Eat Your Words

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1. The signifier is eaten

The study of food and eating patterns has traditionally fallen into the following three areas: Functionalism (a society is considered to be an organic system, similar to a living body, however the system remains static and does not allow for change), developmentalism (it is change and therefore the presence of conflicts and contra­dictions that are given emphasis) and structuralism. The latter viewpoint “looks beneath the surface linkages to the structures underpinning them,”(1) or it is not the food itself but the structure and rituals of a meal that are significant. This has an analogy with linguistics since “the cultural surface features are seen as generated in the same way that everyday speech is produced by an underlying system of rules.”(2)

Lévi-Strauss suggested that human cooking behaviour is expressive, that we cook our food to “demonstrate that we are civilised men and not wild animals,” and discriminate types of cooking and food preparation as “markers of social occasions.”(3) His structuralist theories were formed from the basic premise that elements gain meaning only when encountered in contrast with other elements. However he is criticised by Mary Douglas for his lack of attention to the “small-scale social relations.” In her opinion it is these that are significant because they “generate the codification and are sustained by it” and in doing so search for universal meanings common to all mankind is too general to provide appropriate results.(3)

Roland Barthes also falls under the structuralist heading according to these classifications,(4) although he was actually one of the key figures of the post-structuralist movement. He equates an item of food with an item of information or a sign, and these are all signs in a system of communication. “The conceptual units for describing food can be used to construct ‘syntaxes’ (or ‘menus’) and ‘styles’ (or ‘diets’) in a semantic rather than an empirical fashion,” in terms of significance rather than appearance, it therefore becomes possible to ask what these signify. Looking at food advertising as an example, Barthes identifies a theme in which specific foods are used to signify continuity with tradition and the past.(5) To apply these theories: roast beef is both physical meat (the signifier) and the idea (the signified) which, depending on the context could be, for example, ‘British’, ‘Sunday’ or ‘Family’.

If viewed individually the elements have a certain amount of significance, but it is once they are combined (Gestalt) that the sum of the meal’s parts create a totality.(6)

Barthes demonstrates the rule-bound structures of both a meal and a piece of literature through this model of a menu: “a diner selects one item from the ‘paradigmatic axes’ of starters, entrées and desserts. These are then combined along a ‘syntagmatic axis’ in the actual process of eating in the same way that a literary work chooses items from various repertoires (genres, formal devices, narrative forms) and then goes on to string them together.”(7) Ultimately, Barthes is criticised by Mennell (1965) for his lack of historical view and his tendency to draw upon his own experience,(8) although his theories have become the basis for the research of others.

Authors Alan Beardsworth and Teresa Keil describe Mary Douglas as being “more clearly rooted in the familiar, everyday world than Lévi-Strauss. She bases her analysis on the structuralist idea that food can be treated as a code, and the messages it encodes are about social events and about social relations.”(9) She states that “communication is made through food in terms of different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries.”(10)

If this statement is broken down and the elements are separated out, then the messages encoded by food fall into three distinct categories: the first is of tribe, the social group to which the subject belongs. The second relates to the relationship between those sharing food—a scale of intimacy, boundaries and the transactions across them according to social convention. The third relates to the formality of the meal, which falls into distinct patterns throughout the week and year culminating in, for example, the gastronomic extravagance of Christmas.

A fourth category, seduction, is added for products (such as ready-made dinners) that have been absorbed into consumer culture—this is the significance the product is given with the aim of seducing you to purchase it.


food tree

Figure D: A framework of categories of grammar for the description of eating. A visual interpretation of M. Halliday’s analogy of the daily menu with that of linguistic form. The illustrated example is of the following meal: first course of hors d’oevres, second course of chicken, potatoes, peas and carrots, followed by dessert.

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(1) F. Saussure, Sociology on the menu p 61. (2) A. Beardsworth & T. Keil, Sociology on menu p 57.
(3) E. Leach, Culture & communication p 60. (3) M. Douglas, Implicit meanings p 232. (4) & (5) A. Beardsworth & T. Keil, Sociology on the menu p 63. (6) Adapted from J. Williamson, Decoding Advertisements p 79. (7) T. Eagleton, Consuming passions p 203. (8) A. Beardsworth & T. Keil, Sociology on menu p 64. (9) A. Beardsworth & T. Keil, Sociology on menu p 63. (10) M. Douglas, Implicit meanings p 231.

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