Food Histories and Narratives
Politiki Kouzina: Transnational Food as Embodiment of Traumatic Migrant Histories
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Grgic
Food carries the embodied memory of a common cultural and socio-historical past of a particular community (Nadia Seremetakis), and can serve to trace global migrant trajectories. Narratives of cooking have often figured in national cinemas of the Balkans, not only as representations of social and cultural practices of the everyday, but also as a way of delving into difficult (hi)stories. In this paper, I analyse how the film Politiki Kouzina /A Touch of Spice (2003, Tassos Boulmetis) addresses a traumatic and contested national history of Greece and Turkey, through the trajectory of a shared cuisine, and how it suggests that food, like people, carries transnational identities. “Every culture privileges certain sense modalities as vehicles for knowledge” (Marks 2000: 225), and in the Balkans, food practices become a driving force for memory. In Politiki Kouzina, food functions as a “recollection-object” generating sensations in the viewer's body, and offering sensory experiences of the protagonist, his community and ultimately national histories. The complex political relationship between the two countries is explored through gastronomical allusions; notably, the sensitive issue of forced migration of ethnic-Greek minorities from Turkey is broached without recourse to nationalist rhetoric but through culinary practices. Food becomes a perfect purveyor of subtext (Poole 1999:3), acting as performative cultural memory of “home” for Greek ethnic minorities in Asia Minor now settled in modern Greece. The cultural difference of Istanbulite Greeks is attributed to a particular cuisine, which is transnational: Greco-Turkish, and unable to assume a distinct national identity like the people themselves.
Food History of Osaka: The Story of Dashi
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aiko Tanaka
The city of Osaka has a history going back more than 2,500 years, making it one of Japan’s oldest cities. It has been a major economic and commercial center since long before the western world knew of Japan’s existence. Through the city’s rich history it was famed as the City of Water, and its close proximity to the ancient inland capitals of Kyoto and Nara meant that it provided the financial backbone for those communities while simultaneously fostering its own unique culture. Today, the cuisine of Osaka delights visitors from around the world with its tantalizing presentation and the uncompromising expertise that emerged from this lively social milieu. The down-home tastes of okonomiyaki, shabu-shabu, and udon noodles, to name a few, share a common ingredient – the infamous fish and kelp-based dashi stock, with a sophisticated taste like nothing else found in Japan. In my discussion I will present information found in my book, “Food Studies of Osaka: From Paddy Field to Our Chopsticks” (2018), focusing on the link between port cities and culinary evolution, as well as answer any questions participants may have on the food history of Western Japan.
