Regionalism and the Institution of the Yucatecan Gastronomic Field

Abstract

This paper argues that the emergence of a regional cuisine, in the context of postnational and postcolonial transformations, contributes to undermine the integrity and monolithic imagination of the modern nation-state while, at the same time, fractalizes the unequal structures of colonial domination, leading to the erasure of regional cultural diversity. It examines the invention of a Yucatecan gastronomy that amalgamated European, Caribbean, North American and indigenous culinary traditions into a readily recognizable gastronomy that stands in opposition to “Mexican” cuisine. The development of a Yucatecan gastronomic field is here understood as a bifurcation from the culinary field supported by the textual production of cookbooks and the restaurants' refinement of the regional culinary canon. This refinement, it is further argued, leads to the suppression of local culinary voices from the regional gastronomic canon.