Food Consumption (Anthropology)

¿Vino natural?, pero ¿qué es lo que no es natural en el vino?, ¿es que existe un vino artificial? El vino es el resultado exclusivo del proceso de fermentación alcohólica de la uva o del mosto de uva; sin embargo, esta no se realiza por intervención divina. El vino es consecuencia directa de un número infinito de factores y decisiones. Entonces, ¿qué nivel de intervención en el vino se considera aceptable? El simple hecho de hablar de “vino natural” es controvertido. Joan Gómez Pallarés, catedrático de Filología Latina en la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, creador del Blog De Vinis. Un relato sobre vinos y personas (www.devinis.org) y redactor de “El vino de la semana” en la sección “Placeres” de El País Semanal, afronta este debate al escribir el libro que nos convoca, Vinos Naturales en España. Placer auténtico y agricultura sostenible en la copa.

This paper explores the emergence of the terroirist social movement in Spain and the controversies arising from it. We assess its role in transforming the Spanish wine scene and wine regions from the combined perspective of rural and social movement studies. Spain boasts the largest surface area of vineyards and the largest volume of wine exports of any country, yet it also sells the cheapest wine and lacks wine zoning policies, which makes Spain unique among traditional wine-producing countries. Considering this situation, a group of terroir-driven winemakers are challenging the Spanish industrial wine establishment. They have built networks in rural areas throughout the country and are actively involved in local grassroots movements, aiming to produce quality wines with added value, recover neglected wine regions and grape varieties, and reinstate traditional wine culture. While the movement displays certain elite and populist tendencies, it remains radical in its attempt to challenge a deep-seated economic model dominated by large companies with a powerful lobby that influences the government.

This opinion article addresses the implications of recent EU regulations on alcoholic drinks labeling for regional development. In March 2017, the European Commission released a report requiring the mandatory labeling of ingredients and nutritional information for alcoholic beverages within 1 year, putting an end to the exceptionality of this sector compared to other foodstuffs, and responding to pressing demands by European consumer associations and other actors. Pressure from the alcohol sector had delayed EU legislation on the matter and managed to avoid a mandatory labeling provision, instead generating the possibility of making its own regulation proposal within a year. The Commission will assess this proposal in March 2018 and could review or reject it if found to be unsatisfactory. Here, we want to examine the controversy elicited by this new regulation, analyzing the consequences of labeling (or not) in the particular case of wine regions. It shows how the lack of labeling regulations harms winemakers oriented towards the production of quality wines and generates important information asymmetries that can lead to an overall decrease of wine quality. Ultimately, it highlights the relevance of a regional perspective on EU sectoral policies, as these can have unintended effects and lead to contradictory outcomes. The example of wine regions is used to emphasize this issue by showing the need to harmonize regional cohesion and CAP policies with industrial, environmental and consumer protection policies.

The concept of McDonaldization is a well-known metaphorical figure of the globalization paradigm, presenting neo liberalism as a form of cultural imperialism leading to global cultural homogenisation. The “Golden Arch Theory (GAT)”, often regarded as an economist offspring of McDonaldization, was much more ambitious: GAT posited itself as a transnational conflict prevention system. In short, countries that were endowed with McDonald’s restaurants on their national soil would not go to war with one another, as their respective middle-classes would have far much to lose, having reached standards of wealth and comfort symbolized by the presence of the Golden Arches on their territory. It is noticeable that the GAT theory was conceived to explain cross-borders or international conflicts, rather than to shed some light on the state of social cohesion in a given country. If we view social cohesion antithetically, as absence of social conflict, we pave the way for an alternative theory. We therefore propose that this theory-in-the-making should be socially embedded and empirically rooted in order to analyze the level of social cohesion of a specified country. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of “Mamakization”, which draws from an iconic figure of street food in Malaysia: the “Mamak” stall. In opposition to the “global” McDonaldization, the foundations of the Mamakization paradigm derive from a food alternative network framing, outlined by two main precepts: localization and divergent modernity. Mamakization views primarily the act of patronizing a food stall in multiethnic Malaysia as a social transaction that can therefore be analyzed and made sense of. The objective of this paper is to propose and discuss the key concept of Mamakization as a comprehensive analytical tool to investigate social cohesion through a specific social practice: eating out in a Malaysian food stall.

Keywords: Mamak stall, Mamakization, McDonaldization, Food, Multiethnic Malaysia, Food Alternative Network, social transaction.

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper " Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation? " , published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of 'good governance' and 'strong political will' to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.

This textual and visual piece exceeds the traditional paper form to explore popular winemaking and drinking cultures in Galicia and Alentejo. It does not illustrate our fieldwork, but evocates alternative geographies of production and consumption that coexist with the standard commercial and legal wine market. In our quotidian learning by doing and living, we understand symmetrically the cultures we are part of, and by extension our practice of cultural geography. Through a combination of documentary and ethnographic approaches, we reveal geographies of practice that enact diverse forms of being together at the verge of disappearance. Symmetry eventually emerged, but only as the practice of research, not as a discursive rhetoric nor as an alternative form of representation. Symmetry in practice This visual piece exceeds the traditional paper form to explore the popular wine cultures of Galicia and Alentejo. It does not illustrate our fieldwork, but evocates uncanny geographies of production and consumption, mostly invisible for the societies that coexist with them. In our quotidian learning by doing and living, we understand symmetrically the cultures we are part of, and by extension our practice of cultural geography. 1 Decades of debate about culture in anthropology, sociology, and geography have questioned the possibility of narrating and representing cultures, of giving voice to the subaltern and speaking for them. 2 But debates have mostly ignored a compelling

This paper is about symbolics and historical culinary use of Taraxacum (dandelion) plant - all parts of it. The paper includes a story, historical names, many culinary recipes, coloured photographs and archive illustrations. It also explains the etymology of diverse names of the genus.
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Cari amici, sono felice di informarvi che dopo alcuni anni di blocco forzato riprendono finalmente le pubblicazioni di “Religio”, la collana di studi del Museo delle Religioni. È attualmente in corso di stampa, infatti, il volume “Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie”, a cura mia e delle colleghe Elena Santilli e Alessandra Turchetti. In basso, potete trovare l’indice e i dati relativi.
Quanti tra voi siano interessati al libro, possono approfittare dell’offerta di lancio valida fino al 15 ottobre, ottenendo così un forte sconto sul prezzo di copertina. Tutte le informazioni in merito possono essere trovate sul sito dell’editore, le Edizioni Quasar, a questo link: https://edizioniquasar.it/products/il-cibo-e-il-sacro-tradizioni-e-simbologie
Colgo l’occasione per anticiparvi che una prima presentazione del volume si terrà nell’ambito delle attività previste per il convegno “Atena e Minerva. Tra Iconografia e Letteratura” (Velletri, 23-25 ottobre 2020). Maggiori informazioni verranno fornite più avanti su questa mailing list contestualmente al programma del convegno.

A presto

Introduzione
Igor Baglioni, Il cibo e il sacro. Orientamenti per il lettore

Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie nel Vicino Oriente Antico
Licia Romano, Banchetto e simposio nella ritualità della Mesopotamia Protodinastica
Francesco Bianchi, La spettanza del sacerdote nei sacrifici della Bibbia tra tradizione e storia

Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie nell’Antica Grecia
Giuseppina Paola Viscardi, Mangiatori di pane. Il cibo come marcatore dell’identità civica da Omero a Platone
Giulia Pedrucci, L’utilizzo del latte nella religione greca
Rita Sassu, La commensalità rituale nel santuario greco. Alcune osservazioni sul significato sociale del sacrificio cruento
Fernando Notario, Irreligious food? Food and religious contestation in Classical Antiquity. The case of the Diogenes of Sinope

Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie nell’Impero Romano
Alessio Quaglia, Tra Tellus, Cerere e Saturno: il farro, le Feriae Sementivae e il ciclo cerealicolo di dicembre
Mattia D’Acri - Luca De Luca, Una pietanza per le divinità nel Lazio arcaico? Il caso delle focacce votive in terracotta
Maria Cristina Vincenti - Alberto Silvestri, Il sacrificio del maialino nel culto di Demetra e Kore. Il caso delle offerte nel santuario delle due dee in Valle Ariccia
Javier Salido Domínguez, Il Cibo e il Sacro nell’Occidente romano. Tra epigrafia e archeologia
Amor López Jimeno - Francesca Murano, Magia e incantesimi. Le esecrazioni alimentari negli antichi testi defissori
Arduino Maiuri, Epulones Iovis parasitos (Aug., Civ. VI 7). Istituzione, storia e declino di un collegio minore romano
Francesca Tasca, I Fibioniti: un banchetto eucaristico gnostico? La testimonianza di Epifanio di Salamina

Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie nel Medioevo e nell’Età Moderna
Carla Del Zotto, La “società del bollito” e il cinghiale Sæhrímnir. Banchetto rituale e cibo degli dèi in epoca vichinga
Francesco D’Angelo, “La birra è un uomo diverso”. Leggi, usanze e credenze sul consumo di birra nella Scandinavia medievale
Angelo D’Ambrosio, “Per quanto piace a Dio”. Alimentazione e regimi penitenziali nelle clausure femminili dei secoli XVII-XVIII

Il Cibo e il Sacro. Tradizioni e Simbologie nell’Età Contemporanea
Sara Cuzzolin, “Cresci pane, come Gesù crebbe nella culla”. Pane e ritualità domestica a Matera
Elisa Gosso, Making “soutisso”: tradizione locale, identificazione religiosa e dinamiche migratorie del cibo nella storia valdese
Carmelo Russo, Il cibo e la festa nelle diaspore. Roma e Tunisi a confronto
Walter Venditto, Migranti del Punjab nell’Alto Casertano. Discorsi sul cibo e rappresentazione dell’alterità
Alessandra Turchetti, Nutrimento, scambio e alleanza tra visibile e invisibile. La funzione simbolica del cibo nelle pratiche rituali degli Gnawa (Marocco)
Marco Menicocci, Il cibo dell’apocalisse. I codici alimentari rovesciati della Hot Dance dei Crow.

This paper presents the results of a novel study of Vino de Tea (pine heartwood wine) from the island of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain). The aim is to investigate its differential characteristics and contribute to typifying it within the Denomination of Origin 'Wines of La Palma'. The analysis is based on a mixed approach combining a qualitative ethnographic approach (22 interviews) and quantitative physic-chemical methods in a sample of 16 wines. The ethnographical study revealed the tradition and techniques of elaboration behind Vino de Tea. In turn, the physic-chemical analysis revealed by chromatography a significant presence of α-terpineol due to elaboration in pine barrels or casks. These samples were compared with a Greek Retsina wine, revealing the differences between these two traditional wines. These data suggest that Vino de Tea is a unique product with distinctive characteristics and potential health benefits, owing to its significant content of α-terpineol resulting from its fermentation in Canary pine casks.