Tradition, Authenticity and Expertise in and through Cypriot Easter flaounes

Abstract

Flaounes are festive cheese pies that are widely produced and consumed at Easter time in Cyprus. Practices around flaounes offer a prime site for positive self-presentation, where performance of culinary expertise intersects with gendered roles and constructions of Cypriotness. This article explores how preparing, consuming and evaluating flaounes are interactionally constructed in everyday practices. It focuses on naturally occurring interactions, as well as written accounts and ethnographic interviews with Greek Cypriot participants residing in various regions of Cyprus and in the UK diaspora. In this article, an ethnomethodological approach to identities, culture and society is applied to analyse the participants’ local understandings of themselves and their social world and of categorizations of authenticity, tradition and change. It is shown that members, even when addressing the cultural and historical significance of flaounes, problematize categorizations of authenticity, while they construct tradition as compatible with innovation and change. Authenticity is found to be very much a researchers’ or food marketing concept. For participants, however, the categorizations that have more relevance and importance relate to the taste and quality of the flaounes and the expertise of the maker. Expertise in flaounes results from community learning, reflexive experimentation and contestation, and carries substantial symbolic, social and political capital in Cypriot communities.