Elizabeth Finnis: Reimaging marginalized foods: global processes, local places

Abstract

An insightful and stimulating read, this edited volume by Finnis, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, explores the intellectual trajectory of marginality through contemporary food systems. From the distribution of alpaca meat in Peru to the arrival and consumption of pom in the Netherlands, each essay seriously considers and ultimately defends why the study of marginalized foods matter. In a time where once marginal food items are more frequently incorporated into mainstream consumption behaviors, the contributors successfully establish the importance of conversations around the renegotiation and representing of marginal cuisines and the populations who originally prepared them. The reimagining of marginal foods effectively becomes a site full of unexpected consequences and possibilities as social, political, and economic processes collide with the everyday lives of individuals. Emphasizing the symbolic aspects of food, from the outset, Finnis identifies her project as one focused on the interaction between marginalized or low status food and mainstream markets. With a strong anthropological orientation, Finnis has put together a collection of ethnographic work based upon themes of political economy, appropriation, culture, identity formation, and consumption. The strength of each case study is the recognition and engagement with the nuances that arise as individual, group, government and non-governmental actors participate in symbolic and physical movements around the ways food is experienced and understood in a particular locale. Contributing to existing discourse by seriously considering foods and cuisine from the Global South, this selection of works is somewhat limited by moments of ambiguity in relation to its theoretical framework. The issue of temporality runs throughout the collection but is most prominent in the chapters that explore the dissociation of a particular cuisine from its original producers. In ‘‘Highland Haute Cuisine: The Transformation of Alpaca Meat’’, Lisa Markowitz unravels the ongoing transformation of alpaca meat from a disparaged ‘‘Indian food’’ to an upscale item consumed by elites. While Markowitz does not cite the connection to Bourdieu, his theory on how tastes both reflect and perpetuate social difference and inequality is incredibly relevant (Bourdieu 1984). In keeping with Bourdieu’s tradition, Markowitz describes the ways in which avoidance of alpaca meat was legitimated by a desire to maintain the social hierarchy between Indians and white-mestizo Peruvians. The indigenous Andean peasant farmers who raised and sold alpaca meat were thus labeled with similar unsanitary and diseaseridden connotations that initially accompanied the meat itself. Over the course of a few years however, the same identification with Indians that once made the meat undesirable for upper and middle class populations transformed it into a much sought after ‘‘authentic food of the Incas’’. According to Markowitz, the shifts in meaning were made possible by timing, a period of national economic growth in Peru (Devaux et al. 2009), and the involvement of nongovernmental organizational (NGO) actors who were able to capitalize on the expansion of Peruvian culinary tourism. But while the study of alpaca meat reads as positively contributing to the livelihood of peasant farmers, other chapters suggest that similar strategies do not lead to as favorable an outcome. Lois Stanford’s chapter, ‘‘When the Marginal Becomes the Exotic: The Politics of Culinary Tourism in Indigenous T. Cain (&) Department of Sociology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA e-mail: tcain@bu.edu