Food and Foodways Narratives: Recipes of Social Memory1

ARIES ANUARIO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA IBEROAMERICANA

2020

Denise Amon and Renata Menasche

[Translation by Théo Amon]

Denise Amon

PhD in Psychology, independent researcher, consultant, lecturer, vice leader of the research group Ideology, Communication and Social Representations (http://dgp.cnpq.br/dgp/espelhogrupo/9479077623952541)

[email protected]

Renata Menasche

PhD in Social Anthropology, professor and researcher at the Graduate Program in Anthropology at Universidade Federal de Pelotas and at the Graduate Program in Rural Development at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, researcher at Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, leader of the Study and Research Group in Food and Culture (https://www.ufrgs.br/gepac/)

[email protected]

1 A version of this article, originally in Portuguese, was published in the journal Sociedade e Cultura, see Amon and Menasche (2008) and was later included as a chapter of the book Psicologia Social da Comida (Amon 2014), see Amon and Menasche (2014). This article is a reworked version.

Abstract

In this paper, the authors address the cultural dimension of food brought out through social action. Building their reflection on experiences lived by a Sephardi Jewish family established in Brazil and reviewing recipes of some daily dishes, the authors discuss how a community may manifest emotions, systems of relevance, meanings, social relationships, and collective identity through its food. They analyze the recipes and suggest that food and foodways can constitute themselves as narrative of a community’s social memory arguing that these food narratives also build communities. As proposed by anthropology, it shows that a specific research territory can create questionings and open the way for more comprehensive analyses and interpretations. This pathway implies framing by the contextual and socio-historical influences, different from what is usual in other social sciences, where the individual instance is chosen because of its representativeness according to pre-existing criteria, serving as an illustration of analytical categories established at the formulation of an initial problem. The story told is not detached from a collective cultural symbolic system; rather, it is embedded in the social fabric of the symbolic products built and negotiated in culture and social milieus.

Keywords: recipes; social memory; narrative; identity; Jewish foodways.

From a Cooking Recipe Notebook: I would like to learn where you Introduction three were born, the name of the town, when you left, where you Late 1994, São Paulo. The grandmother of went to, when you arrived in Brazil, one of the authors of this paper was in the which language you spoke then, hospital, dying. Soon thereafter, one of her also about the food, who cooked at sisters (the closest one, also treated as a your house, how was the arrival in grandmother) would also pass away. Only Brazil, how was living with one of the siblings remained, living in Rio Brazilian food, and anything else de Janeiro. At that time, the sisters were you might find interesting. My between 90 and 100 years old. intention is to keep history alive. In 1996, the granddaughter wrote her I hope this won’t be too much of a grandaunt a letter, from which we transcribe burden, but if you don’t feel like an excerpt: writing about all this, please save yourself the trouble, all right? Hi, grandma Miriam: As soon as I have the booklet ready I’ll send over a copy to you. At mom’s suggestion, I’m writing to you for the following reason: I Many kisses started to write down the recipes of 2 our family’s dishes, those that The reply is transcribed in full below: grandma Judith, grandma Rachel and you taught us to like, in order Rio May 16, 96 to make a booklet that I’ll give away to all our relatives as a gift. Darling, Then I realized that we from the third generation do not know how it was awkward receiving a letter to cook these foods we ate at our from you, as you remembered I still mothers’ and grandmothers’, and exist. that this is our history, which shouldn’t get lost. With this 2 Both letters were published in full in a Cooking motivation, I started to write down Recipe Notebook, gathering family recipes that was the recipes together with mom and distributed exclusively among all descendants up to aunt Stella, and to put them in the the fourth generation from the immigrants in this family. It is not available to the public in general. The computer so I could prepare the Cooking Recipe Notebook was writen in Portuguese booklet for us. Well, today I was at except for the recipe's titles that appear in Ladino, as mom’s place asking some things they were usually refered to in the family context. It about the story of you three and she comprises an introduction, featuring both letters; 43 couldn’t answer me, suggesting recipes; a map showing Turkey in relation to Europe, Asia, Africa and other countries in the Middle that I should write you asking to Eastern; Turkey's political map showing the city of tell me this story by letter. In the Kirklareli; and the facsimile of the letter handwritten booklet’s introduction, I’d like to by the grandaunt. The front cover shows the title and tell a little of your story and the a photograph of the grand grandmother, the history of these Turkish foods we grandmother, and three grandaunts. The back cover shows a photograph of the grandmother and two learned eating with you. So, if I’m grandaunts (all the three were referred to as not pushing the envelope, I’d ask grandmothers by the granddaughter), the one who you to write me; aunt Judithinha wrote the letter and the other after which the Cooking could bring me the letter when she Recipe Notebook was named. All real names comes back from Rio de Janeiro. mentioned in this paper were substituted by fictitious ones.

I cannot recall anymore the recipes Universelle. Currently, Turkey has you're asking; as chance would adopted catholic characters. have it, Judith [referring to her The Great War was declared in daughter, the same Judithinha of 1914, many allied countries against the previous letter, a namesake of Germany, Turkey, Austria- Miriam’s sister Judith] is bringing Hungary, Romania etc. you a work, similar to what you My father was held prisoner of war have in mind, by the members of in Romania, in labor camp. When Wizo3 in Rio, a very well-done the armistice came, time of the affair. You might copy some recipes epidemics, the famous spanish flu, that interest you and your mother. my father died in Bucharest. The History of the grandmothers little last time I saw him I was 8 years interesting, interspersed with wars. old. We were born in the european 1918, my mother was now a Turkey at the beginning of the penniless widow amidst very rich century, at that time a part of the and selfish relatives in a backward ottoman empire, in a little town on town, where it was unusual for a the border with Bulgaria, almost woman to work. Judith was a nestled in the Balkans, called Kirk- teacher at the school, I was still a Klisse at the time, now Kirklar Ele. student. Mother sent to Istanbul, Family name M., 4 sisters Stella, the capital,formerly Rachel, Judith, Miriam. Family Constantinople. religion sephardic jews, that is Stella was engaged when the war stemming from jews driven out of broke out, her fiancé not willing to Spain in 1592, time of the be drafted, set out for Cuba. When Inquisition.4 the war ended, he requested Stella The ancestors probably lived in to go to Cuba, where they got Italy at one time or another, hence married. The son, Jeremias R., is the family name M. your mother’s cousin, and an My father was a tailor called important accountant here in Rio. Jacob, my mother, a heroin, was The C. brothers, who led the called Ruth. business with the aim of returning We spoke archaic spanish with to Turkey, decided to give up in some turkish and french words. order to avoid going to the war. As children, we watched the They arrived once more in Porto turkish-bulgarian war, our town Alegre and founded a shop dealing being occupied 3 times by the with silk and fine foreign articles, enemy. as there was no domestic Education at the turkish schools manufacturing. It was the famous A was free of tuition, the turkish la Ville de Bruxelles. Isaac, the characters were arabic. eldest of the C. brothers, had We studied at french school proposed marriage to Judith when supported by the Aliança françaisse he was in Turkey, at that time the mother didn’t give her consent to such a far-reaching travel. After the war, distances became shorter. He 3 Established in England in 1920 and arriving in repeated his entreaty. She came Brazil in 1926, the Women’s International Zionist Organization defines itself as a global organization of along with the P. family, wedded in Jewish women who do voluntary charity work. See P. Alegre and had a daughter, http://www.wizors.org.br/ Sara. Later, the sons. Isaac’s 4 The correct date is 1492.

brother, Samuel, who became my this universe was strange, on the other hand husband, went to live at his the usual character of these flavors gave rise brother’s, where I met him when to and supported an everyday sense of my brother in law Isaac caused us communality with people she was not to come from Turkey. We adopted acquainted with, but she knew existed: a Brazil as our land, where we had group of people coming from another place, the children who fill us with pride. I speaking the same language, paying am sending along a copy of a attention to the same details in life, document I received from Abrahão, practicing the same habits, eating the same [your] mom’s cousin, and your foods – a community. Familiarity with these relative too. foods was generated by the fact that they were on the table every day, there was the Kisses from aunt Miriam.5 repetition and the absence of reflection that characterize quotidian things. This The granddaughter had been in a synagogue familiarity by itself created an equally non- only once in her life. She had never lit a questioned sense of intimacy with this Shabbat candle and had rarely attended unknown group that ate similarly, a sense of Pesach or Rosh Hashanah celebrations, identity with the community. mostly in her childhood. Apart from the The Jewish community in the state Jewish school she attended, there was where she lived comprised a total of 8.330 practically nothing Jewish about her life. At people more or less evenly distributed school, she took classes for many years on between male and female, most of which Hebrew and Jewish Culture, caring more for inhabited the capital of the state which is the learning the language and how to write the city where this particular story takes place characters than for the history and traditions (7.051, again evenly distributed between of Jewish people. male and female), according to a 1980 This was her point of view until the census (IBGE 1980). A 1992 Jewish death of her grandmother, when a very community census reveals that the great straightforward artifact was resignified: majority of the Jewish community in the food. Since her childhood, the daily food at capital of the state was Ashkenazi and only a her home in Porto Alegre was different from small portion was Sephardi: 86.7% of the that of several of her friends. There were no family heads were Ashkenazi and 4.8% beans, rice, beefsteak, lettuce and tomato were Sephardi (others had mixed origin, salad. There were instead agristada, aroz either one parent Ashkenazi and the other kon domat, berendjena assada kon boyikos, Sephardi, or one parent Jewish and the other mina de espinaka, truchi de repolho, non-Jewish, or they did not know); 73.4% of kalavasutcho, borrekas de keso, boyikos de spouses were Ashkenazi and 3.2% were karne kon alho porro, takaut de berendjena, Sephardi. The same census shows that only anginara6. 2.2% of the parents of both family heads and If on the one hand this created a spouses living in the capital of the state were difference regarding these friends, for whom originally from Turkey. (Brumer 1994) Such a small Turkish Sephardi

5 Spelling and grammar mistakes in the original letter Jewish community in town used to nurture are reflected in capitalization and stylistic features in straight bonds. Families knew each other the translation. and women frequently met to play cards, 6 Named in Ladino as they were in everyday life, sew, knit, embroider, make hand-woven these Sephardi Jewish foods refer respectively to: egg tapestry together. Food was part of the and lemon sauce, rice with tomatoes, baked eggplant with meatballs, spinach and matzo pie, stuffed informal meetings and could include cabbage rolls, zucchini and cheese pie, cheese pastry, typically Sephardi Jewish treats. They also meatballs with leek, eggplant and ground beef pie, met each other at the sinagogue on special sweet-and-sour artichoke.

occasions such as weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, penetration of women in the professional Rosh Hashanah and Iom Kipur, but the market and the resulting changing gender family we are talking about did not consider relationships within the family could lead us itself religious and did not use to go to the to think that the women’s major role in the sinagogue, limiting conviviality with other family nutrition would be altered; this, Sephardi Jewish families to leisure time. however, is contradicted by Counihan’s Nevertheless, those encounters where filled (2004) study about the Italian region of with Sephardi Jewish culture, either in the Tuscany. Eating has been transformed treats or in the language they all spoke, a indeed, especially in terms of preparation mix of Portuguese filled with words, time, which to a certain extent has shifted expressions and sayings in Ladino, simple from the home kitchen to the food industry. manifestations of a whole worldview. When With it comes a reduction of the time shared she was a child, she attended eventually in the kitchen, when knowledge was passed those Sephardi women informal gatherings on from mother to daughter. But the flavors with her mother, though she did not enjoyed, produced from the inherited technique and she would rather play with her friends. She wisdom can also be transmitted through the was then unaware of what those meetings family’s recipes circulating among its would come to signify later when she female members. And that is precisely what became adult. the granddaughter is claiming as she writes This Jewish community was settled the letter to her ancestor. in a state heavily marked by immigrants' This story is personal and singular, influences from different origins, among yet it introduces many others. As proposed which German, Italian, African, and by anthropology, it shows that a specific Portuguese. Though these very different research territory can create questionings traditions, habits and costumes were all and open the way for more comprehensive mixed and spread in the local culture and analyses and interpretations. This pathway cultivated in everyday life in a number of implies framing by the contextual and socio- different manners, the state represented itself historical influences, different from what is as characterized by conservadorism and usual in other social sciences, where the different peoples tended to nurture their individual instance is chosen because of its roots through food. representativeness according to pre-existing This was the context within which criteria, serving as an illustration of she was raised. The importance of Sephardi analytical categories established at the Jewish food in her life became evident when formulation of an initial problem (Fonseca she realized that her grandmother was dying, 1999). This story is not detached from a that eventually her mother would die and collective cultural symbolic system; rather, she would not be able to reproduce herself it is embedded in the social fabric of the the flavors of her childhood either for symbolic products built and negotiated in herself or for the children she could culture and social milieus. The food eventually have. She hadn’t learned the mentioned in the letter narrates the dishes. The family’s entire third generation experiences of a community, building and hadn’t. All life long, food had been taken for maintaining the social memory of a group to granted, it was simply there on the table. which grandparents and grandchildren And when it would no longer be there, what belonged for the simple fact of eating the else would fail to be? same food. Practical cooking knowledge is The relationship food has with traditionally socialized through generations memory has been established in different among women, in the small actions repeated ways during the course of studies on the in the shared day-to-day of the family’s subject in Social Sciences. The Oxford kitchen (Giard 1994/2002). The increased Symposium on Food and Cookery dedicated

one of its events to this relationship as seen communicative dimension, as speech has, from diverse perspectives, see Proceedings then it can tell stories.7 in Walker (2001). One of the papers presented at the symposium focuses Jewish food as a medium of remembrances and Stock: Food and Culture assessment of the past in a community in Northern Greece (Kravva 2001). This A good sauce or a good soup is made from a relationship is also examined by Sutton stock. Stock consists in a slow process of (2001) based on ethnographic research cooking, liquid reduction, and flavor conducted on a Greek island, privileging the concentration. It can be made of beef, fish, discussion of theoretical aspects. In her chicken, or vegetables. Regardless of the prominent book In Memory´s Kitchen: A main ingredient, these stocks have some Legacy from Women of Terezín, De Silva characteristics in common: they are clear (1996) approached the "dream cooking" (p. and fat-free. Chicken stock, for instance, is xx) of the Jewish prisoners at the Terezín prepared by baking chicken bones in the concentration camp during the Holocaust in oven, then cooking them in water, removing a manuscript cookbook analyzing how the the fat, adding vegetables (carrot, leek, recipes of the food never to be eaten again, onion) and simmering it for approximately written by starving Jews, were means to three hours in order to reduce and maintain identity, memory and heritage; see concentrate the flavors. There are variations also De Silva and Dumitresco (2016). The in the manner of baking, which bones to analysis and interpretation that Tye (2010) bake, the vegetable assortments, and the makes of her mother's collection of baking cooking time. The stock imparts depth, recipes in an autoethnographic approach intensity, and strength, enhancing the draw on recollections of herself and others presence of the main ingredient of a sauce or to read subtexts and offer insights into her soup as well as the remaining ingredients, mother's biography as well as into the life of while providing a light texture. It is the other women with whom she had something basis, the pure foundation. in common. By the time the author The stock of the relationship conducted this research, her mother had between food and memory is culture. already passed away and memories Particularly – compared to the satisfaction constituted the way to supplement meanings manners of other natural biological needs of to the recipes. the human species –, eating demands The dimension we are bringing to the selection and combination activities (of fore in the context of food and memory ingredients, ways of preparing, intake and studies (1) approaches food and foodways disposal forms etc.) that manifest choices from their communicative dimension, (2) made by a community, conceptions relates to the specificities of daily eating supported by a social group, therefore experiences, the little routine food facts, expressing a culture. What you eat, with rather than food associated to rites, religious whom you eat, when, how and where you festivities or commemorative events, and (3) eat – it’s all defined by culture. “Man eats focuses food prepared, consumed or simply according to the society he belongs to” imagined (dreamt) by immigrants in a (Garine 1987, 4). geographic, social, cultural, economic, and Eating concerns all human beings, it political environment distinct from the its universal, general; food defines a domain original one. The relationship we establish of options, it manifests particularities, it between food, memory, and community is based on the notion that if food has a 7 The hypothesis of food as social storytelling or simply narrative food was developed by Amon (2004, 2014), Amon, Guareschi and Maldavsky (2005) and Amon and Maldavsky (2007).

establishes identities. Food is eating included” (Mintz 2001, 32). Also, “culture’s transformed by culture (Da Matta 1987, conceptual abstraction is concretized on the 1997). plate” (Millán 2002, 277). In this paper, food is conceived as comprising the concept of foodways (Yoder 1972), which, inspired by European studies, Cooking Recipe 1: A Food Voice injected new life into North American folklife food studies, widening its focus: Alcool cookies while earlier it concentrated on the foods themselves, the gathering of cooking 1 cup of hoil, 1 cup of rectified recipes, table etiquette, and nutritional value alcool, 1 cup of water, sughar to of food, now the perspective includes the taste, mix well, flour as needed, mix psychological and social dimensions, well, yeast 1 spoon, knead it or encompassing attitudes, habits, meal grind it some tree times with the systems, and material culture as related to meat grinder, when it’s ready, form food. When we refer to food, we insert it in the cookies and put in the oven.9 this tradition and refer to a gamut encompassing, according to Long (2006), Figure 1 shows the facsimile of this recipe. activities such as procurement, preservation, preparation, presentation of food, Figure 1. Facsimile of the recipe Alcool cookies. performance in foodways, consumption, and clean-up8, understood as socially-built processes involving exchange and negotiation of practices and meanings. Learning the complex formed by the eating practices and wisdom of a certain social group – identified by its particular Source: Personal archive. habits and beliefs – takes place early on and on a daily basis. This learning should be This recipe was handwritten on a notebook seen as part of a substantive body of by one of the elderly women belonging to historically derived cultural material. After the Sephardi Jewish family mentioned in all, “food-related behavior repeatedly this paper’s introduction. The spelling is reveals the culture in which each person is characteristic of the time when it was written and the way this lady, who originally spoke Turkish and Ladino10, learned 8 The dimensions and aspects that the author Portuguese. associated to each of these processes are: The recipe is unsophisticated. It procurement: ways of obtaining ingredients and shows its belonging to a time when science items related to food; preservation: strategies to keep food frozen, fresh or stored; preparation: ways of had not yet penetrated the cooking universe cutting, seasoning and handling foods to be cooked or – or, as Koyré (1980) would have it, to a prepared, choice of recipes and transformations world of “more or less”. The lack of applied to them, decisions concerning flavor, accuracy in the amount of the ingredients equipment and cooking or preparation methods; (“sughar to taste”, “flour as needed”) and the presentation of food: the food itself, including the recipes chosen and the ingredients used, manners of procedures (“mix well”, “form the cookies”) actually presenting the food, bringing it to the table and serving people; performance in foodways: the 9 Spelling mistakes in the recipes are intentional, place of the foods in the meal system, ways of social reflecting misspellings in the original. interaction through food; consumption: the manner in 10 Ladino – also known as Judaeo-Spanish – is the which people eat, including utensils, mixes created, language spoken by the Jewish communities driven and the order in which the foods are eaten; and clean- out of Spain in 1492, migrating to Morocco, up: cleaning and disposal activities after preparing Bulgaria, former Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, and and consuming the food (Long 2000). Turkey.

imparts to this cooking text the simplicity of the recipient level in the form of implied personal notes. However, the woman wisdom, built and kept through quotidian already knew how to make the recipe, she experience, a knowledge that is not had been doing it for a long time, which questioned, knowledge belonging to life as it indicates that she was not writing it down is lived. The recipe narrates the sharing of for herself, but rather to transmit it to the wisdom that is maintained as social memory next generations of the family. The passage and, by being transmitted through the recipe, of a practice into writing reveals the desire tells the story of how a community of permanence of the food in the community understood and accepted the form, texture, displaced from its original location, perhaps and taste of a food. because she became aware of a changing The relationship established here world. between food and memory is based on the Waxman (1996) highlighted the notion that food has a communicative complexity of apparently simple cooking dimension. This perspective was widely writings, such as these alcool cookies. They explored by several authors in anthropology indicate an underlying confidence: the (specifically Lévi-Strauss 1966/1997 and confidence that the recipe’s writer is able to, Douglas 1972) and semiotics (Barthes in few words, few numbers and rather 1961/1993). These scholars started with an imprecise language, convey exactly what analogy between food and the linguistic she means, and at the same time the system, presenting questions regarding the confidence that the individual reading the conventions and rules that regulate the ways recipe understands exactly what the writer in which food items (conceived as signs in a calls for. The form of the writing reveals a system) are categorized and combined. Food very strong bond between writer and reader, is perceived as the manifestation of an who share knowledge about ingredients and underlying structure that may be cooking techniques, as well as the expected apprehended, leading to an understanding of result. A straightforward account of the characteristics of a society. ingredients and method seems sufficient, Working from the perspective that assuming that all the rest would emerge food is a means of communication, Hauck- from shared experience and common sense. Lawson (1992, 1998) developed the concept There is proximity between who is writing of food voice11 to refer to the dynamic, and who is reading. creative, symbolic and singular character The recipe mentions “sughar to through which food serves as a channel of taste”. Someone could ask: to whose taste? communication. Thus, food would constitute But the question does not make any sense, a medium to manifest meanings, emotions, for if there was any doubt about it, the world views, identities, and also a way of amount would be informed, as is the case transformation by means of conflict with oil and alcohol. The fact that the taste is resolution, implementation of changes, not subject to questioning presupposes that waivers. The notion of food voice stresses there is an assumed taste in the family, its potential to approach topics such as which will extend to future generations as tradition, ethnicity, harmony, discord, being “the” taste possible, “the” taste transience, identity. expected in alcohol cookies. There is confidence that taste is collective. The same applies to the amount of flour: “flour as needed” (in order to what?), also to the 11 The journal Food, Culture & Society dedicated a procedure “mix well” (to what point?) and whole number to the theme of food voice (Food, Culture & Society 2004, vol. 7, n. 1). One of the baking “in the oven” (how long? at which papers published in that number related recipes to the temperature? until it gets how?). Everything expression of identities and focuses food voice as a non-verbal about the recipe is assumed at vehicle for memories, teaching to listen to this voice (Long 2004).

That author researched three Polish families (mountain region in the state of Rio Grande living in New York, outlining the role and do Sul, Brazil). Although the specificity of meanings attributed to food by people this kind of product is, to a great extent, sharing the same ethnic identity, associated to the physical characteristics of a notwithstanding differences in time of given territory, its particularity is determined residence in the United States. In one of the by the cultural dimension. Its differentiation cases examined, the seventy-five years old results from a shared practical knowledge, woman interviewed had been born in the transmitted from generation to generation, United States, grown in Poland from her and also from a taste shaped locally from sixth year onwards and later returned to the quality perceptions socialized within a United States, a very distant event at the community to the extent the product is part time of the interview. The nostalgia and of a way of life. Thus, although the Brazilian remembrances of the good flavors of the law authorizes selling raw (unpasteurized) past served as inspiration for her to recreate milk cheese only after it undergoes a and seek in her cooking practices an minimum aging of 60 days, the shared approximation between these flavors and experience among local producers and those of the hosting location, even when the consumers tends to consider good serrano original ingredients could not be found. cheese as a cheese that is yellowish, which Soups and bread in her Polish childhood had occurs from 15 to 20 days of aging (Cruz a sour taste. Although she currently does not 2012, Menasche and Krone 2012). bake bread in the United States, she included If food is a voice that expresses in her cooking sour salt and lemons meanings, as speech does, then it can tell (ingredients which she cannot recall as being stories.13 The alcohol cookies recipe narrates present during the period she lived in a story of trust between people. It tells that Poland) as emblems helping her to seek the the vitality of food does not dwell in the old flavors in the current ones.12 In order to measurability of its components, but rather recover the flavors of the past, she recreates in the caring relationship among the family that taste adding sour salt to chicken soup members – above all, trust is based on the and lemons to pea soup. She thus transforms sharing of wisdom; the belief in the recipes to recover experiences from her communion of notions and the safety community of origin. The food voice originating from it are acts of caring manifests the memory of flavors and generosity. The recipe also tells that taste is experiences of the community where she a collective construction. The spent her childhood and adolescence. “Food collectivization of taste does not need to be habits can change completely as we grow negotiated anymore, it is already a up, but the memory and the weight of early component of common sense, a tradition in food learning and some of the social forms learned through it remain, maybe forever, in 13 The term “stories” (or “narratives”) alludes to our conscience, as shown by Proust’s discursive verbal manifestation, but also to what lies madeleine, the most famous case.” (Mintz behind it. For a detailed account of the concept, a 2001, 32) theoretical and methodological deepening of the The same approach of food as a approach to food and foodways as narrative sequences, see Amon (2004, 2014) and Amon, voice that manifests meanings, ways of Guareschi and Maldavsky (2005). For a being in the world, identity, ethnicity, and contextualization and introduction to the theoretical other dimensions of life informs the hypothesis of food as social storytelling (narrative reflection about traditional handmade food food), see Amon (2004, 2014) and Amon and products, as is the case of the serrano cheese Maldavsky (2007). Harris-Shapiro (2006) analyzes food voice as narrative among North American from the region of Campos de Cima da Serra Jewish women, and adopts the term “narrative” as a cognitive and discursive genre where incidents are 12 In her own words: “‘I don’t remember sour salt or integrated in a consistent, chronologically organized lemons in Poland.’” (Hauck-Lawson 1998, 24). way, constituting forms of social discourse.

its stable components: one knows how the with tomatoes – aroz kon domat14 – recipe, cookies are supposed to taste like, it isn’t extracted from the referred Sephardi Jewish necessary to measure the sugar to reproduce family’s Cooking Recipe Notebook15, brings the taste. The same applies to the cooking out another dimension of this assumption: form and doneness. The recipe also tells that food as an indicator of changing identities. there is no need for scientific precision in Rice with tomatoes is a simple, the narrative, since the perfect reproduction quotidian food. In this family, it is also a of the food is not the main issue at stake. daily dish. Different recipes for this Variation is acknowledged and valued Sephardi dish indicate distinct ways of within the parameters of implied collective adding tomato: tomato purée (Grupo Aliyah acceptance. There is an assumed foundation da Wizo-Rio de Janeiro 1995, 104); fresh underlying the alcohol cookies recipe: the tomato sauce (Sternberg 1998, 277); tomato assumption of community. Therefore, this sauce, or, for Italian Jews, “cooking the rice recipe tells a story that recovers the memory simply with stock and braising tomatoes of what the community elected as a value. separately” (Goldstein 2000, 109); tomato purée or non-seasoned tomato sauce (Algranti 2002, 255); “tomato sauce, tomato Cooking Recipe 2: Quotidian Life purée, or smooth or chunky tomato salsa” and Changing Identities (Marks 2005, 437). “Tomato paste or 16 concentrate Elefante brand” joined the Aroz kon domat recipe after the family’s migration, when rice they were already settled in Brazil. The 1 spoon of tomato paste or substitution by the industrialized version of concentrate Elefante brand the ingredient that gives the twist to aroz oil kon domat expresses a new synthesis salt produced from the recipe brought by the warm water immigrants, whose customs and world view are transformed through interaction with the hosting society.

This phenomenon is not uncommon Warm the oil. Fry the rice well in among Sephardi Jews, who after being plenty of oil (until it covers the expelled from Spain undertook radical bottom of the pan) and salt. When it changes in ingredients and cooking is well fried, add the tomato paste practices. Among those entering Turkey, for and fry it too, mixing well. Fry until example, garlic – so characteristic of their it gets like popcorn not too burnt. food in Spain – was removed after they When it is really fluffy, lower the realized that its taste disgusted the local heat, add warm water so it overtops Muslims (Cooper cited in Goldstein 2000). the rice by some 2 fingers. Place In particular, due to the intimate contact the lid on, increase the heat to the between Jewish and Muslim women, who maximum. When it starts to get dry, shared recipes, stories, music, news, the taste it. If it is raw, add more water. Turkey-based Sephardi Jews adopted much If it isn’t too raw, mix it, lower the of the Turkish cooking, especially the heat and let it cook a little more sweets, so that the Jewish versions of with the lid on.

In the alcohol cookies recipe, we observed 14 Also known as Turkish pilaf, Sephardic red rice, or the assumption of the community as Spanish rice. affirmation of a collective identity. The rice 15 See footnote 2. 16 Elefante® is a nation-wide trademark of industrialized tomato concentrate available in the Brazilian market.

Turkish dishes are more "accurate" than symbol of modernity, they showed the wish those by Greek Orthodox Christians to identify with a new age.19 (Stavroulakis cited in Goldstein 2000, 18). Aroz kon domat is a daily food The proximity between Jews and Ottomans brought by a family from a faraway land, was also evident in the adoption of Turkish and yet it is a food recreated, produced and garments by Jews (Goldstein 2000). In the described in a new location, at a new time, migration process to Turkey, changes resulting from quotidian negotiations of occurred in the original material culture meaning. This food – food in general – through contact with new ways of eating, constitutes what Moscovici and Vignaux dressing, living, farming etc.17 (2000, 165) call a “’kernel meaning’”, “a The “tomato paste or concentrate reference [...] to the sense of the utterance” Elefante brand” included in the family around which lies a horizon. In other words, recipe indicates and results from the food is like a semantic focus constituting a transformation of taste (industrialized leading clue to the understanding of a whole tomato paste or concentrate) and cooking world of expressions, a horizon, of practices (tomato sauce, purée or pulp is no stabilization and mobility of ideas, concepts, longer homemade). Just as the banning of practical knowledges, tradition, belifes, and garlic upon arriving in Turkey might mean identities. As seen in the analyzed example, an attempt to dilute the limits distinguishing on this horizon there are social groups Sephardi Jews from the surrounding relating, identities redesigning their limits, society18, the adoption of the Elefante® recipes in transformation. tomato concentrate, resulting from the Coexistence between communities contact the family’s women had with the has transformed the limits that differentiate new Brazilian neighbors – in whose pans one community from the other, and different origins were mixed –, could mean consequently the constitutive features of the the construction of a new proximity, the collective identities; what was once a interaction with other identities. Moreover, homogeneous space shared by a collectivity as they adopted an industrialized product, and experienced as natural and unquestionable (the feeling of belonging) is shaken, and people lose their old reference frameworks while gaining freedom to test new ways of living (Jovchelovitch 2007). 17 The transformation of the material culture of communities with distinct habits in a migration “[...] holding a particular identity is a matter process is common to other ethnic groups. “When of daily and complex cultural work. Much of they settled in rural regions of Rio Grande do Sul, the this cultural production is quotidian; what German immigrants brought with them customs and one chooses to wear, to eat, or talk about traditions that would be transmitted to the succeeding reweaves the pattern of identity/ies anew, generations. But as they arrived in the new land, their knowledge and practices already started to undergo and communicates powerfully one’s own modifications. Just as the thick woolen clothes would identifications to others.” (Harris-Shapiro be substituted by cotton or flax twill, straw hats 2006: 71). It is in everyday food, as well as would be adopted for working instead of felt ones, in other dimensions of manifestation of the and women would exchange dark, heavy dresses for material culture in quotidian life, that we can lighter ones (Roche 1969), aspects relating to several work and life dimensions would undergo changes.” (Menasche and Schmitz 2007, 78) Wheater and 19 Harris-Shapiro (2006, 69) shows how the Jewish climate play an important role in the way people foodways may serve both to unite Jews with their modify previous habits and respond to their needs for own folk and to articulate limits between Jewish and clothing and foodways. non-Jewish worlds, revealing an “intricate dance” 18 We could think the same about the daily menu of between Judaism and Americanism that characterize Jews in the Middle Ages, studied by Dolader (1998, Jewish culture in the United States. Thus, that author 373), which “barely deviated from that of the questions this potential evidence of acculturation or Christians, except in regard to preparing and using Jewish nostalgia, and proposes understanding the certain animal raw materials”. phenomenon as personalized Jewish identities.

better realize the affirmation and changes of the plural character in the identities – and identities through the coexistence of consequently, the social memory of a communities with distinct origins and community – to be heard.20 cultures – a feature not only of migration Eating behaviors reveal the strategies processes, but also of globalization. enabling a group and its members to outline Ritual foods – characteristic to an identity and a local distinction at the celebrations and rites of passage – imply same time (Garrigues-Cresswell and Martin crystallization. These foods are associated to 1998). The aroz kon domat recipe is a voice totemic dishes, bearing great symbolic value narrating the identity affirmation of a and thus constituting identity milestones of Sephardi Jewish community settled in the group (Contreras 2007). They are laid on Brazil, expressing its distinction in relation the table in order to reaffirm an ancestrality, to others, whilst reporting – through the a tradition, a belonging to the community. Elefante® tomato concentrate as the Therefore, they are less permeable to protagonist in a traditional recipe – the change. transformation this identity suffered with It is necessary to take heed of migration and time. This voice narrates and potential shifts between quotidian and ritual. reconstructs the immigrant group’s social In an article analysing Claudia Roden's memory. (1970, 1999) and Colette Rossant's (1999, 2003) cookbook memoirs, Naguib (2006) shows how for Egyptian Sephardi Jews Food, Social Memory, Narrative established in Paris in a situation perceived and Community as of exile, a dish of ful medames – fava beans cooked with pickled turnips, onions, Our point of departure was a letter written and hot peppers, a simple food traditionally by a granddaughter to her grandmother belonging to quotidian life at the time when seeking to recover the history of a Sephardi they lived in Cairo – becomes a ritual food, Jewish immigrant family coming from a dish served on Sundays, around which Turkey and settled in Brazil. The letter was memory is cultivated and identity written in the context of the preparation of a reaffirmed. Topel’s (2003) study analyzes Cooking Recipe Notebook for the family, the adoption in quotidian life of Jewish assembling the recipes of the Jewish foods dietary laws, characteristic of ritual practices served on an everyday basis – the sole associated to eating, by a group of neo- aspect of Judaism the granddaughter orthodox Jews in São Paulo. These two recognized in her upbringing. From this distinct cases have in common the story, we analyzed some cooking recipes of transformation of quotidian in exception. It this family, approaching the relationship is not this quotidian food, altered in its food bears with a group’s memory, based on essence – where the usual is removed from culture. We proposed that quotidian food daily life or the unusual becomes voice, in opposition to ritual food, narrates characteristic of daily life –, which we wish negotiations of meaning and affirms both the to deal with. identity of a community and its In everyday food, not transformed in transformations arising from coexistence ritual, there is room for the integration of different ingredients, techniques, utensils, ways of preparing, inasmuch as old meaning 20 This could be considered as applying particularly can be negotiated and new meanings can be to Jewish communities, since the Jewish religion is incorporated. It is in everyday life where we seen as “an orthopractic religion, where ethics and ritual are inextricably interwoven, leading to a can notice how fluid the limits are in a definition of Judaism as a religion of prose rather community’s outline. The result is that than poetry, a religion celebrating quotidian facts quotidian food is a rich voice allowing for rather than the pathos inherent to extraordinary moments” (Sacks cited in Topel 2003, 205).

with other social groups. The stories told by 57). For a community to exist, there must be a food from another place in the place relationship, and relationship is the essence hosting it recover the memory of the place itself of the notion of human being as a of origin. While they reaffirm and person. The community provides the reconstruct this memory for the symbolic and material resources (often as community’s future generations, the food quotidian wisdom guiding practices in daily narratives may incorporate new features to life) allowing people to experience the world the memory. The food narratives solidify and achieve non-a priori intersubjective and transform identity, the system of constructions, such as belonging, being belongings, and the world views of the together and feeling being together. community in its new context. We are (Jovchelovitch 2007). It is by sharing these dealing then with social memory and what resources that they remain in community. the individual memory can recover from it. Jovchelovitch (2007) makes a case The inability of this family’s third that, through storytelling, social knowledge generation to cook Sephardi Jewish food becomes life, as well as representations of could mean more than losing the taste of the past and identity presentations. childhood – it could mean the sinking into According to that author, narratives allow oblivion of a group’s social memory. communities to recover the memory of what The notion of food as narrative and has happened, structure experience in a time the relationship of food with social memory sequence, give meaning to events, and build and identities were established throughout individual and social future. Narratives link this paper. The association deserving further events in a consistent story and relate them exploration is between community and to the social identity of a community. They (food) narratives. are interwoven with the construction and A community is characterized by ties continuity of communities, with the that extrapolate functional and bureaucratic production of common sense wisdom shared social relationships – they are chiefly ties of by the persons in a group. They allow caring and belief sharing, where the people reflection, questioning and criticism on involved wish to be accepted and loved, and communitarian life and historical heritage. in turn love and accept. Community is “a Storytelling is one of the ways through kind of life in society ‘where everyone is which communities comprehend their past, called by name’, that is, where all are unique their present and their future. and thus may have their say, speak their As they express the life of the mind, express their opinion” (Guareschi communities (Jewish, and others), the oral, 2004, 57). This notion assumes that human written, and practical food narratives beings are not isolated individuals, with total preserve and transform the identity and independence in regard to the others, nor are social memory. Nevertheless, their task is they parts of a machine whose functioning is greater than that: food narratives build independent from its constitutive parts; they communities. As they prepare Jewish food are persons whose ontology is based on the on a daily basis or transmit the recipes to the relationships they establish: their being is in next generations, people reaffirm that they relationships. Therefore, a community is are as related to the others, that they belong neither a sum of individuals nor a partial and together with the others who perform the massifying totalitarian reality; it is the fabric same practices. Thus they build a created by the exchanges where the paradox community. Food and foodways performed of individuality and whole reaches a and repeated on a daily basis constitute a compromise. It is a way of living in society social story telling that makes communities where we need the others (person is and, as such, provides substance for the relationship) and we have a name, we are constitution of social memory. unique, irreplaceable (Guareschi 2004, 56-

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