ABSTRACT
Festive cakes served at life-cycle celebrations in Thuringia, eastern Germany, seem only to signify appropriate hospitality if they are ‘homemade’ – that is, made with the labour of love. Since practices of feeding and commensality can be scaled up from familial to regional home – with the potential to incorporate the nation, I investigate how this emotional significance of homemade cakes also creates and maintains ties to Heimat (home, homeland, or native region). I illustrate that what turns ordinary homemade cakes into ‘Thuringian’ and ‘festive’ cakes rests on subtle changes in their specific aesthetic, gustatory, and tactile qualities that foster commensality and conviviality at the life-cycle celebration. It is through these sensory qualities of Thuringian festive cakes that the familial home expands to the regional home through the intertwining processes of making and consuming these festive cakes – processes that rely heavily on women. By investigating the complex German concept of Heimat, I argue that an exploration of the connections between producing and consuming regional comestibles and the notion of ‘home’ need to pay more attention to the nexus of kinship, gender, and the senses in creating such a spatial sense of belonging.
