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Psychology Food

The hidden significance of what

we eat
How we eat and talk about food are key parts of our
identities. Three experts chat the politics of pork, where
Follow BBC Future
meals teach egalitarian values and the one food everyone
agrees on: cake.

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By Jessica Brown From Knowable Magazine
25 February 2019

How would you define a good lunch? Some of us might say a

healthy kale salad, others a delicious burrito, while some may
point to the locally raised beef in their burger. But in Martha Sif
Karrebaek’s experience, such a question crystallises the way
that language and culture add layers of meaning to what’s on
the plate. It’s not just what food we eat that matters, but how we
talk about it.

A linguistic ethnographer at the University of Copenhagen,

Karrebaek became interested in food while studying language
use in a kindergarten classroom. She was struck when the
Danish teacher asked an immigrant student what was in his
lunchbox. The implication, Karrebaek says, was that the boy’s
flatbread wrap wasn’t a “good” lunch because it wasn’t a
traditional Danish one featuring rye bread.

The divisive immigration debate that has been in the headlines

across Europe in recent years leached into the everyday talk
about a school lunch. And that isn’t a surprise, say Karreaek
and fellow linguistic anthropologists Kathleen Riley of Rutgers
University, and Jillian Cavanaugh of Brooklyn College and the
Graduate Center of the City University New York. Food and the
conversations around it are key signifiers of culture, identity and
politics, they say.

"
The three recently considered the
research on food and language in
In France, studies show, the Annual Review of Anthropology.
children are taught to Some American parents, they write,
“engage in intense negotiations
critique food
over sweets and desserts, which
are presumed to be (and perhaps
therefore become) children’s
preferred foods”. In France, studies show, children are taught to
critique food; in Sweden, it’s important that “all family members
eat the same food” as a symbol of egalitarianism; in non-
Western places such as Java, meals may offer a no-talk zone.

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Recently, the three researchers discussed their work and why

they believe talk about food reflects global debates on public
health, the environment, along with individual and cultural
values. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you become interested in language and food?

Martha Sif Karrebaek: I did field work in a Danish

kindergarten, looking at whether immigrant children brought
other languages to school and how teachers and students
engaged in language socialisation. I noticed particularly how
one teacher saw food as an important area of socialisation,
which she would use to introduce and enforce particular
traditional norms.

"
In Denmark, children usually bring
food from home to schools, and this
In Denmark, children meeting of school and home norms
were told to bring rye may be difficult for children,
particularly if their norms aren’t in
bread for lunch. If they
accordance with traditional Danish
didn’t, their teachers
culture. Over the course of the year,
called their lunch the children were explicitly told to
unhealthy – Martha Sif bring rye bread for lunch. If they
Karrebaek didn’t, their teachers called their
lunch unhealthy.

It had less to do with health as such, and more with conforming

to a standard. Danes know rye bread to be a special Danish
type of food, but many don’t recognise their bias and that other
people may not share the idea that rye bread is the best
alternative for lunch.

It can be damaging when people don’t recognize there are

other equally good ways to practice moral behaviour – in this
case, eating healthily.

Kathleen and Jillian, what about you? How did you start
studying how people talk about food?

Kathleen Riley: I was supposed to be studying Marquesas

culture in French Polynesia and how people spoke French. I
assumed I’d record the Marquesans sitting around at
mealtimes, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I followed them
around as they gathered and cooked food.

"
Then I was involved in farm-to-
school projects getting healthy food
When people of a certain into schools, and I became
socioeconomic class are interested in how children are fed
messages about food. When people
told their food is 'bad',
of a certain socioeconomic class
the message is that
are told their food is “bad”, the
they’re bad people with message is that they’re bad people
bad values – Kathleen with bad values. It’s a way that
Riley powerful people make others feel
stigmatised. I realised that to have
an impact on health, you have to
make messages around food appealing, non-judgmental and
positive.

Jillian Cavanaugh: My first research project was in the Italian

town of Bergamo, looking at how attached people were to the
local language, which some call a dialect but that I view as a
distinct language. I was interested in how the people stayed
connected to their past while still being modern. It turned out to
be really complicated. Food is another way people do this.

How do the ways in which we talk about food help shape

our values and understanding of the world?

MSK: I’m finishing a paper on the changing meanings

of “pork” and “pig” in Denmark, which is a good example of this.
Pork is a traditional food in Denmark and in the last 10 years or
so it’s become associated with a type of banal nationalism, an
explicit sign of Danishness.

Some years ago, some preschools decided to remove pork

from their menus in what was seen as a response to
globalisation and immigration, and this caused a disturbance.
Some politicians saw it as an unwelcome global influence. A
municipal council voted for a suggestion that preschools should
offer “Danish food”. A member of the populist Danish People’s
Party added that this includes pork, meaning pork should be
served regardless of the religious affiliation of the children.

The rye bread push was based on the scientific-sounding

“health”, while the pork was seen as tradition, with the clear
subtext of anti-immigration, and in particular anti-Muslim,
sentiment.

"
And in 2016, Denmark’s Ministry of
Cultural Affairs invited citizens to
Denmark’s Ministry of write in with suggestions of what
Cultural Affairs invited constituted core Danish values.
The minister was expecting abstract
citizens to write in with
responses, and yet pork was
suggestions of what
mentioned a number of times.
constituted core Danish
values. Pork was These cases point to pork going
mentioned a number of from an unnoticed example of what
times – Sif Karrebaek Danes eat to a symbol of what it
means to be Danish. In extension,
now if you do eat pork, you risk
being seen as making an active statement against immigration.

On the other hand, Denmark is a big producer of pork, so

people are also discussing how it’s ruining the environment,
and this is reflected in everyday language. In Danish, the
word “svin” is traditionally used for the pig and the meat, and
another word, “gris”, which apparently has a nicer association,
is only used for the animal. Gris has replaced svin in
commercial settings because svin has changed from a neutral
word to one with more negative connotations.

So food has become political, but it also seems it’s

become linked to identity. Is language around food
becoming more about the self and less about the wider
culture?

"
JC: Once upon a time, it was less
what you consumed, and more your
More recently, what we job, that defined you. More recently,
do matters less than there’s been a shift, and
consumption is much more at the
what we consume –
heart of how we define ourselves.
Jillian Cavanaugh
The result has been that what we
do matters less than what we
consume. With the explosion in food
media, there’s so much variety and potential for differentiation,
so many ways to eat healthily, that it can be overwhelming.

MSK: Food has always been used to show identification with

one community and dis-identification with another. Being vegan
doesn’t mean you’re special or unique, it just means you’re part
of different group – all those who are vegan.

Today we are able to choose the community with whom we

want to identify, and we can choose different communities
based on food behaviour, orientation, physical exercise, our
clothes. Sometimes these communities fit together but
sometimes they don’t, and we can choose different groups for
different aspects of our everyday lives.

One of the first settings where food and language

converge is during family meals. How does this differ from
country to country?

MSK: Research shows that in the United States, families talk

about whether the food is healthy, whereas in Italy, they talk
about whether it’s tasty, which is ironic since there are so many
health problems in the US with obesity.

KR: Eating together is not the norm in all cultures. Those who
do have family meals often don’t talk while eating – it’s
considered distracting. What they want to represent to children
is an attentiveness to their food and gratitude for it. In the
Marquesas, I found that talking happens while procuring and
preparing food, not at meals.

JC: We think of the family meal as something everyone does,

but it is closely related to class and race. Those who can afford
to, and people who work 9 to 5, can have regular family meals.
But not shift workers, those working two or three jobs, or those
who come from different cultural traditions. It’s become a moral
issue too – the message is that if you don’t do it, you’re missing
a really important socialising moment with your children.
People are made to feel like they’re failing.

"
MSK: It’s put up as an ideal today
but, at some time in history, children
This idea of the family weren’t supposed to eat with
meal as an eternal parents or talk at the table. So this
idea of the family meal as an eternal
institution that’s
institution that’s crumbling is wrong.
crumbling is wrong – Sif
Karrebaek For those who have family meals,
do conversations merely reflect
cultural differences, or do these
conversations actually help shape culture?

MSK: Sometimes you do find reflections of what goes on in

society at large; for instance, a Swedish study documents
that egalitarianism is installed in the family meal. I think it’s
both a place you see culture in action, and a place where
people learn how to be good citizens.

Is this changing in a globalised world, in which

communities are becoming more culturally diverse?

MSK: The family meal isn’t insulated, and the decline of the
family meal (and the moral panic around that) isn’t necessarily
a sign of globalisation, but of changing eating habits.

What we eat at home reflects the availability of different types

of food, and these do change with globalisation. But the two
bigger impacts on the family meal are industrialisation and
convenience foods. In many places, and in the US in particular,
people can buy finished food and heat it up, so even if they are
sharing a table, people may be eating different things at
mealtimes. That is a big change.

What about eating in the workplace?

"
MSK: Food can mark the change
from a work activity to a socially
Cake is something oriented one, and can be used to
people can all agree on – create community. My student
looked at food in workplaces, and
Sif Karrebaek
one conclusion was – among
academics in Denmark, at least –
cake is a big thing. Everyone is
talking about cake, while also trying to show themselves as
healthy and good people. In offices when there’s cake,
everyone’s running for it!

Cake is something people can all agree on. It seems to be a

huge unifier in workplaces.

You name technology and the internet as major drivers of

change in terms of food talk. How are they changing
things?

KR: When people look at their devices and send photos of their
meal on social media, instead of talking to each other while
they eat, they lose so much of the multi-sensuous aspects of
food.

There’s also an emphasis now on not only getting groceries

delivered to the door, but an entire meal through a meal-kit
delivery service. These glorify the cooking process and give the
message that it’s important for people to slow down and put a
meal on the table themselves. I wonder if these adverts are
really trying to inspire people to slow down, or if they’re giving
us a new quick fix and commodifying the idea of slowing down
itself.

MSK: I’m also worried, because people follow a variety of diets

today, diets which they can easily get validation for through the
internet, no matter how obviously unhealthy they are. This
destroys the more easily obtained sociality around the meal,
where we meet and eat the same thing together and thereby
practice and create community. Eating disorders are a growing
problem, and the line between a disorder and normal behaviour
is getting blurred on an everyday level.

You argue that the production and consumption of food is

increasingly a morally loaded issue. What do you mean by
that?

MSK: One example is how we use the word “authentic”. The

ways in which food travels is invisible, and the word authentic is
used to create less distance between producers and
consumers. This is one area where industrialisation has had
enormous influence on the way we speak about, and create
value around, food.

Could this be interpreted as a backlash to

industrialisation?

MSK: It’s a reaction to large-scale food production; among well-

educated middle and upper classes especially, there’s concern
about the consequences of this. Farmers’ markets and small-
scale production are seen as ways to create value for products
that we can buy an infinite number of in supermarkets; we want
something special. “Authentic” is a way to create value and
assert difference within a moral value system.

KR: In the 1960s there was a sense of getting back to the land,
being respectful to the people who aren’t messing up the world
the way we are in the globalised north. It got upended into a
brand and co-opted by the corporate world.

Where are conversations around food heading in the

future?

KR: I’m feeling pessimistic. To turn things around, we have to

make messages around food tastier and feed ourselves better
language to get people to care again. I want to make healthy
and sustainable food delicious, accessible and affordable.

"
JC: Discussions are headed toward
sustainability – environmentally,
We have to make biologically and socially –
messages around food encompassing climate change and
population growth and obesity. And
tastier and feed
the trend of wanting to know where
ourselves better
our food comes from will become
language – Riley more normalised.

MSK: I’m worried too, because the

gap is growing between the well-educated, well-meaning and
economically stronger population who are aware of pollution,
sustainability, overproduction, processed foods and the overuse
of additives, and the rest of the population, who can’t engage
with these issues in the same way for various reasons. This
adds to other differentiations in society, where one part of the
population is seen as less morally healthy and less capable.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, and is

republished under a Creative Commons licence.

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