ABSTRACT
As in many cultures, food is a frequent topic of conversation among rural Panamanians. The peasants, or countrymen as they are known, discuss all their food-producing techniques and worries from the first seeding to whether one strain of rice lasts better than another in the pot. Indeed, all the comestibles, particularly the central food - rice - are considered important, not only for their immediate food value but also for symbolic reasons. Like sex, food is the focus of beliefs, prohibitions and stories: no adult should be seen eating by a hungry child lest the youngster grow envious and die from a 'falling stomach'. Likewise, even in the cramped family sleeping-quarters, parents are modest and surreptitious in their sexual relations. The foods of a meal must be properly selected and combined to meet the strictures of the hot and cold system, a means for classifying foods which ultimately derives from Greek beliefs. And, just as a man hot from work in the fields should avoid cold foods, so also a 'cold' man should avoid a 'hot' woman lest he be drained of his vital energies. But food is not a mere metaphor for sex; a network of subtle threads links both with genetics and nationality. When I revisited Panama after seven years, I carried with me pictures of our two children, the elder of whom was born within a year of our leaving the village. The alert villagers began by identifying which was the elder, questioned me about date of birth, recalled that I had left the field a few weeks in advance of my wife, and then concluded that the child was bound to look Panamanian anyway, since we had been eating 'typical' food for some time. Such a genetic theory is intriguing if not positively appealing in the context of our scientific culture; at least it implies a folk recommendation of their own foods!
