why food?

So why study food for my field study project? To me, the most interesting aspects of culture to study are those that make us uniquely human. My primary concentration for my undergraduate degree is linguistic anthropology. It fascinates me to study the origins of words, alphabets, sounds - the things we use and combine to communicate with one another. Sure, birds and baboons communicate with each other as well, but they don't have stories and songs, they can't talk about past events and relate their culture's history to their offspring. I originally wanted to do a project relating to the language, but realized that it would be difficult to go in depth into any aspect of the Maltese language with only 3 weeks to spend doing research on location.

So, after spending quite a while unsure of what I wanted to do, I thought why not food? It's something we deal with every day, and so do most other humans on the planet. While for some it is a daily struggle to find something to eat, others make a career creating gourmet meals for 5-star restaurants, catered to palates that crave fine wine and hors d'oeuvres - as much status symbols as sustenance.

Not only is food part of one's social identity, but part of family tradition - recipes are passed down from generation to generation; certain cultural holidays are incomplete without certain traditional dishes. Also, a country's location and the foods it can grow, import and export have certainly had an effect on that country's interaction with others throughout history.

While I have yet to narrow my focus, there seem to be a lot of options worth exploring in the realm of food and its effects on trade, tradition, nutrition and identity. In particular, I'm curious about the human palate and why certain things taste "good" to certain people. As stated by Robin Fox in an excerpt from Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective, "all animals eat but we are the only animal that cooks." While there are many other things that distinguish humans from the rest of the animal world, it is interesting to see how we take what could be bland sustenance and turn it into an act of pleasure - or don't, depending on desire or economic ability.

In any event, food should be interesting to study in the Mediterranean where we'll be surrounded by fishing communities, and open air markets. Trade will also be an important area to look at, as Malta has to import most of the crops it needs since it is not well suited for agricrulture. At the field school, we're encouraged to cook on our own as well, which should make for interesting participant observation. I hope to gain a better insight into how food in entwined in culture, especially one other than my own.