Foodscapes, Foodfields, and Identities in the YucatÁn. Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz

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СКАЧАТЬ suggests that when looking into the constitution of regionalism, we need to analyze the elements that are constitutive of the phenomenon: the political economy of a regional culture (who generates signs and how are they distributed) and the relationship between space and ideology (ibid.: 63). In fact, although Lomnitz recognizes that within a region different interest groups may exist and that hegemony is created regionally, taking national hegemony as the general ground of reference, he defines regional feelings as “localist ideologies” that are useful in easing the tensions between “intimate culture” and nationalist interests (ibid.: 78). In any event, for the purposes of the present argument, what these cultural approaches emphasize is, first, the existence of a set of symbols, values, and meanings that, even though they may be generated by elite interest groups, are mobilized and circulated via the instruments of different social institutions, and, second, that they are shared to a greater or lesser extent by the different groups that constitute the social, political, and economic regional structure.

      Some regional identities have, in time, transformed into national identities, and some social institutions tied to the state (e.g., the educational system, the church, demographers, surveyors, cartographers, newspapers) have engaged in the spread of instruments to promote the imagination of the nation. As I argue below, this was the case for both Yucatán and Mexico, although in the end Yucatecan nationalism remained reduced to the common consciousness of a shared peoplehood that is subordinated to Mexican nationalist discourses and national identity. In the following section, I examine some of the mechanisms and instruments that have allowed the spread of the nation-form.

       Dissemination: National and Regional Cuisines

      It is within this framework that I have chosen to further unpack Bhabha's (1994) take on ‘dissemiNation'. He borrowed and expanded Derrida's concept of ‘dissemination' to discuss the post-colonial implications of replicating the European blueprint during the creation of new nation-states elsewhere. I believe that highlighting the complex set of meaning associations inscribed in this term can be useful in understanding how Yucatecan gastronomy and identities have emerged amid cultural negotiations that respond to both the goal of defending the interests of regional elites—disseminating their values and views among other social groups—and the desire to define and establish regional culture as one marked by cosmopolitan inclinations. Hence, in addition to Bhabha's usage, ‘dis/semi/nation' uncovers three different processes that are usually collapsed into one single term. First, as ‘dissemination' it privileges, since the end of the eighteenth century, the spread of nationalist ideologies as a universal blueprint to legitimize any state's claim to ‘modernity'. Second, as ‘dis-semination' it emphasizes the differences inscribed in the local appropriation of ideas about the nation inspired by European philosophy and political thought. As I show in chapter 1, this process, which unfolded among central Mexican and Yucatecan elites alike and in parallel, informed the Yucatecan tendency to affirm its distinctiveness from Mexico throughout most of the nineteenth century. Third, as ‘dis-semi-nation' it places the emphasis on the consequences of the displacement of independence claims in favor of the emergence, since the early twentieth century, of a strong sense of regional identity. This identity is rooted in an awareness of peoplehood that, without giving rise to separatist desires, sustains the regional certitude that Yucatecan culture is different from Mexican culture. Yucatecans do not fully participate in Mexican cultural values and institutions, nor do they fully constitute a nation; rather, they can be seen as embodying a semi-nation in an ambivalent, difficult (dis-) relation with the nation. As I will be showing throughout this volume, these concepts find expression in the political construction of the Yucatecan foodscape and in the regional culinary and gastronomic fields.⁵

      The following arguments are well-known today, so I will not examine them here. However, it is important to point out that various scholars have analyzed the relationship between the forging of modern nations and the invention of national cuisines. Since Appadurai's (1988) seminal discussion about the part that cookbooks played in the invention of Indian cuisine, several studies have documented how culinary institutions became tied to other social and cultural forces, erasing regional differences and homogenizing national taste. This process had been largely neglected, although Camporesi (1970) had already argued that, following the political unification of Italy, Pelegrino Artusi's cookbook, La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well), first published in 1891, had profited from the new political context and the growth of industrial food processing and packaging to bring Italian regional culinary practices together into a national cuisine. In turn, Ferguson (2004), Mennell (1985), and Trubek (2000) have examined the part played by cookbooks, the press, restaurants, and chefs in the institution and universalization of French cuisine. Also, Cwiertka (2005) has described the interaction between national and European culinary values in the process of the modernization of Japanese cuisine and the ensuing invention of a national gastronomic form that silenced regional differences.

      As the analysis of national cuisines progressed, other scholars highlighted that, despite attempts to homogenize national cuisines, there is a deterritorializing internal heterogeneity of cuisines within single modern nation-states. Thus, Capatti and Montanari (1999) insist in the locality and strong regional identity of Italian cuisines,⁶ putting the accent on diversity where previous descriptions emphasized homogenization. Banerji (2007), for her part, executes the same exercise for India, describing the regional specialties that mark each Indian region as distinct from the others. While dealing indirectly with the nation, other studies have privileged the study of regional foods where previously we found narrations of a single national cuisine. Hence, Long (2009) describes the existence of regional culinary traditions derived from the diverse ecological contexts and ethnic demography of US regions. In turn, Gutierrez (1992) and Bienvenu, Brasseaux, and Brasseaux (2005) look at the modern creation of Cajun food, and Swislocki (2008) describes the distinct cuisine of Shanghai, dispelling the illusion (if it still existed) that there is a Chinese national cuisine (see also Wu 2002; Wu and Cheung 2002).

      While in Latin America there are, in the popular imagination, widespread associations between nations and particular dishes, there are no studies available that examine the formation of national cuisines in South American countries. Not even publications such as Lovera (2005), McDonald (2009), and Natella (2008) help to identify national cuisines in South and Central America. Lovera's and McDonald's books recognize the interaction between the environment and humans and between Europeans, Africans, Asians, and natives in the creation of culinary habits in different regions. However, they privilege the identification of commonalities across regions and the distinctiveness of regions' cooking styles as arising from the ethnic/racial composition without a reference to national cultures, or, as in Pazos Barrera (2010), privilege the discussion of local culinary ingredients, technologies, and techniques in the multiple environments of the Andean region. In a different vein, Natella (2008), seeking to dispel simplistic stereotypes in the US about food in Latin America, lists some dishes that are seen as ‘typical' in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and ‘the Caribbean', but he does not get into a discussion as to whether any of these countries has developed a national cuisine (much less any regional traditions). Thus, in the popular imagination, beef dishes and roasts often bring to mind Argentinean, Uruguayan, and Brazilian meals, while the stew feijoada evokes Brazilian taste, but the heterogeneity that characterizes each of these nation-states seems to prevent either the invention or the writing of national cuisines. Consequently, regional dishes become frequently tied to race or ethnicity (African American or indigenous groups) or to social class (Drinot 2005; Fajans 2008; Folch 2008; Walmsley 2005). There is still a lack of studies examining the relationship between regionalism and food in Latin America, and this is understandable, given the scarcity of studies on nationalist cuisines (exceptions being Pilcher 1998 and Wilk 2006).⁷ This book seeks to make a contribution in bridging this gap and to encourage discussion about the ways in which regional culinary cultures negotiate their significance and meaning in a context (commercial, political) that favors the identification of national rather than regional cuisines.

       Mexican National and Yucatecan Regional Cuisines СКАЧАТЬ