Page 31 - Studio International - September 1974

great span makes it difficult to apply to food the hard or soft or rough or smoothly textured — or it research the register of food colours and textures
kind of analysis which can be imported from might take a lot of account of these qualities. just because no colour could be seen without
linguistics. A verbal sentence which may take The same goes for colour and smell. We might being incorporated into a textured substance
years to analyse but two minutes to speak is have here a criterion for deciding whether the which affects the refraction of light. Texture
completely contrasted at the other end of the aesthetic aspects were dominating over the alone would not present such difficulties : one
pole to the food sentence which might take a nutritional. For example, would it be plausible could identify smooth, crumbly, straight-
life-time to complete. The food system of some that a food system which paid no attention to grained, fibrous, etc. But smells would present
working-class families that we studied in 1972 colour and none to smell or texture left more even more difficulty for testing. Here again, the
was very compact; the patterning of the rules scope for concern with nutritional standards? question of the autonomy of the art form raises
was very strict and very quickly the pattern was Judging from the way the nutritionists write itself.
repeated and repeated, the whole being about what is good food and bad food this would
represented in all the parts. But this does not seem plausible, but on the whole I fear it is a Social standards
necessarily hold for other food systems. A dubious conclusion. The subject is much more In other parts of social life there is a common
colleague described to me his experience of a complicated and needs to be divided up. For one convention that rough texture is appropriate for
French village in which domestic food is eaten thing, there is the question of autonomy again. more homely occasions, smoother for formality.
without ceremony on a practically monophagous It seems possible that a food system could use I have heard hostesses apologize for not having
basis throughout the year, in great contrast with smell, colour and texture according to its own sieved the spinach or the apple sauce, as if the
a communal village feast which is held annually. set of rules, which did not correspond in any smooth, silky flow of the food should match the
The villagers form a committee six months way with the rules for smell, colour and texture smooth, silky clothes of formal dress. Perhaps
before the feast and three months before the in other media. Take colour, for example. There texture of food is specially apt to feel pressures
committee is named the life of the village is might be a restricted set of colours, with fine from the social system to express formality. If so,
entirely dominated by speculations as to who gradations and permitted combinations, in we have here another possible dimension of
would be a good committee member. Once it is sequence and simultaneously, a set distinctive of comparison between food systems, or between
named, the work of choosing the menu and food colours and not found in any other activity. different parts of the same food system. It occurs
organizing the feast dominates village life until If such a distinctive register for food colours and to me that here is another matter capable of
the feast itself is prepared and enjoyed. After textures were developed by a gastronomic being systematically tested. I put forward the
this the next three months are taken up community we could compare it with the lexical hypothesis that the pressure of the social system
comparing the feast with previous feasts, register for balls and bats in distinctive sports. upon the food system will tend to destroy the
criticizing and praising, until it is time to start Just as you cannot talk of a tennis bat or a polo automony of the latter in all cases; but when
thinking about the election of the next bat you would find no colour combinations on the social system is undergoing rapid social
committee. Different in every way from the food your plate which could possibly appear in any change and harnessing the food system to its
system we are used to, by its apparent neglect of other context. This, I suggest, is a case of purposes, then the possibility of developing an
food in the domestic unit, this system is complete autonomy of the food system for autonomous register of food sensations will be
particularly interesting for its different phasing establishing its own sensory range. It would be diminished. This has the reactionary implication
in the temporal dimension and opens up to us surely likely to go with very elaborate aesthetic that social stability is favourable to the
the possibilities of variation which we can rules governing permitted combinations and development of food as an art form and social
expect to find once this kind of research is put in sequences. At the other end of the spectrum, change inimical to it. Thus those countries
hand on a proper comparative basis. food might never look or smell like food but which used to cast a stone at British culinary
always be disguised to look like candles or smell standards were probably countries which
The unities like flowers or given an impression of wild permitted a lower rate of social mobility. The
Under this head I consider a number of animals lurking in green forests or about to eat recent raising of gastronomic standards in our
questions which relate to the rigidity and the fruit; cakes might be carved to look like toy own country could be less due to the new
simplicity of the rules of the food system. How trains or soldiers, ice-creams to look like lilies, possibilities of travel than to the stagnation of
eclectic is it in regard to the range of materials i puddings like fairy-tale cottages. I just don't our social system over the last twenty years —
permits? Are there some parts which are very know whether the seeping into celebratory food these are only suggestions that occur to me
stable and others more experimental? This of themes and imitations from the rest of the while following this line of thought.
could be important for the nutritionist hoping to culture should be taken to indicate a strongly So much for introducing some questions
introduce new reinforced foods. How much is developed food system or not. I suspect not. concerning the development of food as an art
food of one kind always restricted to this or that Experiments would be quite possible to see form and its possible relation to the nutritional
particular setting? Take the example of the whether the more autonomous food system purpose in which food is also engaged. In the
wedding cake — our researcher from Mars will controlling its own sensory register is more open research into food as a system of communication
be disappointed if he thinks he can find or more closed to experiment; I suspect that it which was undertaken with the support of the
three-tiered cakes at funerals or Sundays and would be more closed. Its autonomous register DHSS, a researcher (Michael Nicod) went to
birthdays. The wedding cake is highly of food colours, food smells and food textures live in four different English working-class
specialized for one social function. But not all could only have become specialized as part of an families. The details of how the research was
food systems will have such rigid specialization effort towards creating a specially discriminated conducted would take too long for this article.
of forms for restricted meanings. How much is kind of 'good food'. The gastronomic What follows is summarized from his M.Phil.
the preparation of food made visible? How much community eating in this system would surely thesis, so far unpublished. The thesis deals with
is it kept off-stage? What are the rules for the have finely developed palates for discriminating many other interesting matters in the sociology
processing being done in the home or outside food sensations. The appearance of a half- of food which are relevant to this subject, but
the home? banana stuck into a pineapple ring, simulating a would make the article too long. We are both
candle, with a crystallized cherry on top for a conscious of having barely seen the tip of the
Sensory qualities flame, or a grapefruit with a cocktail stick and iceberg and of having left the other perspectives
Any art form would have to be analysed rice-paper sails looking like a boat, or even the of ethnogastronomy unexamined. As to the
according to its use of sensory discrimination. yule-log chocolate cake with the marzipan robin details of how the research was conducted,
The rules for presentation might take no perched on it would never be treated as serious suffice it to say that he was particularly
account, or little account, of whether the stuff is food. It would be very difficult technically to interested in recording accurately the structuring
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