Regional food and the tourist imagination in Brazil

Abstract

Brazilian foods are tied up with race and class, ethnicity and heritage. Particular ingredients and modes of preparation are an intrinsic part of the identity of regional foods and by association with the people who consume them. What appears to be a gastronomic distinction may obscure a value system of prejudice and bias. Are the African ingredients so valued in one cuisine seen as a liability in another? Are staple ingredients such as farinha recognized as having indigenous origins? As some of these ingredients and cuisines are exported (both to other parts of Brazil and abroad), they gain a renown (or notoriety) outside of their regions of origin. My research examines the meanings and values that such foods and dishes have in their regional context and determines if the meanings and values of the food change as the cuisines become known outside. Food styles and cuisines are also significant factors in tourism. In an increasingly global society, tourists and natives use food to overcome the distances between them in some contexts while simultaneously drawing these distinctions in others. So I further examine how food plays into the identity and attractiveness of a region as a tourist destination.