Medicines in the Kitchen: Gender Roles Shape Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Marrakshi Households.

Irene Teixidor-Toneu,Sara Elgadi,Ugo D’Ambrosio,Hamza Zine,Ahmed Ouhammou,Vincent Manzanilla

doi:10.3390/foods10102332

Abstract

Differences in gendered knowledge about plants are contingent on specific cultural domains. Yet the boundaries between these domains, for example food and medicine, are sometimes blurred, and it is unclear if and how gender plays a role in creating a continuum between them. Here, we present an in-depth evaluation of the links between gender, medicinal plant knowledge, and culinary culture in Marrakech, Morocco. We interviewed 30 women and 27 men with different socio-demographic characteristics and evaluated how gender and cooking frequency shape their food and medicinal plant knowledge. We documented 171 ethno-taxa used in Marrakshi households as food, medicine, or both, corresponding to 148 botanical taxa and three mixtures. While no clear differences appear in food plant knowledge by gender, women have a three-fold greater knowledge of medicinal plants, as well as plants with both uses as food and medicine. Women’s medicinal and food plant knowledge increases with their reported frequency of cooking, whereas the opposite trend is observed among men. Men who cook more are often single, have university-level degrees, and may be isolated from the channels of knowledge transmission. This demonstrates that the profound relations between the culinary and health domains are mediated through gender.

Highlights

The boundary between foods and medicines is often more etic than emic, and it blurs when observing how plants are used in sociocultural contexts (e.g., [1,2])
Our study corroborates that women know significantly more medicinal plants and plants with both medicinal and food uses than men in urban Arabo-Muslim contexts and shows that women’s ethnobotanical knowledge is concomitant to the cooking experience
Men’s ethnobotanical knowledge does not increase with cooking frequency, which suggests a decoupling of the food and medicine knowledge systems among men

Summary

Introduction

The boundary between foods and medicines is often more etic than emic, and it blurs when observing how plants are used in sociocultural contexts (e.g., [1,2]). Many food supplements sold by pharmaceutical companies—natural or synthetic—derive their information from local knowledge and use of plants worldwide [3]. Studies range from ethnobotanical inventories and monographs to phytochemical analyses and regional reviews, all indicating the omnipresence of the food-medicine continuum across multiple floras, cultures, and contexts [15]. A plethora of publications have appeared in relation to medicinal foods and COVID-19, where edible plants are used either as therapeutics or prophylactics [16]

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