Eating Traditional Food

Brigitte Sébastia is Researcher in Anthropology at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India.

"Eating Traditional Food: politics, identities and practices wrestles down the concept and practices of producing and consuming ‘traditional foods’, without falling either into the ethnocentric, nationalist, rendering of tradition, or the blanket denunciation of the very concept of tradition by critical scholars...The authors do a great service in trying to draw the boundaries of the modern and the traditional, past and the present, community and consumer practices, to enable us to protect what comes from long duration and is widely shared from the commons without the protection of intellectual property rights, against the encroachment of private, commodified, consumer culture, undertaken primarily for profit and for social prestige." – From the Foreword by Krishnendu Ray, New York University, USA and President of the Association for the Study of Food & Society

• 1. Eating Traditional Food: Politics, Identity and Practices Brigitte Sébastia 2. The Rediscovery of Native ‘Super-foods’ in Mexico Esther Katz and Elena Lazos 3. Lost in Tradition: An Attempt to Go Beyond Labels, Taking Maltese Food Practices as a Primary Example Elise Billiard 4. The Protection of Traditional Local Foods through Geographical Indications in India Delphine Marie-Vivien 5. Are Buuz and Banš Traditional Mongolian Foods? Strategy of Appropriation and Identity Adjustment in Contemporary Mongolia Sandrine Ruhlmann 6. "Beef is our Secret of Life": Controversial Consumption of Beef in Andhra Pradesh, India Brigitte Sébastia 7. Modernity, Traditionalism, and the Silence Protest: The Palestinian Food Narrative in Israeli Reality Television Liora Gvion 8. The Never-ending Reinvention of ‘Traditional Food’: Food Practices and Identity (Re)Construction among Bolivian Returnees from Argentina Charles-Édouard de Suremain 9. What Is Healthy Diet? Some Ideas about the Construction of Healthy Food in Germany since the 19th Century Detlef Briesen 10. Are Traditional Foods and Eating Patterns Really Good for Health? A Socio-Anthropological Inquiry into French People with Hypercholesterolaemia Tristan Fournier 11. Eating Ayurvedic Foods: Elaboration of a Repertoire of ‘Traditional Foods’ in France Nicolas Commune