Traditions and Trends
Diaspora Foodways in the Borderlands : Negotiating Chinese and Arab Culinary Traditions in Seattle/Vancouver and Detroit/Windsor
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Robert Nelson
What role does food play in the relationship of a regional diaspora that is spread across an international border? That food is crucial to the identity of migrant groups, maintaining a connection with the past/homeland, is clear, but how is this culinary nationalism transformed in the liminal space of the borderland, when members of the diaspora are closely related but living in two different countries? The two case studies being compared in this talk, the foodways of the tightly, daily connected communities of the Arab Diaspora across the Detroit River, in Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, is contrasted to the more distantly separated families of the Chinese diaspora in Vancouver and Seattle. Both situations involve a diasporic ‘homeland’: Detroit as the home of the largest community of Arab-Americans, which results in an almost ‘terroir-like’ praise for pita and baklava made in that city, while some Chinese-Americans in Seattle claim that Vancouver possesses the best Chinese food ‘in the world,’ worthy of special long distance visits when relatives are visiting from China. The foodways of both communities are explored, especially the role the border has played, and continues to play, in the lives of these American and Canadian borderlanders.
The Sense of an Inimitable Traditional Dish in Pontic Greek Cuisine –– Tanomenon Sorva View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Achillefs Keramaris, Eleni Kasapidou, Paraskevi Mitliagka
This study examines the cuisine of Greeks of Pontic ancestry, focusing on one of their most popular dishes, which combines the principles of Pontic Greek cuisine. Exploring the cultural context and symbolic meaning of tanomenon sorva (a soup made with coarse grains, salty strained yogurt, and mint) may help to raise awareness of the importance of Pontic Greek culinary culture. Tanomenon sorva was investigated for its cultural and symbolic value as part of the study, which aims to raise awareness of its unique local cuisine. Food carries social connotations and is an important part of the diaspora’s social life, expressing a sense of belonging. Culinary cultures, eating habits, symbolism, and identity are all explored in this study. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather information about participants' perceptions of the tanomenon sorva and its meaning. Participant interviews and recordings of the soup-making process were used to conduct a deep and systematic thematic analysis of the data. Tanomenon sorva dish preparation and eating is a perfect occasion for family gatherings in the Pontic Greek culinary arena, as it conveys a sense of unity and connection. Data from diverse places in northern Greece where Pontic Greeks live is necessary to strengthen the validity of the results. Finally, traditional dishes have helped Greeks of Pontic descent display their ethnicity and cultural diversity, including their gastronomic background.
Featured Human-food Entanglement: Race-making Through Food and Politics of Consumption in Seventeenth Century Jamestown View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eunwoo Yoo
How are we connected with food ideologically? Within the context of colonial expansion, the material and literary cultures of the early modern period were imbued with novel and shifting foodstuffs and foodways; while simultaneously intertwined inextricably with the development of political notions such as “race” and “nation.” Drawing from Ian Hodder’s theory on entanglement, which foregrounds the human-thing interrelations, I propose that there is an agency in food as such a thing. By observing this agential potency of food and human engagement with food, this project probes the significance of such entanglements in the formation and establishment of politics, particularly identities and categories pertaining to race, nation, and colonialism. The spatiotemporal setting of the English colony of Jamestown in the seventeenth century serves as a case study as it was an intersectional locus in which different food, cultures, and identities of the New and the Old Worlds coexisted. The Jamestown inhabitants initially distinguished them from the ‘savage’ natives they encountered, identifying with the English ‘back home’ in Europe through their dietary choices and habits. However, as their engagement with the food of their new home evolves, so does their identity, social order, and culture as Virginians — distinctive from the English — develop. By paying attention to food as agents in the formation and transformation of identity, this paper delineates how the meanings of race and politics of colonialism have emerged and advanced, and how they were tangibly articulated and concretized in both material presences and literary tropes of food.
