Rachel Black

This morning I read an article in the New York Times entitled “Table for 2? Get Ready to Wait in Line” and it got me thinking about the social aspects of waiting for food (something this article missed entirely).

Sure, I can understand the inconvenience of having to wait to be fed but I can also see a positive side–the social side of the ordeal. It seems to me that Americans have forgotten how to socialize in public spaces and why spontaneous sociability is important. Hey, it can even be pleasant! Waiting in line is an opportunity to meet new people, exchange a few words and maybe even some ideas. Have we forgotten that it can be a good thing to check in with the world around us? This mundane activity can also build solidarity!

On my first shopping trip to Eataly in Turin, Italy, I was fascinated by two very socially different worlds of the deli counter and the refrigerated self-serve cases. One goes to the deli counter partially out of a desire to socialize and communicate. First there is the waiting in line that necessitates cooperation and a certain ability to follow unspoken social rules and codes. One mustn’t jump the line. One must speak politely to the counter person and others waiting. One must state clearly what they would like and ask for help when they are unsure of this. Then there is the exchange with the counter person. We have the opportunity to ask questions, learn and exchange ideas. In contrast, those who prefer anonymity choose the self-serve case. To me this is an expression of independence and a desire for speed. Who has time anymore to wait to be served? Why would I waste my time talking to other people I don’t know from Adam? Spending a few moments observing the shopping behaviour at the deli case and the counter taught me a great deal about the changing social habits of Italians. Increasing social ineptitude is not unique to North America.

Well, whether waiting in line at a restaurant in New York or a deli counter in Italy, we come in contact with our fellow eaters. A priori we have something in common–our humanness.

Why do restaurant reviews never talk about how food makes you feel after you eat it? This was a question I was left pondering as I stared at the ceiling with my stomach rumbling last night.

The first food writers were extremely preoccupied with digestion and how food altered the humours (bile and mood, equally). In Physiologie du goût (1825), Brillat-Savarin devotes an entire chapter to digestion and realises its central importance in the act of eating. How did we loose touch with our stomachs in the act of eating? Why does taste only refer to our mouths and less frequently our noses?

Isn’t a large part of how food makes us feel about what happens after it enters our bodies? The instance of incorporation (in the true sense of the word) does not really occur in our mouths. Why then does modern food writing lack a language and vocabulary to address how food makes us feel, or at least something beyond romantic and poetic notions of how we feel when we see, taste and smell food. What about the culinary contentment of sated hunger or the lovely feeling of  a full belly? What about the wretched physical feelings after eating a rotten oyster or the regretful pains of over indulging in a second helping? Dare I go so far as to mention the unmentionable? Yes, we all know the primal pleasures of defecation, the ultimate output of all eating experiences.

Strong cultural taboos now keep us from associating eating with pooping. However, this was not always the case. It is interesting to note that North American culture is deeply obsessed with the pleasure and healthfulness of eating but we dare not speak about its physiological functioning. What happens in our bodies has been covered over, sanitized and banished from popular discourse. During the eighteenth century, the term restaurant was used to describe the dishes that were given to the ill and weak–often a rich meat dish to restore health and energy to the convalescent eater. Eventually, venues opened in Paris where pale and weak patrons could come and restore their health. Restaurants were initially all about how food made you feel, in a very physiological sense.

Surely, I have pushed this discussion to an extreme, but I am still left wondering how we ended up so disconnected from the act of eating. Perhaps its time to overcome our prudishness and really talk about how food makes us feel.

Further reading:

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/

Spang, Rebecca. The Invention of the Restaurant. Harvard UP, 2001.

I am a cultural anthropologist and I have never been to Africa. I have to admit that this has always caused me to feel inadequate as far as being an anthropologist goes. I have no stories of terrifying plane rides, recurring malarial symptoms nor do I have a wall full of tribal masks gifted to me by important chiefs. You have to understand that these are the standard trappings and tales that all of my Africanist friends have acquired. At anthropology cocktails parties, I am often the odd woman out. Perhaps only the North Americanists who don’t study Native Americans have it worse than me.

You see, I study Italy and France. No, this wasn’t a ploy to find a way to travel and live in two countries with amazing food and wine. Really, I have always been drawn to Italy and France and food and wine have been in my blood (figuratively) forever. While my work is interesting and gratifying, I often feel guilty because I am not helping save the world like many of my colleagues. I used to think that they were drawn to Africa because   of its exoticism, because Africa is the field par excellence.

Lately, I can’t shake the feeling that Africa is calling my name, and, no, my name sounds nothing like Florence Nightingale. Africa is seductively whispering to me: it is telling me to come and face myself, to figure out who I really am in relation to the world. You have to understand that part of my motivation for becoming an anthropologist (not just studying the academic discipline) was to face all the awkward, uncomfortable social situations I could possibly encounter. I have a feeling that going to Africa will cause me to lose myself and question my points of reference. Through this process I think I will gain a better understanding of my place in the world.

Now, I just have to find a way to get to Africa and do something useful there.

Michele and some lovely uva nera

When I was in Turin last month I returned to the field where I did the research for my PhD dissertation, the Porta Palazzo market. I was very anxious about going back after many years and only a few sporadic visits. I was going to find out what had happened during my absence, to find my old friends and informants and to see if I could salvage the manuscript I had written about this magic place.

As I approached the market from via Milano, I felt the same uncertainty I initially had when I first started my fieldwork: would I be accepted by the people at the market, would they remember me, how had our relationship changed from when I was here each day working next to the vendors doing my shopping and living a large portion of my life in piazza? What personal questions would they ask me (because they always do ask personal questions) and how would I tell them about the changes in my life? How would I recount all the places I had been and lived? How would I bring our worlds together again?

The first people I encounter were Luigi and his family at the candy stand. They were possibly the hardest people to get to know, with their guarded Piedmontese manners and closed family circle. As the shy smile rolled across Luigi’s face, I knew he remembered me. The whole family began to ask me where I had been? Where did I live now? We fell into our old prattle about life, health, relationships and happiness. Everything had changed but everything had stayed the same. I would soon learn that this largely held true for most of Porta Palazzo.

That week I went to the market each day. I spent time with my old friends. I drank wine and ate salami with Oscar and Walter. I went to Said’s house to break the Ramadan fast and catch up with his wife Naima. I even got to meet one of their beautiful daughters, who is a new edition since I first met this young Moroccan couple in 2002. At the farmers’ market, Pier let me mind his vegetable stand while he went to fetch his truck and his uncle Michele made me taste each type of grape he had brought to market as I waited. Andrea still looked as much in love as the last time I saw him selling bananas and pineapples. He told me about what happiness his relationship brings him. While there was some joy, there was also the usual storm clouds: everyone lamented the poor economy (like they always do) and talked about the impossibility of going forward in such a depressed state. No one except Piero had left (and that was family feud) the market. We are all a little older. There are more children. Most importantly, the market marches on as it satiates the city’s hunger.

For an anthropologist returning to the field can be one of the hardest things to do. However, it can also been one of the most interesting and fruitful activities. Returning to Porta Palazzo after a five-year break I had new questions to ask about the market. I saw more continuity. I could grasp long-term changes and trends. Yes, it was all the same but all different as well.

When I first moved to Italy, I was fascinated by the culture of bottled water, a beverage that seemed to prevail at the table. In North America, drinking bottled mineral water is usually a sign of affluence and often an outright show of status when dining out. Products such as Bling H2O take this to new extremes. In Italy, however, conspicuous consumption is not necessarily the case; families of all social classes now regularly purchase and lug bottled water home for daily consumption.

When I moved to Umbria, home to many of Italy’s most popular mineral water springs, I began to study the historical and popular reasons for drinking bottled mineral water. Although most Italian tap water is perfectly potable, Italians insist on clinging to the bottle. There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, Italians have a long history of using mineral water for medicinal and health purposes. I recently published an article on the rise of the mineral water industry in Italy in the nineteenth century: “Acqua di Sangemini: The Italian Mineral Water Industry Finds a Place at the Table” Journal of Modern Italian Studies. Vol. 14(2): 184-198. In this article, I argue that part of mineral water’s popularity in Italy is still connected to popular beliefs about health (calcium & minerals) & medicine (digestion & disease). In addition, many of the Italians I interviewed claimed that they drank bottled water because the tap water in their area was too rich in mineral content, causing kidney stones and other urinary tract disorders when consumed on a daily basis.

Secondly, in connection with the first point, most of the water supply (municipal aqueducts and private wells) in Italy was largely unsafe and a major cause of disease up until just after World War II. In addition, in the not-so-distant past there have been many cases of municipal mismanagement of mineral water that have done very little to build public confidence in tap water.

Lastly, bottled water can historically be considered a status symbol in Italy. During the 1960s & 1970s, having recently moved to cities from the countryside, Italian housewives proudly had glass bottles of water delivered to their homes and later lugged home packages of plastic bottles. Having enough money to buy water was not only a display of affluence, but also a show of one’s modern lifestyle, which emphasized hygiene and the health of the family.

This morning there was an article in the New York Times, “City Known for Its Water Turns to Tap to Cut Trash”, which looks at how the city of Venice is trying to encourage citizens and tourists to drink tap water, l’acqua del sindaco (the mayor’s water), instead of buying water in plastic bottles which clog up the city’s beautiful canals and over-taxed waste system. Venice has created a marketing campaign for this initiative that even attempts to create a brad, Acqua Veritas (which literally translates as Truth Water). The city is even offer free carafes to encourage the consumption of tap water at the table.

Although I am hopeful for a plastic bottle free future, I believe that Italian attitudes towards tap water and daily habits will be difficult to change. Municipal governments generally have poor track records for managing drinking water and this is perhaps the biggest hurdle in this battle; there is a long history of distrust towards the government as well as many scandals and tragedies in handling public health that must be overcome. The historical and cultural contexts of going green mustn’t be overlooked in the case of Italian water.