Documenting food processing: “Chaîne opératoire” & Ethnographic inquiry Laura Rival, University of Oxford Methods on the move, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 13 November 2015 What we will do today 1. Researching the food system by focusing on food processing 2. Indigenous knowledge: local and global science 3. Chaîne opératoire 4. MAKUSHI foods 5. Kari preparation 6. Practical exercise Food system: complex, adaptive and evolving • Crop growing • Crop harvesting • storage Food agriculture manufacturing consumption retail • Home • Transport consumption and • processing consumption away from home Nutrition transitions • Urbanization and rising incomes: diets too rich in animal produce, fat, salt, and sugar • Food manufacturers influence food choices through: – commercial advertising (especially towards children and youth) – Lobby of governments to avoid legislation regulating consumption of salt and sugar • Some governments use public campaigns and education to influence the preservation of healthy diets Food processing • A central element in the organization of the food system • In rethinking 21st C nutrition transitions, we need to pay much more attention to how food processing forms a key part of the distribution mechanisms that link food production and food consumption • Traditional and indigenous food processing techniques may offer valid solutions to 21st C problems • the traditional diet Traditional South is low in fat, rich in Korean diet is healthy: seafood and vegetables (80%): almost vegetarian • Korean cuisine uses lot’s of spices and condiments. Fermentation is an important part of traditional food processing How to retain this healthy diet? • Korean government persuaded people through public campaigns and education to retain the traditional diet, low in fat, rich in vegetables and seafood • An important part of this campaign was large-scale training in the preparation of traditional meals Indigenous knowledge systems • There is a lot of wisdom in indigenous knowledge. But ethnocentrism in agriculture and resource management: blindness to local people’s modes of knowing and ‘world making’. • Scientists have something to learn from local practices: other people have their own effective science and resource use practices • We need to challenge hierarchies of knowledge and create space for others’ ideas and knowledge alongside science Ethnographies of indigenous knowledge • Ethnography studies what people make (or have made) in determinate conditions of existence. • This making consist of material and ‘immaterial’ parts, for example, houses, gardens, languages, relationships • Ethnograpy is unique in getting some of its best ideas from the very people whose actions and thoughts it studies. Ethnographic fieldwork • 1st hand data collecting: the data collector is also the analyst • Ethnographic fieldwork is not based on hypothesis testing or modeling • Ethnographers primarily seek to understand how people represent their social reality and recordwhat people say/ think about their society and culture • Material culture (the objects that people make and use) plays a key role in revealing to the participant observer norms, meanings, and other ‘immaterial’ aspects of culture and society Techniques and culture • An ethnographer is like an apprentice: learn through active engagement in daily life and specialist activities • Learning a technique involves far more than the technical skills needed to make a particular object or process a particular food • Technology < = > world making [knowledge, craft, belief, identity, context] Food processing and cultural choices • Food preparation techniques reveal cultural preferences. The choices that make a particular cuisine can be documented through a systematic examination of actions involved in the preparation of particular foods. Operational sequences (chaîne opératoire) • Particular foods result from a series of actions and transformations • The ethnographer learns techniques as if these were cooking recipes • By documenting these processual actions in terms of operational sequences (step- by-step actions), we have a better chance to document technology from within, as a kind of indigenous knowledge Techniques form systems unfolding in time • 5 basic components: – Action – Objects – Energy – Matters – Knowledge • They are inter-related through different phases that constitute the transformation of matter into artefacts MAKUSHI FOOD CULTURE An indigenous civilization based on manioc (Manihot esculenta) Guyana: the only English-speaking country in South-America The Makushi live in the Rupununi region Rupununi savannas MANIOC PLANTATION (L.Daly Yupukari) My doctoral student Lewis Daly in his manioc plantation Manioc diversity • By combining sexual reproduction and clonal propagation, Amerindians have created an impressive varietal diversity • This diversity has many advantages in terms of : – creating dynamically adapative, resilient agricultural systems – offering multiple choices of storage and food conservation – allowing many possibilities of processed foods (breads, drinks, flour, etc) A Makushi kitchen A rich processing technology: Seeve for manioc flour A rich processing technology: The tipití, manioc squeezer Schwerin, K. H. 1971. Some implications of techniques for preparing manioc Peeling the roots Grating Activating the manioc squeezer Poisonous juice and starch Playing while working MANY DIFFERENT WAYS OF ELIMINATING THE POISONOUS JUICE Le fils de Rosa et la pulpe à la sortie du matapi DOUBLE FERMENTATION TECHNIQUES FOR BEER MAKING ‘our culture is sheer parakari’ • Makushi have many beers, but the most valued is kari (parakari), a beer made through double fermentation with use of an amylolytic mold (Rhizopus sp., Mucoraceae, Zygomycota) • 30 steps invovled in kari manufacture • Process involves high degree of sophistication: indigenous knowledge and rich belief system The bed is made of manioc leaves Bread is soaked in water MAMA KARI: THE ‘FERMENT’ 3 DAYS AFTER: THE BED IS COVERED WITH A ‘COTTON VEIL’ THE LEAVES THAT MADE THE BED ARE LEFT TO DRY IN THE SUN USING THE ‘CHAINE OPERATOIRE’ TO DOCUMENT PARAKARI (KARI) BEER MAKING 3 scientific ways of classifying Amerindian manioc processed foods makus hi kana kîse detoxification solides liquides u'wi kai tapioc wo' kasiri parakiri a Yde, Jens. 1965. Waiwai use of bitter cassava racine pulpe farine tamise jus jus laissé au tapioca + 6 bouillie jus frais jeté repos (tapioca) préparations cuite (5 façons) +13 boissons rôtie ajoutée à de l'eau cuite avec des fruits forêt Bina (muran) charms • Before making the beer (like any other acitvity requiring care and concentration), use of charm plants • Charms help to work well, to have more energy, to be more efficacious – Uyu´: type of glove with stinging ants – Kansku: tatooes (coner leeps, around mouth). For kari: on hands and wrist to augment physical strength and dexterity Kari preparation in 3 steps 1. Preparation of flat bread (large pancakes) 2. First fermentation 3. Second fermentation Today, I will only show you the operational sequences for (2) Preparation of the kari mama ferment • Leaves from the bed of a previous batch of karui are left to fry in the sun • Well dried leaves reduced to a powder in a special mortar (a’) • Powder carefully preserved until needed • This powder is responsible for the mold, which the Mkushi describe as ‘very white and sweet cotton’ 1. Prepare thick bed of manioc leaves in house or kitchen on a plastic or zinc sheet on the floor 2. Sprinkle the bed with kurarama (“manioc bone”) 3. Freshly baked flat bread is broken into pieces, they are soaked in water and then piled down on the bed 4. The whole is sprinkled with kari mama (unikya ye) 5. Cover the whole bed with a thick layer of Heliconia leaves 6. Leave to ferment for 3 days Practical exercise • Use the operational sequence approach to describe in detail – A technique you have documented in your fieldwork – A technical object I have brought along If you wish to know more: • Food processing and Food security: Peter O. Kalawole, L. Agbetoye and S. A. Ongunlowo. 2010. Sustaining world food security with improved cassava processign technology: the Nigeria experience. Sustainability 2: 3681-3694. • South Korean diet: Hye-Kyung Park, 2008, Nutrition Policy in South Korea, Asia Pac J Clin Nutr • Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Paul Sillitoe (ed.), 2007, Local science vs global science: approaches to indigneous knowledge in interbational development. • My work on manioc domestication: L. Rival & D. McKey. 2008. Domestication and diversity in manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz ssp. esculenta, Euphorbiaceae ). Current Anthropology 49(6): 1119-28. .