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Food Anthropology Quotes

Browse 131 quotes about Food Anthropology.

Food Anthropology Quotes

“Many seed savers see themselves as stewards, not only of their own family memories but of the shared stories and genetic codes contained within these plants. This kind of recollection works against collective forgetting and the widespread disappearance of so many agricultural plants and animals. Old localized, traditional varieties of plants and animals fell (or were pushed) out of everyday use as agriculture became increasingly large scale, industrialized, and standardized, relying on ever fewer varieties in order to achieve the high levels of uniformity and predictability expected not only by stockholders but also by grocery store shoppers. The loss of biodiversity also means a broader form of forgetting.”

FoodMemoryForgettingFood Anthropology
Book:Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods
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“While this book focuses on the heirloom food movement, I argue that edible memory is far more expansive than simply the way people treat old-fashioned tomatoes or apples. Based on my observations, edible memory is something people enact with regard to a whole range of foods--including some of the most highly processed foods around. The heirloom varieties I focus on in most of this book are a particularly charged site of the intersections of food, memory, and meaning, but they serve as one rich example of a much larger process.”

FoodMemoryForgettingFood Anthropology
Book:Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods
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“To eat these foods again in the new country was a way of holding on to the grandmothers and mothers who had first cooked with them. Often, however, the remembering through food is bittersweet, because even when you have tracked down every last herb and spice, the missing ingredient is the cook. You find you don’t want pasta ‘just like Mama used to make’; you actually want Mama herself.”

FoodEatingMemoryFood WritingFood Anthropology
Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
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“From our first year of life, human tastes are astonishingly diverse. As omnivores, we have no inbuilt knowledge of which foods are good and safe. Each of us has to use our senses to figure out for ourselves what is edible, depending on what’s available. In many ways, this is a delightful opportunity. It’s the reason there are such fabulously varied ways of cooking in the world.”

FoodFood WritingFood Anthropology
Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
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“Having a healthy relationship with food can act like a life jacket, protecting you from the worst excesses of obesogenic world we now inhabit. You see the greasy meatball sandwich and you no longer think it has much to say to you. This is not about being thin. It’s about reaching a state where food is something that nourishes and makes you happy rather than sickening or tormenting us. It’s about feeding ourselves as a good parent would: with love, with variety, but also with limits.”

FoodFood WritingFood Anthropology
Book:First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
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“It is hardly surprising that to this day New England is considered to be the pie capital of America, whose inhabitants traditionally eat (sweet) pie for breakfast. Apple pies in particular became deeply embedded in the history of America - associated with the old country, the new country and the pioneering spirit, and indelibly identified with the sense of nationhood and patriotic sentiment.”

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Book:Pie: A Global History
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“There were a number of reasons for decreeing abstention from meat. In ancient times meat was thought to inflame the passions (thereby distracting the mind from higher thoughts) whereas fish (or rather, creatures that lived in the water, which included whales and 'porpuses') were seen as cooling. It was also believed that the characteristics or habits of everything in the natural world would be transmitted to the eater, so the fact that fish did not have an obvious sex life added to its suitability for days of religious observance.”

FoodMeatPieBakingFastingFood WritingFood AnthropologyFood HistoryGlobal History
Book:Pie: A Global History
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“The traditional ingredients of the 'oggie', as it is called in the old Cornish language, are naturally disputed, but on some things most experts agree: the meat must be chopped, not minced, the vegetables (perhaps potato, onion and turnip) must be sliced and the ingredients are not pre-cooked before they are put in the pastry.”

FoodPieBakingFood WritingFood AnthropologyFood HistoryFruit PieCornish Pasty
Book:Pie: A Global History
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