ABSTRACT
All over the world food means much more than mere nutrition. Perhaps it is singled out for such significance because everybody, everywhere needs to eat Perhaps it is because-along with only a few other similarly significant acts such as sex and defecationeating breaches our normally sacrosanct bodily boundaries. Maybe it is important that when we consume we literally incorporate into our own bodies the physical material-and possibly the spiritual essence-of other animals and of the outside world in general. But whatever the reason, we routinely use food to express relationships: amongst ourselves and with our environment. The obtaining and sharing of food can be an eloquent statement of shared ideology and as such expresses group affiliation and apparent solidarity. W.Robertson Smith noted that ‘those who eat and drink together are by this very act tied to one another by a bond of friendship and mutual obligation’ (1889:247); Radcliffe-Brown held that for the Andaman Islanders ‘by far the most important social activity is the getting of food’ (1922:227); and Darlington (1969) suggests that commensality may be the most important basis of human associations. Food is a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations, and behaviour (Barthes 1975):
Food is prestige, status and wealth… It is a means of communication and interpersonal relations, such as an ‘apple for the teacher’, or an expression of hospitality, friendship, affection, neighbourliness, comfort and sympathy in time of sadness or danger. It symbolises strength, athleticism, health and success. It is a means of pleasure and self-gratification and a relief from stress. It is feasts, ceremony, rituals, special
days and nostalgia for home, family and the ‘good old days’. It is an expression of individuality and sophistication, a means of self-expression and a way of revolt. Most of all it is tradition, custom and security.
