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Food Choice, Symbolism, and Identity: Bread-and-Butter Issues for Folkloristics and Nutrition Studies (American Folklore Society Presidential Address, October 2005)

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 April 2007, 09:00 CDT

By Jones, Michael Owen

Research on food abounds, from the history of differing types of fare to the relationship between provisioning and culture, gender roles, and eating disorders. In disciplines concerned with health and nutrition, few studies focus on the metaphorical aspects of alimentation; while many ethnographic works do deal with the symbolic nature of gastronomy, they tend to emphasize eating as commensality and food as an expression of identity in ethnic, regional, and religious groups. Symbolic discourse involving cuisine is pervasive and complex, however, manifesting itself in a wide variety of contexts and exhibiting multiple meanings that may be ambiguous, conflicting, or pernicious. Understanding how messages are conveyed through culinary behavior requires an examination not only of victuals but also of the preparation, service, and consumption of food-for all are grist for the mill of symbolization. Here, I bring together a number of ideas about the iconic nature of cooking and eating: what is fodder for symbol creation, how and why meanings are generated, and what some of the effects of food- related representations are. I also problematize identity as it relates to food. My goal is to suggest directions for future research on foodways as well as applications in fields concerned with nutrition education, counseling, and dietary change.

One could not stand and watch [the slaughtering] very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe.

-Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

My points are simply stated. First, not only particular foodstuffs but also the procuring, preparing, and consuming of provisions figure largely in symbolic discourse regarding identity, values, and attitudes. Second, people have multiple identities- ethnic, regional, gendered, or classed, which have dominated inquiry, but also many others that rarely have been examined-and these identities are dynamic, subject to challenge and change through the life course. Third, eating practices reproduce as well as construct identity; in addition, both identity and alimentary symbolism, not just taste or availability or cost, significantly affect food choice. Finally, nutrition educators and counselors would benefit from drawing upon ethnographic investigations of the meanings of food in their efforts to design dietary programs, while folklorists should consider adding practical applications of foodways research to their plate.

When I began teaching a course on foodways in 1974, I was intrigued with not only the social dimension of gastronomy-the group customs and traditions associated with food-but also the importance of sensory experiences in determining individuals' eating habits (Jones, Giuliano, and Krell 1981); this includes disgust (Jones 2000b) as well as the effects of sensory deprivation, such as my mother's loss of her sense of smell from head injuries suffered in an auto accident (Jones 1987). Particularly appetizing, because of its richness and complexity, was the symbolic realm of foodways: why are cooking and eating imbued with special meanings, how are they related to individuals' multiple identities, and how do these idioms and ideologies affect food choice? I wondered, too, how folklore studies of the social, sensory, and symbolic might contribute to nutrition programs and counseling.

Existing methods provide limited guidance for understanding some of these matters. The typical nutrition research is experimental or quantitative; little involves qualitative, ethnographic techniques.1 Investigations of food likes and dislikes, for example, tend to follow a set recipe of questions concerning an experimenter- generated list of food items (meat, pasta, carrots, etc.) from which respondents select those they prefer or dislike and choose from a list of possible reasons. As Letarte, Dub, and Troche have acknowledged (1997:116), rarely do researchers take into account the way that food is prepared, the context of eating, or the associations attributed to food, people, and events (Choo 2004). Consider President George H. W. Bush's disgust at broccoli because his mother always overcooked it, one person's aversion to spinach for "it looks like hair in a shower drain," or the young woman who abhors onions because their smell hung on the breath of her stepfather who molested her as a child.

Conceptions of social actors and situations are frequently narrow. Only a few years ago did researchers think of domestic arrangements as sites of consumption involving other than nuclear families (Valentine 1999), finally acknowledging widowed, single- parent, gay or lesbian, and reconstituted households (after divorce and remarriage; see Burgoyne and Clarke 1983). Few works concern childhood traditions (Dyson- Hudson and Van Dusen 1972; Huneven 1984; Widdowson 1975, 1981), the symbolic expression of values in socializing children through food (Bossard 1943; Ochs, Pontecorvo, and Fasulo 1996), or children's agency as an important ingredient in food preparation and consumption in the home (Bisogni et al. 2002). Rarely does research take into account the extent to which "[t]he timing, seating arrangements, and dispensing protocol of a meal reflect ideas regarding role allocations, gender orientation, social order, status, and control" (Whitehead 1984:104). Who prepares the food, serves it, and cleans up; where people take their meals; the shape of a table; and who sits where and talks about what-all these convey roles, values, and ideas about gender, hierarchy, and power.

Medical and nutritional literature often pathologizes behavior, labeling other people's food habits "odd dietary practices" (Edwards, McSwain, and Haire 1954) or "abnormal" (Callahan 2003) and a serious "problem" (Federman, Kirsner, and Federman 1997:209). Geophagy (literally, the eating of earth) is often translated as the unappetizing "dirt eating" (Dickens and Ford 1972; Gardner and Tevetog?lu 1957; Reid 1992). Long-standing but seldom questioned explanations of the "disease" range from insanity to depression, iron deficiency, and hookworm (Callahan 2003; Twyman 1971). Geophagy is more properly referred to as eating clay (particularly kaolin), for that is what people typically consume (Grigsby et al. 1999). Some Native Americans used clay to detoxify foodstuffs, people worldwide and through time have seasoned dishes with it, Siberian tribesmen ate it like modern Americans eat candy, and ceramicists frequently taste clay to determine its texture (Callahan 2003; Johns 1986; Solien 1954). Americans take kaolin in Kaopectate to treat diarrhea and consume calcium carbonate when they chew on Rolaids or swallow Maalox to relieve indigestion, thus practicing "a form of geophagy every time they take an antacid or an antidiarrhea medication" (Henry and Kwong 2003:367). Some clay has appealing sensory qualities. One person told me: "I ate clay because I had seen my mother and cousins doing it. The taste was pleasing and I enjoyed it. I used to eat clay back home. I love it. I wish I had some now. It tastes sort of sour. It's good: clay from the sides of the river. I'd just get a spoon and eat a couple of spoonfuls. It was sort of soft, like peanut butter, and it tasted good." Slaves ingested clay as a statement of protest, and some people in the South consider it a "woman's dish" and a symbol of womanhood (Twyman 1971). It has a desirable texture and taste, chewing it provides oral gratifi- cation, it produces saliva and stimulates the appetite, and although some dirt can pose a health threat, the consumption of clay might well have beneficial consequences for the immune system (Callahan 2003).

Another bone of contention is that only a few identities have been researched in either nutritional or ethnographic literature. Most investigations concern ethnic, regional, and religious identification; folkloristic studies have been more cognizant than most fields of the complexity of culture, the creative uses of ethnicity (Camp 1989; Kalc?ik 1984; Rikoon 1982; Stern 1977, 1991), and the symbolic display of group identity through food and festive events (see essays in Brown and Mussell 1984 and Humphrey and Humphrey 1988). But too many works ignore intracultural variation in values and eating behavior as well as food consumption among those who affiliate with multiple groups or who embody multiethnic identities, such as "Cuban Jewish Women in Miami" (Wartenberg 1994) or the man whose father was from Jamaica and mother was an African American, who grew up in a Latino community in New York, and who married a Dominican (Devine et al. 1999:89). In fact, individuals draw upon many sources of self-image that influence their "personal food system" (Smart and Bisogni 2001), such as gender, age, family, occupation, class, body types, personality traits, recreational activities, and state of health-any or all of which may take precedence over ethnic or regional associations (Bisogni et al. 2002). In addition, while some identities (along with meanings given to food) persist, others change over one's "life course" (Devine et al. 1999:88).

Except for inquiries into the relationship of f\ood to culture (usually national or ethnic), symbolism is relegated to the back burner. When paid attention to, the symbolic is typically restricted to foodstuffs or ceremonial and celebratory occasions involving consumption as commensality. But symbolic discourse utilizing food is more pervasive and complex, and it involves more processes in a wider variety of circumstances and with more diverse meanings than is generally discussed.

Human beings feed on metaphors as ways of talking about something else: we hunger for, cannibalize, spice it up, sugar coat, hash things out, sink our teeth into, and find something difficult to swallow or hard to digest so we cough it up and then have a bone to pick with someone, which is their just desserts (see also Mason 1982; Morton 2005). Terms of endearment partake of the gastronomic: sugar, honey, pumpkin, cupcake, sweetie pie, or "my little kumquat," in the words of W. C. Fields. Foodstuffs inform descriptions of people: a ham, nut, or tomato with peaches-and-cream complexion, cauliflower ears, and potato-masher nose who pigs out when not hot dogging like a pea-brained turkey. There's a bountiful array of proverbs and proverbial expressions, such as you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you reap what you sow, cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you a thousandfold, you can't have your cake and eat it too, half a loaf is better than none, man does not live by bread alone, variety is the spice of life, too many cooks spoil the broth, a watched pot never boils, out of the frying pan and into the fire, there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, watch your Ps and Qs (pints and quarts), you are what you eat, one man's meat is another man's poison, and an apple a day keeps the doctor away.2 In other words, as Lvi-Strauss said, "Food is not only good to eat, but also good to think with" (quoted in MacClancy 1992:2).

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden: On Life in the Woods, explaining his quest for nutriment beyond the physical ([1854] 1971:91; quoted in Adams and Adams 1990:244). More pointedly, Rosalind Russell proclaimed in Auntie Mame (da Costa 1958), "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death. So live, live, live!" The omnipresent role of food in communication and interaction as metaphor or other symbolic form should come as no surprise, given the fact that we experience food on a daily basis from birth to death (Caspar 1988). We eat several times a day, and we often do so in social settings, which therefore generates associations between food and people (Humphrey 1988; MacClancy 1992; van Gelder 1982). Few activities involve so many senses: we hear stomach rumblings and suffer hunger pangs; see the food, smell it, and salivate in anticipation of eating it; sense its weight and density as we lift it on a utensil; and feel its heat or coldness as it enters the mouth. We detect an item's sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy, or bland qualities on the tongue. We enjoy the feeling of satiety after consuming food while also perceiving renewed physical and mental energy. As Oscar Wilde remarked, "After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's relatives" (quoted in Chalmers 1994:147). Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in The Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy that "The pleasures of the table are for every man, of every land, and no matter of what place in history or society; they can be a part of all his other pleasures, and they last the longest, to console him when he has outlived the rest" ([1825] 1926:3). Or as Garrison Keillor put it, "Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn" (quoted in Chalmers 1994:117).

In this essay I focus on the symbolic nature of gastronomy, for as Margaret Visser writes, "Food is never just something to eat" (1986:12). I am concerned with what is fodder for symbol creation, some of the ways in which people express a wide variety of identities through food in different settings, and how studies of food symbolism can be applied to such endeavors as nutrition education, the planning of special diets, and the treatment or prevention of certain diseases. In this case, "food" consists of not just items but also the preparation, service, and consumption of foodstuffs (part of the larger concept of "foodways"; see Anderson 1971; Camp 1989; Cussler and De Give 1952:49-50; Long 1998; Yoder 1972)-for all lend themselves to the process of symbolization.3 Meanings may change from one situation to another, through time, and over one's life, further complicating matters. The first section of this essay dwells on food symbolism, the second considers identity in relation to food, and the third discusses applications of research in regard to nutritional concerns.

Mulling Over the Language of Food

Like an additional flavor, meanings are carried with food.

-David Mas Masumoto, "Gochisoo and Brown Rice Sushi"

Dictionaries define symbol as a visible sign of something invisible, as an idea, a quality: one thing stands for, represents, or re-presents another. In 1944 Ernst Cassirer wrote that "instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as an animal symbolicum" (26). As Raymond Firth noted three decades later, human beings do not live by symbols alone, but they certainly order and interpret their reality, and even reconstruct it, through symbols (1973:20).

"Symbols are created and recreated whenever human beings vest elements of their world with a pattern of meaning and significance which extends beyond its intrinsic content," write Morgan, Frost, and Pondy. "Any object, action, event, utterance, concept or image offers itself as raw material for symbol creation, at any place, and at any time" (1983:4-5; emphasis added). This is particularly so in regard to food and eating. Items of food may be imbued with special significance, be it Maine lobster (Lewis 1989, 1990) or Indian frybread (Welsch 1971), along with cuisines such as "soul food" (Joyner 1971; Poe 1999) and "Cajun cooking" (Gutierrez 1992). Even the physical characteristics of a foodstuff can be emblematic. For example, in 1972-73 the American Food for Peace Program sent yellow corn from the United States to Botswana for distribution in schools as drought relief. Shamed and humiliated by the tons of yellow grain given them as food, secondary school students in Serowe rioted, burning the headmaster's car and destroying stockpiles of it. Only white maize is fit for human consumption; yellow is fed to animals (Grivetti et al. 1987:269). In another instance (Dresser 1999), the absence of a dish on the menu caused consternation. The food manager- dietitian at a Maryland correctional facility with a large African American population planned a Thanksgiving meal consisting of turkey, yams, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and corn bread. Inmates angrily confronted the servers behind bulletproof glass, demanding, "Where's the sauerkraut?" Years earlier, institution workers who commuted from Pennsylvania had introduced the pickled cabbage as a side dish. A regional food was incorporated into an ethnic cuisine and became associated with a national holiday. Its absence at mealtime left people feeling deprived and bereft. Even utensils may be iconic for some eaters. In the newsletter American Food & Wine, John Thorne interprets the fork as a "claw" with "long sharp nails" and hence "an unconscious emblem of the hunt. . . . [A]s coda, consider the fork in relation to the chopstick. . . . Of the two, the fork is the arrogant one, for it imperiously seizes where the other only plucks. But chopsticks are by far the more sensual instrument, delicately sexual in the gentle but urgent tugging of morsel after morsel out of the savory mess. . . . [W]here the skewering fork ensures yet again each morsel's death, chopsticks tenderly grasp and deposit it, still pulsating with metaphoric life, into the waiting mouth" (1987:1-2).

People define events through food. "Some habits never change: a hot dog on a stick at the beach, hot chocolate at the ice skating rink, and popcorn at the movies," one of my students once said. Although fraught with meaningfulness, such food choices may have unpleasant consequences. A friend of mine always eats Dodger Dogs at baseball games in Los Angeles. He does not like them, he eats too many, and he feels sick later, but he insists that it's not a Dodger game without the hot dogs. Events marked by food-such as family reunions, special Sunday dinners, or holiday meals- are often problematic for people with diabetes or hypertension, whose dietary needs make them feel excluded (Broom and Whittaker 2004; James 2004).

For some, food identifies place, from region to city to small town or neighborhood: for instance, pasties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Lockwood and Lockwood 1991), Cincinnati chili in Ohio (Lloyd 1981), and a giant hamburger in the little berg of Harrison, Nebraska (population 360), where Delores Wasserburger of Sioux Sundries serves up twenty-eight-ounce cheeseburgers with a bag of potato chips. She began eighteen years earlier when a rancher, Bill Coffee, brought in a few ranch hands and asked for a large hamburger. That was when Wasserburger whipped up her first Coffee Burger. Since then, the diner has been featured on the Food Network and has been visited by tourists from around the world (see "Giant Hamburger" 1989). Food may also "make" place, as it did for Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II who reterritorialized their surroundings by using mess halls, gardens, hot plates in living quarters, tofu-producing facilities, and memories of food as "spaces" in which to expand political activity and create collective identities (Dusselier 2002).

Often food is invested with emotion (Babcock 1948; Choo 2004; Dusselier 2002). "I have a sense of well-\being when I eat any kind of meal on a special occasion," one person told me. "The well-being is generated by enjoyment of the people I am with. I have a sense of well-being when I eat oatmeal. I am sure this feeling is associated with TV commercials about Quaker's oats in which oatmeal is synonymous with motherhood." Not surprisingly, therefore, food consoles, as it did actor Ed Asner, who carried candy bars in his pocket during his childhood because he had to go to Hebrew school instead of playing baseball with other boys, or as it does for all those actresses on television shows who dig into a quart of ice cream when they are depressed. "Food is a friend, a consolation, a hobby, a companion," remarked a female college student (quoted in Counihan 1999:120). People use food as a reward and withhold it as a punishment (Fuchs 1989). They give food as an expression of sympathy and support when a friend is ill or suffers a death in the family (Knutson 1965:134). In Up a Country Lane Cookbook, for instance, Evelyn Birkby includes a recipe for Mabel Lewis's Jell-O dish (pineapple and grapes in red gelatin with whipped topping): "This was truly a comfort salad, for Mabel always took this to a family at the time of serious problems" (Huneven 1994:H11; for the symbolic significance of Jell-O, see Newton 1992). Birkby also comments that "We learned, during those long, painful days that the quiet offer of food provided sustenance for our bodies and comfort for our aching hearts, as our family weathered the terrible storm of our daughter's death" (quoted in Huneven 1994:H11). Sometimes people transfer to food their emotions regarding others: "I always have an upset stomach when we eat at my mother-in-law's; there's something about the way she cooks-it doesn't matter what it is-that just doesn't agree with me" (quoted in Moore 1957:79).

Individuals may define themselves by the food they prepare, serve, and consume. "I use the word 'rich' to describe the effect I strive for in company meals," said one of my students. "'Rich' to me means abundant, varied, interesting, and aesthetically pleasing. I describe the people whom I want to have as my guests as rich in personality. When I have company, I try to make the meal, the surroundings, and the conversation rich in order to give my guests the impression that I too am a richly interesting person. When I am a guest in another person's house I evaluate the experience on the basis of its richness: good company, good conversation and abundant food, and aesthetically pleasing surroundings." Evident in the speaker's concluding remark is the fact that people may evaluate others on the basis of food.

In social interaction involving food, individuals often make decisions about who they want to appear to be, who they do not want to appear to be, and what the best way to behave is in order to be perceived as they wish. Several studies indicate that people who eat with friends consume more food (especially dessert) than when dining with strangers and that men ingest more than women (Clendenen, Herman, and Polivy 1994; Klesges et al. 1984). Research on female college students demonstrates that being thin and eating lightly function as social indicators of femininity because of their importance in achieving status, popularity, and sexual partners (Mori, Chaiken, and Pliner 1987; see also Bordo 1990, 1998; Brumberg 1988; Counihan 1999; Kreuger 1999). Such impression management is illustrated in Gone with the Wind (1939). Scarlett O'Hara's servant forces her to choke down pancakes dripping with syrup, yams drenched in butter, and ham swimming in gravy before leaving for the Wilkes barbeque. "Ashley Wilkes told me he liked to see a girl with a healthy appetite," protests Scarlett. "What gent'mens says an' what they thinks," Mammy replies, "is two differ'nt things." Writing in the 1950s, one researcher notes: "A young woman once remarked that she used to eat a steak at 5 o'clock when she had a dinner date so that she could eat daintily and demurely when she went out. She had a good healthy appetite, but was afraid it would give her boy friends the wrong impression" (Pumpian- Mindlin 1954:579).

While food or its consumption may be intended to signify identity, status, or social relationship, at times people take pains to convey that the meals they serve should not be taken as an expression of feelings toward others. For instance, one individual told me in an interview (in May 1976) that, after having had a trying day she prepared a simple, light repast for guests rather than cooking something elaborate. But then she worried that "they would think that I did not care about them and that they would translate the meal to mean 'annoyance' or 'obligation.' I apologized frequently for not providing a more interesting dinner, for I feared being judged negatively."

Many food-derived assessments of people are indeed negative, such as French President Jacques Chirac's remark about Britain to leaders of Russia and Germany on the eve of the G8 summit in the summer of 2005: "You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. It is the country with the worst food after Finland." In reaction, The Sun declared that Chirac should not "talk crepe" (Symons 2005). Chirac also said unkind things about the Scots' haggis (composed of cows' lungs, intestine, pancreas, liver, and heart mixed with onions, suet, and oatmeal stuffed into a sheep's stomach) as well as the American hamburger. Two years earlier, in this international food fight, cafeterias in the U.S. House of Representatives changed "French fries" to "freedom fries" and "French toast" to "freedom toast" as part of a Republican protest against Chirac's opposition to the war on Iraq. Renaming items on the menu was "a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," said Representative Bob Ney (R-Ohio), whose committee was in charge of the eateries (BBC News 2003).4

Food-based slurs not only denigrate others but also dehumanize the Other (Limn 1986), as in such ethnophaulisms (Roback [1944] 1979) for Germans, French, English, and Indochinese as krauts, frogs, limeys, and fish heads, or, along the Texas border (Montao 1997), greaser, chili, pepper belly, taco choker, and beaner aimed at those of Mexican descent. Visceral metaphors that marginalize populations have been employed to promote adverse social policies like the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, which severely restricted the number of people from Southern and Eastern Europe. Foreigners in the United States were described as "indigestible food"-for example, the remark that "the stomach of the body politic" is "filled to bursting with peoples swallowed whole whom our digestive juices do not digest" (O'Brien 2003:36-7). Voicing a common attitude at the time, President General Sarah Mitchell Guernsey of the Daughters of the American Revolution contended that "You can never grow an American soul so long as you use a hyphen. . . . What kind of American consciousness can grow in the atmosphere of sauerkraut and Limburger cheese? Or, what can you expect of the Americanism of the man whose breath always reeks of garlic?" (quoted in Negra 2002:18).

Unsavory though some of these metaphors are, their use suggests an important point for research and application: symbols evoke emotions, act upon opinions, and influence actions. Some years ago Joanne Martin conducted an experiment with students at Stanford University to determine the effectiveness of advertisements for a (nonexistent) California winery (Martin and Powers 1983). Three groups of subjects were presented with information about the company's winemaking procedures (types of grapes, nature of barrels, source of the grapes in France, the vintner's name and lineage): one in the form of a story, another as a table of facts and statistics such as that found on the back of a bottle, and the third with a shorter narrative combined with statistics. On retesting several weeks later, those who had heard the story had a markedly greater propensity than the other subjects to remember the product, to believe that the winery used these procedures, and to be attached to this wine-that is, willing to purchase it. Ironically, at the time that they heard the list of statistics, subjects rated that ad as much more persuasive than did those who heard the story; but it was narrating that in fact proved to be much more compelling in shaping belief and behavior.

This is the meat of my argument about symbols, that they are powerful persuaders but are often overlooked or underestimated, particularly in nutrition research. Evoking emotions, they affect perceptions and construct reality. For example, Larry Hirschhorn, a consultant trained in psychodynamics, was asked to facilitate a retreat for senior scientists in a research organization. In a brief conversation the delegate told him that the controller and president were "nickel and diming" the labs to death. Hirschhorn asked about provisions for food. Everyone was to bring a brown bag lunch. He urged the delegate to tell the president that it would be better to provide lunch for the retreat as a symbol of support, but the delegate hesitated, apparently suspecting that the president might not agree. "Puzzled and irritated," remarks Hirschhorn, "I realized that I was experiencing the same feelings that bothered the scientists of the company." Retreat participants would be less able to work well if the president did not meet such simple dependency needs as food, and Hirschhorn as a consultant would feel less effective. "So the president, even before I met him and before I even had a contract, was nickel and diming me to death as well!" (Hirschhorn 1988:247-8; see also C. Jones 1988:239).

As noted above, not only a food's physical traits but also an item's absence at table, the utensils employed to eat it, the \cuisine of which it is a part, and who provides the dish and in what form may be grist for the mill of symbolization. In addition, the preparation and service of foodstuffs can send signals-for instance, burning dinner as seeming incompetence in order to escape a social role (see Radner and Lanser 1993, especially Marge Percy's poem "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?"). Ostensibly occasions to celebrate family unity, holiday meals can become arenas where diners pass hostility rather than bread around the table (a theme in Gurinder Chadha's movie What's Cooking?, which is described as "Thanksgiving. A celebration of food, tradition, and relative insanity"). Moreover, the very act of eating conveys meanings. That is, the rules regarding consumption (table manners) comprise "an inventory of symbolic responses that may be manipulated, finessed, and encoded to communicate messages about oneself"; hence, "you are how you eat" (Cooper 1986:184; see also Bronner 1983, 1986:44-55; Siporin 1994; Visser 1991).

As if it were not enough that food defines people, events, and places and serves as a basis for assessing self and others, or that symbols affect opinions, beliefs, perceptions, and actions, food also projects anxieties (see Baer 1982). The sexual dysfunction of men in military boot camp or in other institutional settings is blamed on adulteration of the food with saltpeter (Rich and Jacobs 1973). The Kentucky Fried Rat legend about a couple taking home chicken only to discover that they have been munching on a rodent expresses alarm over the loss of community control by large, impersonal corporations displacing local vendors (Fine 1980). And the rumor that Church's Fried Chicken is owned by the Ku Klux Klan and contaminates its food with a chemical to sterilize black males projects racial fears (Turner 1987). In recent years bioengineering has spawned symbolic expression (Nerlich and Clarke 2000). The sweet visage of Dolly the cloned sheep was quickly replaced by the face of Frankenstein's monster, genetically modified produce has been dubbed "frankenfood," and a rumor spread that the government required Kentucky Fried Chicken to change its name to KFC because a study at the University of New Hampshire had discovered that genetically manipulated organisms rather than real chickens are being used- creatures lacking beaks, feathers, and feet (and in some accounts possessing two breasts and three legs) that are kept alive by the insertion of tubes to pump blood and nutrients into their bodies.

Be they objects, acts, or linguistic formations, symbols "stand ambiguously for a multiplicity of meanings" (Cohen 1976:23). Context, therefore, often determines content; that is, circumstances affect whether or not meaning emerges (Theophano 1991:46) and which messages are conveyed or inferred. Eating everything on one's plate may appear to be gluttony, or it might mean that one follows the dictum "waste not, want not," or it might signal that there is an actual scarcity of food or money. Hirschhorn interpreted having a brown bag lunch at the retreat he was to lead as a sign of organizational stinginess, but in other situations it might speak to a desirable informality among participants. Because of the ambiguity or multiple meanings of symbols, an act may be misunderstood. For instance, a youth from Taiwan moved in with an American family to learn English. On Sunday, the hostess prepared a special family meal, setting a beautifully roasted chicken on the table, the neck cavity facing him. He picked at his food and finally said, "It was delicious, and I will leave here just as soon as I find another place to live." The tradition familiar to him was that when a person is not welcome, the host places a chicken with its head facing the unwanted party (Dresser 1994). Ignorance or transgression of cherished traditions and their meanings can cause large-scale disruption and dissention. After the Marriott Corporation took over food service at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, spending $10 million to renovate the concession stands, it steamed many of the three million fans by no longer grilling Dodger Dogs, then by downsizing the double bag of peanuts to a single, next by telling Roger the Peanut Man that he could not hurl peanut bags to customers because of company policy against throwing food, and finally by trying to force employees (including Roger) to continue working during the singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" (Harris 1991a, 1991b).

People assign meanings to eating what, where, how, when, and with whom (Counihan 1999:114; Tuchman and Levine 1993-1994:385). In the words of Roland Barthes, "Food has a constant tendency to transform itself into situation" (1979:171). Virtually all aspects of foodways are subject to symbolization, from the phenomenon of food itself to production and procurement (Dubisch 1989; Egri 1997; O'Brien 2003); preservation (Martin 1979); planning and structuring meals (Douglas 1972; Douglas and Nicod 1974; Nicod 1979); preparing items (Brown 1981; Cicala 1995; Goldman 1981); patterns of service and presentation (Allison 1997; Graham 1981; Shuman 1981); placement of diners and the nature of their interaction (Bossard 1943; Humphrey 1988; Whitehead 1984); performance of consumption or manners and eating styles (E. Adler 1981; Cooper 1986; Mori, Chaiken, and Pliner 1987); participants in food events (Georges 1984) and their philosophy or beliefs (Devine et al. 1999; Prosterman 1981) as well as their personal food systems (Smart and Bisogni 2001); and even the proscription against food intake as, for example, fasting used for political purposes (Gold and Newton 1998; Levine 1993) and in instances of anorexia. If foodrelated symbolism is complicated, then the relationship between food and identity is no less problematic.

For Whom the Dinner Bell Tolls

I'm Frank Thompson, all the way from "down east." I've been through the mill, ground, and bolted, and come out a regular-built down-east johnny-cake, when it's hot, damned good; but when it's cold, damned sour and indigestible-and you'll find me so.

-Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast

The first point about food in relation to identity is that, according to widespread provisioning mythology, many foodstuffs bear the mark of gender, which in turn greatly influences the behavior of people (Adams 1990; Deutsch 2005; Heisley 1990; Moore 1957; Sobal 2005; Twigg 1983; Wilk and Hintlian 2005). For many people in Western society, milk and eggs have feminine associations, as do vegetables that contain seeds (the ovaries of plants) and that are round, smooth, small, soft, sweet, and juicy. Tubers are linked to the masculine; their traits consist of the long, thin, rough, tough, heavy, filling, and strongly flavored. Vivid, bright, warm colors in produce represent the feminine (emotional, expressive) while cool greens and blues betoken the masculine (calm, controlled, i.e., "cool as a cucumber"). In explaining how such associations develop, Marshall Sahlins (1976) suggests that societies seize natural facts, apply them socially, and then reapply them naturally. The metaphor of sweetness, for instance, is employed in socializing women to be supportive and kind; sweet objects subsequently are viewed as feminine (Heisley 1990:23). Although "real men don't eat quiche," many in fact do consume milk and eggs as nutrientrich, strength- building foods and perhaps as symbolic domination over women and their reproductive capacity (Heisley 1990:9). Finally, red meat is masculine- as in "he-man food,""hero" sandwiches, and bowls of Campbell's hearty beef stew referred to as "the manhandlers"-while the more delicate chicken and fish tend toward the feminine.

For centuries red meat has been associated with strength, power, aggression, and sexuality (Adams 1990; Twigg 1983). It is not surprising, then, that Lawry's Restaurant in Los Angeles sponsors an annual Beef Bowl, coinciding with the Rose Bowl, in which the competing football teams are treated on alternate nights to massive amounts of steak and prime rib, or that there are always several players who vie with one another to consume the most meat. In the 2003 gubernatorial race in California, which brought forth 137 candidates led by upstart Arnold Schwarzenegger against incumbent Gray Davis, Taco Bell announced a poll in which voters would choose their favorite candidate by the type of taco they bought; for example, all-beef crunchy tacos for muscular Schwarzenegger notorious for his macho films or chicken soft tacos for the less- colorful Davis, who lost (Rivenburg 2003). Blood carries aspects of violence, arousal of the passions, and bestiality itself. Ballad publisher Joseph Ritson writes in his Moral Essay upon Abstinence that the "use of animal food disposes man to cruel and ferocious actions," evident in the fact that the ancient Scythians, "from drinking the blood of their cattle, proceeded to drink that of their enemies," whereas Hindus, abstaining from meat, are of "gentle disposition" (1802 [2000]:207). Blood appears metaphorically in everyday language: there is noble blood, tainted blood, and a union in blood as well as the thin-bloodedness of the elderly.5 "Spilled blood" refers to a deed of violence, "cold blooded" connotes a merciless act, and "hot blooded" signi- fies anger and impulsiveness (Twigg 1983).

Omnivores are often thought of as aggressive in contrast to the more passive herbivores (Nemeroff and Rozin 1989). Vegetarians all, Voltaire was horrified at the cruel inhumanity of consuming flesh (Spencer 1993:228); Emanuel Swedenborg saw meat eating as a symbol of our fall from grace (Spencer 1993:253); Percy Shelley viewed it as the root of evil and source of disease (Morton 1995); Sylvester Graham, who bequeathed to us whole wheat bread and Graham crackers, railed in the midnineteenth century against meat eating as weakening health and promoting lust (Carson 1969)\; George Bernard Shaw worried that "If I were to eat meat, my evacuations would stink" because an animal's stench of terror at being slaughtered is conveyed to its flesh and hence to the eater; and John Harvey Kellogg, who invented eighty meatless dishes including corn flakes, lectured in the 1870s on the theory of "autointoxication," that meat literally rots in the stomach and clogs the system, causing poisons to flood the body (Carson 1957).6

The notion of contagion (Frazer [1911-1915] 1965; Rozin, Millman, and Nemeroff 1986) informs some of these pronouncements: one literally becomes what one eats. (Many aphrodisiacs involve the principle of homeopathy rather than contagion; see examples in Hendrickson 1974; Walton 1958.) On the other hand, one likely eats what one already is: according to HungryMonster.com, statistics compiled by Domino's Pizza about sales and deliveries indicate that men wearing muscle shirts when answering the door order pepperoni three times more often than they order any other topping, and people with pierced noses, lips, or eyebrows ask for a vegetarian toppings 23 percent more often than they ask for meat toppings. One recent study suggests that flesh eating figures prominently in the diets of those who emphasize social power, hierarchical domination, and conservatism, while people who place greater value on equality, peace, and social justice gravitate toward vegetarianism (Allen et al. 2000). Accordingly, many nineteenth-century vegetarians promoted radical causes including temperance, anti-vivisection, and women's suffrage (Leneman 1997; Spencer 1993), their identity and that of contemporary vegetarians symbolizing a lifestyle and set of values rather than being simply a matter of taste regarding what to ingest.7

I began this section of my article on the symbolism of meat and vegetables because of how fundamental they are to diet and identity: we either eat one or the other or both, and in the process we generate or convey a sense of self. In addition, sex and gender are our most basic identities biologically and through social construction. The symbolism of meat and vegetables in relation to identity has greatly affected, and continues to determine, people's behavior in a multitude of ways, which in turn has implications for contemporary nutritional programs. Sometimes men who assume the role of cooking-for instance, firefighters-masculinize their assumption of "women's" work by using profanity profusely during food preparation (Deutsch 2005:105). Although masculine identities may be multiple-such as "strong,""healthy,""wealthy,""sensitive,""traditional,""smart," or "pure" men (Sobal 2005:146-7)-the fact remains that there has long been a "hegemonic masculinity" serving as a prototype or ideal that associates men with meat rather than with "sissy" or "wimpy" foods (Sobal 2005:138).

Probably as a result of long-standing notions about meat, produce, and "stimulants," health manuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries recommended a diet low in meat for adolescent boys as a means of combating masturbation, along with reduced consumption of hot, spicy foods that inflame the passions. They also advocated a lower intake of red meat in pregnant and lactating women, promoting instead the ingestion of "delicate,""light" female foods like fruit, soups, milk, vegetables, chicken, and fish, which both reflect a woman's own delicate feminine condition and avoid stimulating red-bloodedness inappropriate to those fulfilling a nurturing role (Twigg 1983). By contrast, a man required a diet heavy in flesh because of his expenditure of energy in hard work and creative thinking, which also used up blood that must be replenished (Frese 1992:209).

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, many Victorian girls rejected meat, associating a carnivorous diet with sexual precocity, abundant menstrual flow, and even nymphomania and insanity (Showalter 1985:129). Spices and condiments also excited the sensual nature rather than moral character of a young woman. "Indulgence in foods that were considered stimulating or inflammatory served not only as an emblem of unchecked sensuality but sometimes as a sign of social aggression," writes Joan Jacobs Brumberg. "Women who ate meat could be regarded as acting out of place; they were assuming a male prerogative" (1988:180). In addition, eating could quickly lead to gluttony and physical ugliness; slimness signified spirituality, beauty, and gentility. "In this milieu food was obviously more than a source of nutrition or a means of curbing hunger; it was an integral part of individual identity. For women in particular, how one ate spoke to issues of basic character," Brumberg continues (1988:178). Then and now, denial of appetite "expressed an ideal of female perfection and moral superiority" (Brumberg 1988:188).

Evidence suggests that provisioning mythology affects which foods men and women of different classes select in their diet. Working- class and professional women appear to prefer a more feminine array of foodstuffs than do working-class men (Heisley 1990; Roos and Wandel 2005). Although many professional males give lip service to a penchant for the same items as their female counterparts, they tend to consume a more masculine set of items, particularly when away from home and in the company of their fellows. Countless working- class women prepare and eat a more masculine diet than they would like because they accommodate themselves to their spouses' preferences (Kerr and Charles 1986). "Well I know my husband's taste in food so I stick to just plain things," said one woman. "We live on beef, pork or lamb . . . so I tend to stick to the same thing most weeks-I rarely buy anything for myself" (120). Men typically eat more meat than do women, because they expect it as males and because many females think they need it. Remarked one woman: "A man that's been at work all day doesn't want to come home to fish fingers. He wants something a bit more substantial" (122). Another said, "When we're having a meal I always give him more than me and I can't bear the thought of him having less than me" (132). Yet another stated, "I tend to think men need more food inside them and I always give him a slightly bigger portion than myself nearly every time. . . . I put more meat on his plate generally" (137; regarding men's emphasis on quantity, see also Roos and Wandel 2005).

For many of us, the construction of a meal follows traditional rules, which Mary Douglas discovered when her family strenuously objected to a supper of soup. As the cook, "I needed to know what defines the category of a meal in our home" (Douglas 1972:63). She came to realize that a "proper meal" (Kerr and Charles 1986; Sobal 2005; Walker-Birckhead 1985) is "A (when A is the stressed main course) plus 2B (when B is an unstressed course)" (Douglas 1972:68). In many British, Australian, and American homes, a proper meal from a male's point of view consists of a centerpiece from the slaughterhouse "supplemented by two overcooked vegetables" (Singer 1990:187). In households where the man brings home the bacon, the woman's role is in the kitchen preparing dinner timed for his arrival, thus symbolizing her obligation as home maker and his as breadwinner (Ellis 1983; Murcott 1982; for the man's role in cooking, see T. Adler 1981). Seemingly insignificant, a woman's failure to provide a proper meal or to not do so on time may in fact cause her partner to boil over, committing an act of violence. As one woman battered by her husband reported, "It would start off with him being angry over trivial little things, a trivial little thing like cheese instead of meat on a sandwich" (Dobash and Dobash 1979:101). Another woman stated, "A month ago he threw scalding water over me, leaving a scar on my right arm, all because I gave him a pie with potatoes and vegetables for his dinner, instead of fresh meat" (Pizzey 1977:35).

Having examined the identities of male and female in relation to food symbolism, I want to consider other ways in which people indicate who they are through alimentary activities: first, self in relation to how and what one eats; second, food choice and identity related to values, gratification, and other personal characteristics; and third, self in relation to social categories. Of these, only the third-self and food choice in relation to, for example, ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation-has been researched to any great extent in folkloristics. To take up the first matter of self in relation to food consumption, some self- images derive from the range of fare-that is, foods viewed as acceptable to the individual (Bisogni et al. 2002).8 One individual admits to being a picky or fussy eater and unwilling to try new foods, another is a food snob, someone else boasts a willingness to eat anything, and yet others identify themselves as omnivores or as one of the six kinds of vegetarians (from occasional meat eater to ovo-lacto vegetarian to vegan; see Beardsworth and Keil 1992). Regarding the actual types of food preferred and consumed (as distinct from what is within acceptable limits), there is the self- proclaimed junk food junkie (immortalized in Jim Croce's song by this title), fast-food freak, meat-and-potatoes man, salad lover, sushi addict, chocoholic, adventurous eater (or culinary tourist; see Long 1998), or pasta person (as the buxom Sophia Loren said, "All you see, I owe to spaghetti"). The relationship between identity and types of food eaten is illustrated in The Breakfast Club (1985), directed by John Hughes, in which the lunches of the five main characters correlate with their personalities (for stereotypical profiles in eating, see Sadalla and Burroughs 1981).9 "The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live," observed Confucius. Indeed, how an individual eats speaks to identity, whether one be fastidious, messy, a formal d\iner, or someone who does not stand on formality. Tolstoy's joy in expressing intensely felt physical sensations in some of his writings bears a direct relationship to his eating with his hands, absorbing sensory qualities as directly as possible (Pearson 1984). The method of eating includes ritualistic behavior, such as a person's consuming all of one food on the plate before moving on to the next; the manner in which the character portrayed by Barbra Streisand in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) always cuts her salad into small bits, which endears her to Jeff Bridges; the way a young man invariably tears open and flattens a fast food bag to use as a place mat for the items inside, driving his (now ex-) girlfriend to distraction; or, according to Elizabeth Adler (1981), the systematic techniques that people employ to eat wedges of cake, fried eggs on toast, corn on the cob, and Oreos. The last was satirized in the late 1990s in an e-mail claiming to report the results of a study of personality based on how one eats these cookies.10 Sometimes meal patterns correlate with identity, as in the three-meals-a-day person, the individual who professes to not being a breakfast eater ("I don't do mornings"), the frequent snacker, or the person who often eats on the run because of a hectic schedule. The quantity consumed relates to self when one admits to being a hearty eater, a light eater, a nibbler, or a person who eats like a bird or, conversely, like a horse (as one man said, "I just want a lot and eat it fast so that I can go out and do something else"; quoted in Roos and Wandel 2005:172). Finally, consistency of alimentary practices bears a relationship to identity, as in the regular eater, a stable eater, or someone who "grabs lunch when I can."

In addition to the numerous identities related to consumption practices, there is a goodly crop corresponding to personal characteristics, which in turn manifest themselves in eating behavior. One of these traits is orientation toward health. A diet of organically grown, free-range, and brown, coarse, or raw foodstuffs as opposed to conventionally grown (with a helping of pesticides), factory-raised, and white, refined, and processed items testifies to health consciousness.11 As a corollary, there's the patent disregard of fitness. In 1981 the punk rock band Jody Foster's Army belted out a song at a couple of hundred beats a minute consisting of "Coke and Snickers is all I eat," repeated eight times in rapid succession followed by "Health Sucks!" sung eight times in a row. Food writer Calvin Trillin, who often reviewed "rib joints," remarked, "Health food makes me sick." According to a man who was an undergraduate at UCLA in the 1970s when the counterculture health movement was strong, "Because it is so fatty and a hazard to one's health, eating Spam," which he did, "was equivalent to never going out into the sun. It was sort of like an anti-statement, the antithesis of perfection and health" (quoted in Park 1991:21). With its emphasis on personal responsibility, "healthism" today tends to create a moral discourse surrounding sicknesses and diseases like cancer and diabetes, blaming individuals for their problems and robbing them of self-esteem and a sense of agency (Broom and Whittaker 2004; Liburd 2003).

"The body is not the same from day to day. Not even from minute to minute," acknowledges Emily Jenkins. "Sometimes it seems like home, sometimes more like a cheap motel near Pittsburgh" (1999:7). A second trait is body image. Often "fat" is implicated, particularly among females. A 1994 survey found that 90 percent of Korean high school girls who were of normal weight believed themselves to be heavy (Efron 1997). Another study showed that upwards of 63 percent of American high school girls dieted the previous year, losing an average of ten to twelve pounds (Whitaker et al. 1989). For many college-age women, growing fat betokens loss of control, which is another personal characteristic related to identity and hence food intake (and an issue for countless anorexics); the bodies of thin people symbolize restraint in eating that gives these individuals power over others through self-righteousness and moral rectitude. For these women students, "eating is not a simple act of fueling the body; it is moral behavior through which they construct themselves as good or bad human beings" (Counihan 1999:126).

In addition to orientation toward health and concerns over body image as well as control, other traits by means of which people may identify themselves and that relate to food choice are salience of food, as in "I love to eat, I love to cook" or "I eat to live, not live to eat"; degree of satisfaction and gratification, which is apparent in the person who gushes about being an enthusiastic eater or in the remark by George Bernard Shaw that "I am no gourmet, eating is not a pleasure to me, only a troublesome necessity, like dressing or undressing" (Spencer 1993:280); and physiological conditions and attributes, as in "I have a nervous stomach" or one's being ill (with a cold or the flu), suffering from a disease (e.g., diabetes, celiac disease, acid reflux, colitis), having allergic reactions to shellfish, potato skins, citrus, tomatoes, wheat products, or monosodium glutamate (MSG), experiencing disgust and cravings while pregnant (Murcott 1988), and so on. Lifestyle (Hanke 1989), such as the self-proclaimed cosmopolitan, beach bum, fitness buff, or outdoors-oriented individual, is yet another personal trait giving rise to an identity that in turn expresses and determines food choice. (Residents in the Seattle-Tacoma area spoon up 60 percent more Cheerios than elsewhere in the nation, which is "consistent with their outdoorsy, wholesome life style," said a spokesman for General Mills; see Hall 1988:17).

One final component of identity that is reproduced in or constructed by eating behavior is that of values, philosophy, or ideology. At a county fair, for instance, the food booths of fraternal, religious, and civic organizations sell virtually the same fare; customers may purchase their food from one rather than another vendor because of their identification with and allegiance to that organization (Prosterman 1981). For some individuals who identify with a racial or ethnic group, preparing and consuming foods associated with that identity helps keep memories and traditions alive (Beoku-Betts 1995). And as we have seen, vegetarians and health food advocates clearly state their positions through their culinary choices, asserting their identities with every bite, but there are contrarians too, such as the UCLA reference librarian who said, "I don't do drugs currently, and I don't drink 'cause I figured it was not good for me. So something like Spam fills that need to not be perfect. That is, perfect people are dull and boring so something like Spam shows that you are part of the human race" (quoted in Park 1991:13).

Identities relate not only to eating practices such as the range, types, and quantities of food consumed as well as to personal characteristics like body image, sense of control, lifestyle, and values discussed above, but also to social categories and reference groups. Gender as well as class, ethnicity, family, peer groups (including occupations; see Deutsch 2005; Roos and Wandel 2005; and Wilk and Hintlian 2005) dominate the list. In The Status Seekers, a best-seller in the 1950s, Vance Packard describes the downs and ups of food associated with class. A man grew up in a poor family of Italian origin that subsisted on blood sausages, pizza, spaghetti, and red wine. After high school, he worked in logging camps where he learned to prefer beef, beans, and beer. Later, in an industrial plant in Detroit, he worked his way up the ladder and cultivated the favorite foods and beverages of other executives: steak, seafood, and whiskey. Ultimately gaining acceptance in the city's upper class, he won culinary admiration by serving guests, with the aid of his servant, authentic Italian treats such as blood sausage, spaghetti, and red wine. As suggested by this example, high-status foods are those that are expensive because of rarity, cost of ingredients, labor-intensive preparation, the prominence of animal protein, and their nonnutritional meanings and associations (Berger 1981). A staple item, if prepared in elaborate ways and served infrequently, can attain or preserve prestige value ("prestige," from Latin praestigium, meaning "illusion" or "delusion").

For centuries, meat, white rice, and white bread have commanded admiration (Flynn 1944; Masumoto 1987; Spencer 1993:257).12 According to Kerr and Charles (1986:140-3), meat is so crucial to a "proper meal" in England that it continues to appear on the table during inflationary periods or when family income wanes, albeit of lesser quality. In the status ranking of meat, steaks and chops are the highest; stews, casseroles, liver, and bacon occupy the intermediate category; and burgers and sausages rank lowest. (Offal, which is cheap, is recognized as nutritious, but it is disliked and served as a form of penance.) The specific foods considered high- status and "luxury" items vary through time and among groups and subcultures. A general rule seems to be that luxury foods "offer a refinement in texture, taste, fat content or other quality (such as stimulant or inebriant) and . . . offer distinction because of either their quantity (especially of meat and alcohol) or quality (the latter including expense, exotic origin, complexity, style, etiquette, etc.)" (van der Veen 2003:420).

As symbols, status foods may have a significant impact on people's behavior. Charlotte Babcock (1947:391) reports an instance in which a man flew into a rage when his wife served him hamburger. He associated ground beef with the poverty and degradation he had suffered early in life, and therefore he assu\med that his wife ignored or lacked respect for his achievements and pride. On a more positive note (of sorts), three nights before the Super Bowl game in 1991, line coach Fred Hoaglin treated the eight-man New York Giants offensive line to eleven pounds of lobster, fifteen pounds of steak, twenty-five pounds of side dishes, and a $400 bottle of wine: "I wanted them to experience real quality food so they would play real quality ball," he said ("Eating to Win" 1991). The Giants edged out the Buffalo Bills 20-19 (for a study of an organization's manipulation of food-related status symbols among its employees, see Rosen 1985).

What one individual esteems, however, another may reject. To many, a table centerpiece of Jell-O with tiny marshmallows, bits of pineapple, julienne carrots, and other fruit or vegetables exemplifies a woman's creativity and sophistication (Newton 1992); to others, it is dclass. "Cold or hot, Spam hits the spot" might be true for some-and cooking contests highlight it with award-winning entries like Savory Spam Cheesecake while Hawaiian identity seems to revolve around this canned meat-but Spam is not prestigious to all. "Being an African-American, looking good was always important, showing some kind of status," said one man who quit eating it after eight years. "Being associated with Spam would take that away from that good image" (quoted in Park 1991:18; see also Lewis 2000 regarding Spam's high and low status; Kim and Livengood 1995 concerning ramen noodles; and Belcher 1980 for attitudes toward Twinkies, or "WASP Soul Food," as Archie Bunker of All in the Family dubbed them). The modern tradition of using convenience foods and prepared mixes, whether Betty Crocker Potato Buds, Shake 'n' Bake, or Hamburger Helper, is appreciated by some, ridiculed by others. National Lampoon (1974) satirized "The Cooking of Provincial New Jersey" in an article by Gerald Sussman mimicking the beautifully photographed images of haute cuisine and class-based rhetoric in Gourmet Magazine. Subtitled "Twenty-one Cuisines, One Great Taste," it features frozen, canned, and processed items. Ernest Mickler's White Trash Cooking (1986) inverts food and status correlations, privileging lower-class food (Evans 1992). It uses a language of cheap ingredients: swamp cabbage, hog lights (lungs), lard, 'gater (alligator) tail, cooter (turtle), and such commercial products as mayonnaise, Redi-whip, and Ritz crackers. His recipes are for dishes like Aunt Donnah's Roast Possum, Mock Cooter Soup prepared with oleo, Potato Chip Sandwich, and Paper-Thin Grilled Cheese made with white bread ("no other will do") and two slices of Velveeta cheese ("no other will do").

The relationship of food to ethnic identity has long been a staple of folkloristic documentation, analysis, and presentation (see overviews by Camp 1989; Kalc?ik 1984; and Rikoon 1982; see also essays in Brown and Mussell 1984 and Humphrey and Humphrey 1988). Eating culture is a significant element of festivals, whether homegrown or organized by folklorists (Griffith 1988; Hansen 1996; Kurin 1997; Sommers 1994). For ethnic displays at festive events, disagreements can arise as to which food should be served: an Americanized one or a more "authentic" dish (often the folklorist's preference but whose unfamiliar flavors, unfortunately, might offend the palate of many festival-goers; see Auerbach 1991). Participants in regional events highlighting ethnic identity usually consume esoteric dishes behind closed doors while publicly displaying those that have been accepted by the dominant society, even rechristening concession fare to suggest ethnic relevance (e.g., at an Italian American festival in Indiana, calling soda pop gassoso, lemonade lemonatto, and a ham and cheese sandwich pasticcetto di prosciutto; see Magliocco 1993).

As often noted, many members of the first generation of immigrants attempt to retain their cuisine to the extent that similar ingredients are available (regarding the importance of the "flavor principle," or flavoring as a marker of cuisine, see Rozin 1983), economics and social context do not pose hurdles, and the food items continue to symbolically tie them to the source culture (Kalc?ik 1984; Rikoon 1982). But alas, "Old Confucius ways don't work anymore, you know," says Uncle Tam in Wayne Wang's movie Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1984). "Things can't stay the same. Something happens here. Whoosh! It changes. You only keep what you can use." Typically, the children of immigrants opt for the foods of the dominant culture; in England and the United States it is often fast, junk, frozen, or convenience items pervading the wider society that the youth feel, or wish to appear to be, a part of rather than apart from (Ashley et al. 2004:72; Devine et al. 1999:90; Valentine 1999:519). Members of the third generation, however, may hunger for emblems of ethnicity, selecting certain foods as representations of their heritage (Kugelmass 1990; Raspa 1984; see also Negra 2002 as well as Girardelli 2004 regarding the nostalgia that seemingly sustains food-centric films and/or ethnic-themed restaurants). Fears of losing ethnic or racial traditions and other symbols of identity associated with food often surface when individuals face the prospects of having to change their diet to conform to clinicians' recommendations (James 2004:362).

Researchers usually dwell on ethnic identities that they suppose people assume for themselves, but Robert Georges contends that you often eat what others think you are, and those who prepare the food for you choose it on the basis of who they think you think they are. He draws on personal experiences, including one occasion when he visited Greek immigrant relatives for the first time; they vied with one another to prepare him a Greek meal although they rarely cook Greek dishes and he did not ask for such cuisine. After examining a number of situations in which he was host or guest, Georges sets forth a theorem regarding food choice and social identity: "We and others select and reject certain foods, prepare the selected foods in particular ways, and serve them to specific individuals because we identify them or ourselves as Southerners, natural food addicts, men or women, old or young; and

Source: Journal of American Folklore

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