Lebaense, not Israeli. Today, Sabra controls over half of the U.S. hummus market, and is considered the largest hummus producer in the world– which, again, proves the problematic pattern of Westernization of products around the world.
excellent synthesis - i like how you highlight the different scales in the readings such as recipe-making on an individual and generational level and national cuisine-making on a national (governmental) and international level.
DeleteThe readings for class this week reveal that food is inherently political. From the exchange and globalization of olive oil to the lineage of koshari and world record battles over hummus, gastronationalism is a huge source of pride but also an area that incites conflict. Food, specifically national cuisine, did not emerge out of thin air. As is the case with most things, foreign influence and cultural exchange have shaped traditions, and culinary traditions especially. How, when, and what we eat reveal a lot about us, and the way in which our food is prepared tells a similarly deep story.
ReplyDeleteThe Middle East and particularly Islamic culinary practices have left a global mark on the world, linking Mexico to India and Thailand to just about everywhere. The concept of national cuisine is essentially debunked by the various readings, which prove that very rarely are dishes unique to just one country. Olive oil, the great behemoth of the Mediterranean landscape and diet, should belong to all countries that can produce it; however, political and social concerns, as well as corruption, has resulted in an Italian stronghold on production, and Palestinian exclusion from larger conversations about it. National food, like Egypt’s koshari dish, actually has Indian origins. The koshari example demonstrates that food is simultaneously from everywhere and nowhere, as recipes transcend national planes. Islamic cooking traditions brought to Muslim Spain forever altered the palates of Europeans, but going further than Europe, the different fruits and grains (among other things) that were brought to the Iberian peninsula by the Muslims made their way with the Spanish to the New World, and thus Mexican Mole sauce finds a not so distant relative in Indian Curries.
Food and identity are deeply intertwined, and thus there is a surplus of controversy over food. In 2008, the Pita Riots took place in Egypt as a result of the increased price of food staples. Tortilla Riots were a result of rising corn prices in Mexico. Moreover, transnational food conflicts, like the Hummus Wars between Israel and Lebanon exemplify how personal food can be. Ultimately, food is deeply complex, and, in my opinion, the concept of gastronationalism is quite hollow, as food is constantly adapted and adopted across the world.
Question: I’m wondering about the role of alcohol in Islamic courts through the present day. I know that alcohol is forbidden in Islam, so I would just like to know more about how it is viewed/ justified/ enjoyed etc.
Key Word: Gastronationalism: attaching national rights to food (Ranta)
Best,
Hadley
"food is simultaneously from everywhere and nowhere" - wonderful and succinct way to synthesize the readings.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis class readings all revolved about Middle Eastern food, and I remember last week asking a question about the "Mexican Shawarma" and how did the shawarma get to Mexico. All of the readings and podcasts had one distinctive connection, that food or cuisines move with people.
ReplyDeleteI liked the piece about "FOOD & NATIONALISM: FROM FOIE GRAS TO HUMMUS" by Ronald Ranta. It gave a detailed well-clarified analysis between the link of food and nationalism, concentrating on the process of branding a cuisine or a dish. The example of the Thai food/cooking for me was the highlight of this class readings. The way that the Thai government created a stimulus that helped Thai restaurants abroad, enabling to market Thailand as an exuberant tourist country, is an eye-opener and described this plan as "GASTRODIPLOMACY." Also, the writer gave a significant observation that "adding a nationality to food increases its perceived value and appeal. " The writer here is treating food/cuisines as a national product that required a substantial branding and marketing strategies because it is representing you "the nation" abroad.
For the piece on the Mexican Kitchen's Islamic connection, it described how empires and the traveling of people, culture, tradition, ideology, and religion would connect dishes from India to Mexico. The impact that the Muslim world reached Spain and conquered "Córdoba and Granada" the Muslims used the commodities that were available there and created new plates. Those plates were flavored with Muslim ingredients that came from India or the East and moved to Spain. From Spain, it went to Mexico. This proves that global connectivity and the travel of people and beliefs will always move cuisines/food.
"A Culinary History of "National" Cuisine: Egypt and the Middle East" also focused on the movement and transition of food to different types of places. Here the writer gave an example about koshari, and how it is originally coming from India and how did it reach to the Streets of Cairo. Surprisingly, the place that connected the two countries is neither a direct relation between Egyptian and India. Al Hejaz, specifically Makkah is the place that combined the two cultures. Muslim people gather in Makkah to perform Pilgrimage and Omrah. There did the Egyptian learned koshari from the Indians. This means that even a place that connects different cultures can spread cuisines. A personal story for me, in Makkah, also, I was performing Omrah, and I have tasted one of the best dishes I have ever tasted. The name of the plate is "Kabli," which also came to Al Hijaz from Afghanistan from the people who perform pilgrimages.
As for "The olive and imaginaries of the Mediterranean" piece, I honestly was baffled about it. The writer moved from Anthropology to the idea of place and culture, then talked about the branding of Oil and used some anecdotes. Then the writer moved to describe The Mediterranean Diet and connected it to human rights issues. I tried to read it and skimmed it more than once, but I honestly couldn't understand it.
Keyword:
GASTRODIPLOMACY - Culinary diplomacy, refers to concerted
and sustained campaigns of public relations and investment by governments and states, often in collaboration with non-state actors, to increase the value and standing of their nation brand through food. Food is used to pursue diplomatically aims in government-to-public diplomacy.