On the Role of Food Habits in the Context of the Identity and Cultural Heritage of South and South East Asia

On the Role of Food Habits in the Context of the Identity and Cultural Heritage of South and South East Asia Xavier Romero-Frias Paper presented at the Cultural Heritage and Identity International Symposium 2013, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China Abstract: Located south of China and extending from Pakistan to the Philippines, South and South East Asia is a vast region. The nations and ethnic groups of Southern and South Eastern Asia have a rich and varied cultural heritage. Food habits are an inseparable part of this heritage and certain ways concerning food and its preparation, as well as the ceremonies or rituals surrounding it, give whole nations and groups an identity that can be as important as dress or language. Keywords: Gastronomy, identity, cultural heritage, South Asia, South East Asia Introduction of food habits as identity markers in a culture: The Islamization and radicalization of Muslim communities ruled by non-Muslim states is a much discussed subject, but far less is known about the Islamization and the erosion of traditional culture and identity among the Muslim communities of independent Islamic states. Figure 1 - The South and South East Asian region While carrying out research on the While great importance has been placed on escalating role of religion in Muslim languages in the context of the identity and communities in South Asia, I interviewed an cultural heritage of the nations and ethnic uncompromising Sheikh who had a great groups of Southern and South Eastern Asia, number of followers in his own country, the the role food habits has been neglected in Maldives. He was a religious politician the academic sphere. The aim of this paper lamenting that the culture of his own is to present how important are traditions country was not purely Islamic. In his regarding food in a culture and to preaching he emphasized that his ancestral encourage systematic research on food culture had to be replaced with the habits as an integral part of the cultural unadulterated Islamic ways he had learned heritage. The following illustration will be in a country in Arabia where he had studied. helpful in order to highlight the significance He said he was unhappy with everything in his society: the national symbols, the folklore, the customs, the dress, the numerous river systems and the ample etiquette, even the language; he wished coastlines have historically kept an everything to vanish. astronomic number of communities, both urban and rural, supplied with fish and its After much argument about whether he derived products. would concede to spare anything from his autochthonous culture this man remained However, to a great extent food habits have adamant and would not budge from his not been properly researched in many initial position. Finally I enquired, whether communities of South and Southeast Asia. there was nothing he missed from his The neglect by scholars has been quite motherland while he lived for a long time in consistent across the region and although Arabia. Then he reflected and his manner publications on food are numerous, works relaxed when he confessed: “The food, I with a scientific angle are lacking. Still, there miss the food of my country”. is a large amount of literature on the subject, such as books on local recipes or Food as tradition guides explaining the cuisine of a particular The tradition of eating regularly particular country, but few works have academic foods is in relation to the geographical value. Regarding scientific works where location, the quality of the surrounding food is mentioned, cultural anthropologists environment and the ancestral habits of the have often highlighted foods and eating community. Cradle of ancient civilizations, habits that were unusual, such as insect or the region of Southern and Southeastern larva consumption, overlooking research of Asia is located within the tropical belt of the mainstream food in the culture, the average planet and includes eighteen independent daily food of the common folk. states, not counting Afghanistan. There are numerous urban areas scattered across the whole region, which concentrates a great proportion of the population of the earth. South and Southeast Asia encompasses a great number of diverse environments, from the rigorous, barren ranges of the Himalayas to the fertile, volcanic islands of Indonesia and the Philippines. Countries such as India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia have ample river plains that have been able to feed dense populations for millennia and that are Figure 2 - Presentation of a ‘proper meal’ among the periodically subjected to floods. Both the Akha minority. Mae Yao, Northern Thailand. Food habits include not only ingredients Known with different names such as Po Sop and the dishes prepared with them, but in Thailand or as Sri Dewi in Java, the Rice also cooking, preparing and preserving Goddess represents a very ancient and techniques, presentation and array, enduring symbol which is more a part of the frequency and timing of the meals, the role local popular folklore than a deity of a of food in celebrations and festivals, as well structured, mainstream religion.2 as etiquette and manners while consuming 1 Periodically subjected to floods, the rice food, including who is eating first. fields form a complete ecosystem in which In South and Southeast Asia common other food products become available, elements regarding food habits prevail, but often on a seasonal basis. These include a sporadically there are divergences as well. variety of fish, crabs, snails, frogs, rats and The most important staple in the Southern birds. Habitually these animals are caught and Southeastern Asian region is rice. In by the farmers inhabiting the rice fields in most communities the rice culture order to complement the average rice diet. constitutes a clear identity marker. As a Other staples include wheat, used in vital source of calories it is related to a Northern India for the preparation of the dominant cultural symbol of feminine traditional chapatis, bananas in the island of nurture based on the mother and finds Flores and sago, obtained from the pith of representation in the Rice Goddess. the sago palm (Metroxylon sagu), in the east of Indonesia. Common tubers include tapioca and taro, the latter eaten as a customary daily staple in parts of the Philippines, as well as in some islands of the south of Maldives. Tubers and corn are recurrently cultivated on the side in order to complement other staples, a practice that had its origins in the custom of diversifying cultivation to prepare for difficult times if the main harvest failed. Coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) are very Figure 3 - Mae Po Sop representation at a Buddhist important as sources of vegetable protein temple in Chiang Khong by the Thai/Lao border; note the wherever they grow. The grated coconut little fishes and the crab in the lower right corner. flesh and the coconut milk obtained from it 1 Lenore Manderson (Editor), Shared Wealth and 2 Phya Anuman Rajadhon, Me Posop, The Rice Symbol: Food, Culture, and Society in Oceania and Mother, Journal of the Siam Society (JSS) Vol. 43.1f Southeast Asia (1955) are used in a wide array of dishes and although it is appreciated locally in some sweets. Besides its importance as food places of rural areas. source, products obtained from the coconut Definition of a “proper meal” as part of tree have many other traditional uses from cultural identity house building to medicine. Across ethnic groups there are different Derived products such as oil and milk, as interpretations of what a “proper meal” is. well as the sugar obtained from the sap, can A ceremonial presentation of the food is be easily processed and exported. Currently generally preferred rather than the eating the preserved milk both in liquid and of food in a hurried manner. Even in very powder form has become popular. poor households and with limited fare, people across the region favor a certain array of dishes and an arrangement that is pleasing to the eye. The aesthetics of displaying food usually reaches maximum expression in the overflowing symbolism of the formal array of dishes of meals connected with religious festivities. It is noticeable as well in banquets prepared for festivities such as marriages, rites of passage, funerary ceremonies, as well as in the break of the Ramzan fast among Muslim people groups. Figure 4 - Sugar palm fruits near Siem Reap, Cambodia Concepts of cleanliness and neatness in Sugar palms (Borassus flabellifer) are also presenting food vary across the region and common in certain places such as range from ritual to actual states of purity. Cambodia, Northeast Thailand and the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They grow close to the rice fields and are frequently a characteristic element of the landscape. These hardy palms have been important traditionally as a source of sugar obtained by heating the sap in order to concentrate it. Coarser than refined cane sugar, it is used mainly in local cuisine. Compared to the coconut, the fruit of the Figure 5 - Ceremonial presentation of a special meal on banana leaves in Kerala, India sugar palm has limited commercial value, There are certain taboos regarding food mostly in South Asia. The Pongal festival in which are transmitted in ways that involve Tamil Nadu, India, includes the cooking of one community and the other within the sweetened rice in earthen pots. same ethnic background. Since food is also With the passing of the centuries every often a part of religious rituals and community developed its own dishes, based offerings, myths about the origin and on the items that were locally available. significance of certain foods are present in Dishes changed as new ingredients were the prevalent religions of this vast and introduced in the region.

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