Size Matters: the Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics
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BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 3 October 2019 Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics Kerri Lesh University of Nevada, Reno, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga Part of the Basque Studies Commons, Food Studies Commons, Linguistic Anthropology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Lesh, Kerri (2019) "Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics," BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. 10.18122/boga/vol7/iss1/3/boisestate Available at: https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga/vol7/iss1/3 Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics Cover Page Footnote A great thanks for the support of Cameron Watson and Daniel Montero in helping me revise this article. Additionally, I would like to thank everyone that was part of my fieldwork in the Basque Country and to my fellow panel members with whom this article was presented at the American Anthropological Association (AAA). This article is available in BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal: https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga/ vol7/iss1/3 Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics Kerri Lesh, PhD. “People look for the origin of the wine they consume, they want to link it to the terroir … they are looking for something more than just the quality of the product, but rather the story behind the wine, the histories that lie behind a glass, and being able to focus in on a particular bodega, on the places where it is cultivated and produced. Because of that, it is important to identify those spaces and give them their due value.” (author’s translation) (Muñoz, 2017). This quote taken from Bittor Oroz, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Fishing, and Food Policy for the Basque government, expands on the importance of making “place” more visible with a change in font size, as stated in the Noticias de Alava (2017). This comment, together with further illustrations below of how Basque semiotics are used to create value, showcase how two pillars of Basque culture—language and food—are intertwined to create cultural, economic, and linguistic value for Basque identity. Throughout my fieldwork, conducted over the course of 2017, I observed and analyzed various ways in which the Basque language, Euskara, is used alongside local Basque gastronomic products to create economic, cultural, and linguistic value (Lesh, 2019a). In the following examples, I highlight the ways in which various forms of semiotics—the study of signs as “something which stands for something to somebody in some respect or capacity” (Peirce 1931-1958, 2.228) —combine to create value. Through the Peircian framework of icons (signs that signify through resemblance), indexes (signs that signify through contiguity or causality), and symbols (signs that signify through culturally specific conventions) Riley and Cavanaugh (2017) point out that semiotic value is created through the unique authenticating quality of minority languages such as Euskara. Language is used on signs and drink labels symbolically and communicatively, through the font size and typography. Such language use helps create what Moriarty and Järlehed (2018) describe as the semiofoodscape, a lens through which semiotic landscapes BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal 1 BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal, Vol. 7, Iss. 1 pertaining to food can be examined (26). In the examples to come, the creation of value will be illustrated by signs as they appear through font size, font style (typeface), and through individual words as well as the communicative use of Basque language in general. The Evolution of Euskara and Gastronomy Language and food are two distinguishing features that intertwine in defining a people, at least in the case of the Basques over the last several decades. As the primary site for my fieldwork, which involves examining the relationship between language, food, and culture, the Basque case has been insightful for understanding the significance behind the name a specific culture takes and the place it inhabits in relation to identity formation. Known as Euskal Herria, the Basque Country’s name translates as “land of the Basque-speakers” (Morris 2010, 554). The language spoken in the Basque Country is Euskara, and the word used to describe someone from this land is Euskaldun. The word “euskal+dun,” meaning Basque or Basque speaker, literally translates as “one who has the Basque language” (Lantto 2012, 24). To recognize a place and person by the language spoken, as seen in this case, asserts the value of language as a key identifying feature of a culture. The first wave of Basque nationalism and language revival in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used language as evidence for the Basques’ particular identity based on their origin and distinction from Spanish culture (Urla 2012). In 1918, the creation of the Basque Language Academy and Society of Basque Studies marked a key development for modernizing and unifying Basque culture and language (Watson 2003, 243). After the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and under Francisco Franco’s strict regime (1939– 1975), attempts were made to exterminate all vestiges of Basque culture, including the use of Euskara (Watson 2003). As a response, the now defunct pro-independence Basque nationalist group, ETA,1 carried out a campaign of political violence that shaped the image of the Basque Country in the media globally. At the same time, Basqueness gradually became centered on language and culture, as it was transformed from heritage into practice (Urla 2012). Spain transitioned into a democracy after 1975 with a new Constitution that granted more autonomy to the Basque Country and included language rights for Basques. The gastronomic fame of the Basque Country is a comparatively recent phenomenon. One could trace the impetus for this fame to the nueva cocina vasca (New Basque Cuisine) that 1 ETA is the Basque acronym for “Euzkadi (later Euskadi) ta Askatasuna,” meaning “Basque Country and Freedom.” They were an organization that eventually employed armed struggle in the name of Basque nationalism, internationally portrayed as terrorists. https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga/vol7/iss1/3 DOI: 10.18122/boga/vol7/iss1/3/boisestate 2 Lesh: Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font and Semiotics started to gain momentum in the 1980s. Since then, the growing global renown of its gastronomy has ultimately led to the Basque Country being government-branded as “The Culinary Nation” (Lesh 2019b). By the time I was conducting my own research in 2017, San Sebastián had been named one of the two 2016 Cultural Capitals of Europe and Basque Michelin-starred restaurants were making headlines on the “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” list. In 2018, the Basque Country hosted the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in addition to having two restaurants listed within the Top 10 restaurants worldwide (Price, 2017). In addition, an increase in ecotourism and the opportunities to try the local Basque beverages mentioned below, such as txakoli (Järlehed and Moriarty 2018) and those from Rioja Alavesa, have in recent years transformed the Basque Country from a nation associated with political violence to one touted for its gastronomic fame. This nation branding occurred as I was leaving the Basque Country at the end of 2017, and by 2018, signs in English publicizing its gastronomic fame welcomed all incoming tourists and locals alike in the Bilbao airport. This recent evolution and growth of gastronomic sectors has attracted interest from outsiders, which has had an impact on linguistic and cultural practices (Lesh 2019b). It is the unique, authenticating quality of minority languages that give them their semiotic value, as Riley and Cavanaugh (2017) point out. Through the Peircian framework of icons (signs that signify through resemblance), indexes (signs that signify through contiguity or causality), and symbols (signs that signify through culturally specific conventions), I will now focus on the last category. As discussed by Cavanaugh and Shankar (2014) and Duchene and Heller (2012), we know that commodification of minoritized languages occurs in various ways through language materiality (Cavanaugh & Shankar, 2017). Shankar and Cavanaugh see the “language of everyday life as material practice: embedded with structures of history and power, including class relations and markets, but also having physical presence” (2017, 1). Their goal is to combine language and materiality together to shed light on the processes of meaning-making and value production, and to show how incorporating materiality into linguistic analysis can ground “distinctive material processes” (1) within social, cultural, political, and economic structures of power. Part of viewing language materiality is to view it as a material presence with physical and metaphysical properties, embedded in these political economic structures. The goal is to view the materiality of language rather than conceptualizing materiality alongside but distinct from language (1). The commodification of language within the authenticating processes of the “foodie” culture, a culture made up of people described by Merriam Webster as “having an avid interest in the latest food fads” (Merriam Webster, 2019) encourages distinction through knowledge of food, which creates cultural capital. As Duchene and Heller (2012) point out, BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal 3 BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal, Vol. 7, Iss. 1 economic value is produced individually with each language and food, as well as jointly when the two value systems are combined (3). In addition to conducting interviews and focus groups with food producers, I also collected photos and drink labels that illustrated the use of Euskara, or the use of Euskara alongside translations. I focused particularly on milk, wine, and cider labels from the southern part of the Basque Country, Hegoalde, to find out how common and in which contexts such beverage marketing took place.