Abstract
Local cuisine is an important reservoir of local ecological knowledge shaped by a variety of socio-cultural, economic, and ecological factors. The aim was to document and compare the current use of wild and semi-cultivated plant food taxa by Romanians living in Romania and Ukraine. These two groups share similar ecological conditions and historically belonged to the same province, but were divided in the 1940s by the creation of a state border. We conducted 60 semi-structured interviews with rural residents. The contemporary use of 46 taxa (plus 5 cultivated taxa with uncommon uses), belonging to 20 families, for food consumption were recorded. Romanians in Romanian Bukovina used 27 taxa belonging to 15 families, while in Ukraine they used 40 taxa belonging to 18 families. Jams, sarmale, homemade beer, and the homemade alcoholic drink “socată” are used more by Romanians in Southern Bukovina, while tea, soups, and birch sap are used more in Northern Bukovina. We discuss the strong influence of socio-political scenarios on the use of wild food plants. Cross-ethnic marriages, as well as markets and women’s networks, i.e., “neighbors do so”, may have had a great impact on changes in wild food use. In addition, rapid changes in lifestyle (open work market and social migration) are other explanations for the abandonment of wild edible plants.
Highlights
The way people prepare their food is an important expression of local culture that is shaped by the surrounding environment and historical background [1]
As the research is qualitative, the statistical analysis showed the following results: we performed a Wilcoxon test and a Kruskal–Wallis test, and both analyses revealed that there is no significant difference between the use categories of the two groups of Romanians living across the border
We consider that the present differences, even though statistically non-significant, are important from a cultural perspective and we further focus on qualitative methods that are better suited for the analysis of cultural phenomena
Summary
The way people prepare their food is an important expression of local culture that is shaped by the surrounding environment and historical background [1]. Different cultures often develop different recipes and the use of different ingredients. The underlying ecological knowledge is shaped by a number of factors including sociocultural aspects, like religion [2], language [3], politics including governance systems [4,5,6], and economic features [7]. Such knowledge is not static, but rather dynamic as it evolves over time according to changes in the abovementioned factors. Wild food plants play an essential role in traditional cuisines across Europe [13], not to mention their economic value, especially in marginal rural areas in countries undergoing economic and governance transition [14]
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