From Mămăligă to Bread As the 'Core' Food of Romanian Villagers
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FROM MĂMĂLIGĂ TO BREAD AS THE ‘CORE’ FOOD OF ROMANIAN VILLAGERS: A CONSUMER-CENTERED INTERPRETATION OF A DIETARY CHANGE (1900 - 1980) Mircea-Lucian Scrob A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the Central European University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Budapest, Hungary 2015 CEU eTD Collection Supervisor of Dissertation: Constantin Iordachi Copyright in the text of this dissertation rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or in part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. I hereby declare that this dissertation contains no materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions and no materials previously written and/or published by another person unless otherwise noted. CEU eTD Collection iii ABSTRACT This study describes a dietary change that had involved the ‘core’ foods of a traditional population’s diet. At the broadest level, the study analyzes from a standard of living perspective the decision of rural residents from a compact region of Romania to switch en masse from a predominant consumption of mămăligă to a predominant consumption of bread during the 1960s. By its topic, my study contributes, empirically, to a better understanding of a major change in the lifestyles of rural residents during an under- researched phase of socialism and, theoretically, to the range of approaches that have been proposed for reevaluating consumers’ experiences during socialism. In addition, the dietary change provides the basic data for, first, an assessment of the debated effects of an early socialization into a food culture on later-life food preferences and, secondly, for a reconsideration of the consumers’ perceptions defined hedonically of the historically European-wide and currently global transition from non-bread to bread dietary staples. The results of my dissertation show a) that the standard approaches for reevaluating consumers’ experiences during socialism fail to capture important ‘unconventional’ developments in consumption practices that are specific to the region, b) that the influence of an early socialization into a food culture can be overridden by competing processes involved in the formation of food preferences and c) that the change from non- bread to bread dietary staples can be more fruitfully interpreted by overcoming binary approaches that assume a general preference either for the established ‘core’ food or for CEU eTD Collection the novel ‘core’ food in favor of a more flexible approach that captures better the complexity of the consumers’ food preferences. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There is the opinion that work on a dissertation is an exercise in endurance and perseverance. Five years after having started the research for my dissertation, I find that it has been such an exercise for me and, accordingly, I would like to thank the people who have helped me shoulder this pleasant ‘burden’. I am grateful to Professor Constantin Iordachi for having accepted to supervise a research project with a rather exotic topic. His guidance in the complicated process of finishing a dissertation and his comments to my several drafts are much appreciated. I am grateful to Professor Bogdan Murgescu for the interest he has constantly showed in my research and for all his advice and support that have helped me navigate more straightforwardly through the complex landscape of Romanian economic statistics. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Professor Peter Scholliers and to the members of the FOST research group from Vrije University, Brussels for having readily adopted me as one of their own members during a research visit in 2013. The opportunity they offered me to present my research at the Annual Research Seminar and their comments have enabled me to reevaluate my theoretical position within the food studies and food history disciplines. With the benefit of hindsight, I have come to appreciate the benefits of having participated at the Third Year PhD Research Seminar organized by the History Department from CEU. I am especially grateful in this regard to Professor Susan Zimmermann and to the participants to the Seminars for their very useful comments and I CEU eTD Collection hope that they will forgive me for having had proposed for discussion the driest sections of my dissertation. v The research for my dissertation has taken me to a number of libraries and archival institutions throughout Romania. I am very grateful to the personnel of these institutions for all their support and I would like to especially thank the anonymous librarian from the Public Health Institute from Iași and Aurel Radu from the Argeș County National Archives for having gone beyond the duties prescribed by their positions to aid me in my research. My engaging debates with Aurel on various historical and archival issues have spiced up the rather tedious task of going through the large number of Annual Reports of Agricultural Cooperatives for subsequent quantitative analysis. I am immeasurably indebted to my family for the unconditioned support they have showed me during these last five years. If the ability to empathize with a person whose motives you do not fully understand is one of the hallmarks of a historian, I have still much to learn from my parents. My brother, Marius, has been a critical conversation partner and his comments have helped me understand the non-historian’s perspective on my arguments. Finally, I am most grateful to Liana for all her patience and understanding. Truly, without her support, this dissertation would not have been written. This dissertation is dedicated to the villagers who so politely had paused from their daily toil to answer the rather peculiar questions posed by an individual who was seemingly roaming aimlessly through the village. Their understanding and decency have greatly facilitated my task as an interviewer who was just taking his first steps into the field of oral history. Despite their kindness, however, I always felt uneasy about CEU eTD Collection ‘troubling’ busy villagers with my questions especially since I was well aware that there was very little reciprocity in the exchange. It is my greatest hope that this dissertation will ultimately prove rewarding to the villagers who have so readily accepted to help me. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. ix LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................. xi INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ................................................................................................... 1 Mămăligă or Bread?: Conceptualizing the decisional process ....................................... 2 The ‘Core’-‘Fringe’ Pattern for Dietary Practices ........................................................ 12 Literature Review and Contribution to the Fields of Food Studies and Socialism Studies ........................................................................................................................... 19 Review of the Literature on the Dietary Conservatism Model and the Contribution of my Study ................................................................................................................... 20 Review of the Literature on the Transition from Non-Bread to Bread ‘Core’ Foods and the Contribution of my Study ............................................................................. 25 Review of the Literature on the Consumers’ Experiences during Socialism and the Contribution of my Study ......................................................................................... 28 Defining the Spatial and Temporal Coordinates of the Analysis ................................. 32 Defining the Spatial Coordinates .............................................................................. 32 Defining the Temporal Coordinates.......................................................................... 37 Methodology and Sources............................................................................................. 41 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 41 A Note on Sources .................................................................................................... 46 Structure of the Dissertation ......................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 1: LONG TERM TRENDS IN THE CONSUMPTION OF BREAD AND MĂMĂLIGĂ, 1900- 1980................................................................................................................................... 51 Introduction ..................................................................................................................