See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289126553 The world on a plate: Globalization and national cuisines Article in Quaderni Storici · December 2006 CITATIONS READS 3 1,662 1 author: Simone Cinotto Università degli Studi di Torino 19 PUBLICATIONS 88 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Simone Cinotto on 07 December 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. 60 RESEARCH SIMONE CINOTTO_ UNIVERSITY OF TURIN National Cuisines changing seasons. According to one influential critic of contemporary society, and Globalization “The whole world’s cuisine is now assembled in one place in almost exactly the same way that the world’s geographical complexity is nightly reduced to a series of images on a These days national cuisine and static television screen” (Harvey 300). globalization are defined as terms in Nonetheless, when the subject is examined opposition to each other. The former is from a historical perspective–that is, if the frequently used to exemplify and often terms in question are considered not as self- criticize the effects of the latter. The media referential entities but as processes–it is have popularized the image of national immediately evident that such a description cuisines as an important part of the is excessively simplistic. From this identities which a huge blender called perspective, national cuisines are revealed as globalization contaminates, weakens and cultural constructs in continuous evolution. a n n threatens with extinction. It is no Globalization then appears as a recently o T a n coincidence that the arrival of McDonald’s popularized label which describes only the o m i S in France created considerable uproar. What latest, conspicuous phase in the formation : o t o else could be so culturally dramatic? On the of transnational interdependencies which h P one hand, there is a culinary heritage, have been in existence for many centuries. with an apparently immemorial past, Consequently, our interest is concentrated which constitutes an essential component on the complex nature of the relationships between national cuisines and globalization, rather than on their conflicting elements. Culinary globalization is a recently popularized label, In support of this last perspective, in this describing only the latest, conspicuous phase in the formation article I shall examine various examples of research on the subject, in an attempt to of transnational interdependencies which have been in answer the following questions: What is national cuisine? What are the influential existence for many centuries formal and symbolic changes occurring at the beginning of the 21st century? of national identity. On the other hand, a Furthermore, and more radically: Is there meal of a hamburger, French fries and Coca- still any point in talking about national Cola, symbolic of the uniformity of taste, cuisine in an era of global markets, mass overriding and breaking down barriers and migrations, the unlimited circulation of differences in the name of a consumer images and information and an accelerated democratization which is typically North cultural crossbreeding? American, but can be used all over the world as a form of universal language (Fantasia). What is national cuisine? It is not only the monotonous element of fast-food that is of concern. The arrival Cooking occupies an important place in on our supermarket shelves of an national sentiments at all latitudes. Many unprecedented variety of foods from foreign will agree that having a national cuisine is lands, available throughout the year, has no less essential to a country than having a thrown into confusion the space-time national literature. However the real content regime of a cuisine that believed itself to be of what makes a “national cuisine” is also linked directly to its territory and the elusive and intangible. What does Chinese 62 RESEARCH SIMONE CINOTTO a n according to Mintz is the only kind that can n o T a be designated cuisine. In order to exist, “a n o m cuisine requires a population that eats that i S : o t cuisine with sufficient frequency to o h P consider themselves experts on it... A genuine cuisine has common social roots; it is the food of a community,” with its roots in a clearly circumscribed territory (96). Consequently an authentic cuisine can be at the very most regional, but never national. Secondly, says Mintz, national cuisine is something completely different from haute cuisine, which is a repertoire of culinary arts and the prerogative of privileged groups, created centuries before the formation of nation-states. In the West, examples are to be found in the culture of Ancient Rome and the highest expressions of court cuisines from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Over a thousand years ago in China a highly refined gastronomic literature served the sophisticated requirements of the Imperial Court. However pre-industrial haute cuisine was, by its very nature, universalist and removed from its territorial context as well as elitist. It was more global than national, importing ingredients , techniques and chefs from faraway lands, expressing its haughty indifference to local specialties or seasonal cycles. In his history of taste in The unified identity of a national cuisine is expressed Great Britain and France from the Middle when products and methods abandon the field of individual Ages to today, Stephen Mennell has noted that until the 19th century there were consumption and venture into the global much stronger differences between the elitist and popular cuisines within the two dynamics of commerce countries than between their respective hautes cuisines. The only occasion in which Mintz doesn’t cooking effectively consist of? Where can regard the definition of national cuisine a one eat real Italian cooking? contradiction in terms is when concerned In an essay significantly entitled Cuisine: with “traveling cuisine,” in other words the High, Low, and Not at All, the American experience of a culinary culture from the anthropologist Sidney Mintz amused outside: “ If there were a restaurant in Des himself with a demonstration of what a Moines, Iowa, named Gerbe de Blé or Les national cuisine is not. Primarily, national Gaulois , that vaunted a menu in both French cuisine is not regional cuisine, which and English, offered to prepare for its guests RESEARCH 63 the drink called kir , used sauces such as Class (36). A British anthropologist, Goody béarnaise and grenobloise , served snails or has effectively concentrated his attention on some sort of pâté as a first course, and had a the stratified societies of the pre-industrial wine list with at least some wines from era, identifying in types of food not so Bourdeaux on it, we would know what kind much as a division among classes, as does of cuisine it has. French, of course–what Mintz, but of dialectics. From this historic else?” (95). According to Mintz it is perspective, Goody also illustrates the role exclusively within the dimension of of food technologies (preservation, “exportation from its home territory” that mechanization, sales and transport systems) the acceptance of a national cuisine has any in fostering the spread of both quantity and sense. variety of foodstuffs and a more egalitarian Reasoning along these lines is widely distribution of food. The interaction accepted. In Italian Cuisine: A Cultural between social classes can promote a History , Alberto Capatti and Massimo consensus around gastronomic standards. Montanari have identified in “a network of Technological progress produces greater culinary customs, food lore, and cooking amounts and more diversity of food and practices, dating back to the distant past, thereby stimulates society’s interest in that make explicit reference to an Italian questions regarding food culture. It is context” the historic element providing a through these interdependent and necessary form of cohesion and logic to a cultural map processes that the social basis for the punctuated by mortadella (a large spiced creation of a national cuisine can be pork sausage) from Bologna, Milanese established. Goody ultimately insists that ossibuchi (braised shank) and triglie alla no food system is (or has been) completely livornese (red mullet in a tomato sauce). uncontaminated, particularly those cur- According to Capatti and Montanari, the rently recognized as national or regional unified identity of Italian cooking is cuisines. Both the tea and sugar of English expressed on the outer boundaries of traditions are products of the colonies, individual food cultures, when products and initially reserved for consumption by the methods abandon the field of individual consumption and venture into the global dynamics of commerce. The Italian character of its cuisine has settled first, and above all, in the expressions of “a foreigner in a foreign country” (ix, xv). Similarly, Penny van Esterik has noted that the most organic form of Thai cuisine is the one currently popularized on the international market by Thai restaurants abroad and by the tourist resorts operating in the country itself, constructed through a combination of haute and popular cooking, regional variations and culinary traditions with both Indian and Chinese origins. It is this exchange, both internal between haute cuisine and popular cooking, and external, which is the main theme of Jack Goody’s classic work, Cooking, Cuisine, and 64 RESEARCH SIMONE