ABSTRACT
The Quichua-speaking inhabitants of Zumbagua, a high rural parish of the Ecuadorian Andes, use a variety of indigenous terms to talk about the foods they cook and eat. Through a close reading of the parish discourses involving three of these terms, mishqui, jayaj, and wanlla, I argue that while they appear to operate in a sphere of consumption divorced from that of work, the terms contain implicit meanings derived from systems of production and exchange. Further, the deployment of these terms, apparently a symbolic rather than an instrumental action, is in fact a strategy for negotiating crises and hazards that originate in the larger economic system outside the parish. One could interpret the current use of these words in Zumbagua as showing a reluctance to conform to changing economic realities. But according to my interpretation, rather than reflecting a symbolic refusal to adapt to practical circumstances, the Zumbaguans’ use of these terms reveals an accurate assessment of their situation and constitutes a realistic response to it.
