ABSTRACT
Recently it has been recognised that an anthropological concern with food would benefit from alliance with the renewed interest in the phenomenological concepts of embodiment and lived experience (Lupton 1996). Previous work that tended to focus on the interpretation of the symbolic values of food and meals echoed the general trend of utilising cultural events and habits as texts to be read. This domination of symbolic approaches has proved very powerful, providing classic studies that have revealed some of the cultural rules that underlie what were assumed to be merely nutritional requirements (Lévi-Strauss 1965 and Douglas 1972 being the obvious examples). However, in the process of unravelling and revealing cultural patterns this perspective has served to remove the actor from view; by concentrating on the textual aspects of food culture, individual dietary choices, the experience of eating and how these relate to personal ideas about the self and the body are ignored.
