Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

The paper draws from a comparative multi-sited ethnography of intergenerational culinary skill transmission in Akita, Japan and Mthatha, South Africa. By juxtaposing these two contemporary examples, the idea is to better illuminate the variety of ways in which broad-scale processes of rural-urban mobilities shape the boundaries of how we understand place, localities and what constitutes the rural and the urban through food. The emphasis on intimate matters of intergenerational culinary skill transmission is significant because cooking and food actively constitute a part of family networks that impact our understanding of belonging and identity. The paper looks at the importance of place in producing foods that trigger memory, belonging and community - from the seasons, to the ingredients that are available, to the social relationships that enable the production and reproduction of particular foods. Foods, such as umfino in Mthatha and kiritanpo in Akita, and the process of producing these foods, not only represent human social relations but are actively part of constituting what it means to be human.