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ather works as the basic social bond: it makes the nation visible for its own
members and for those from other nations and societies. It seems as if the
members of the nation ‘forget’ their diverse cultural origins and instead
identify themselves with one, all-embracing national culture. 7
Food constitutes a critical component of national culture and proves
particularly powerful in keeping nationhood near the surface of mundane
life. 8 This is clearly reflected in the frequency of instances when eating
habits have been employed to belittle other nations. 9 According to Anne
Murcott, expressing nationality in terms of food is widespread due to ‘the
malleable, modular nature of national identity and the flexibility and ubiquity
of food as a medium of communication’. 10 Because it is a biological
necessity, food is impossible to avoid, along with whatever messages it carries.
Moreover, a strong attachment between food and memory gives the
satisfaction of visceral cravings deep emotional significance. 11 The most
salient feature of a national cuisine is bridging regional, ethnic, class and
gender differences, creating a cuisine with which entire populations willingly
and often ardently identify. Tied to the conceptions of the national
history, national cuisine acquires a sense of permanence and authenticity. 12
Most national cuisines are grounded on the array of foods and practices
characteristic of social groups and communities that occupy the nationstate
territory. These foods and practices are merged with foreign elements
carried by traders, immigrants and aggressors. The national cuisine emerges
as a result of negotiation between the local and the foreign, through the
‘interaction between practice and performance, domestic and public, high
and low’. 13 The timing, pace and the main players involved are determined
by the particular circumstances of each locale. In the case of the currently
emerging cuisines of independent African states, for example, national
governments and the members of African diasporas are playing a leading
role. In contrast, the culinary nation-building in post-colonial India was
carried on the shoulders of middle-class urban women, and struggles of
ethnicity propelled the rise of Mexican national cuisine. 14
Despite differences between each of these cases, they all substantiate
evidence that the making of a national cuisine, although often sustained by
the nation-building machine of the state, is not undertaken by a single force,
but involves an array of players pursuing their particular goals. Their
projects are often linked with one another, but are seldom coordinated.
Still, restaurateurs and cooks, entrepreneurs and publishers of cookbooks,
educators and dieticians, military caterers and all the others involved in the
making of a national cuisine continuously adjust to the changing political
scene and the fluctuations of the economy.
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