Completitud y fracción. El triángulo culinario del tamal totonaco (Mexico)

Abstract

Culinary traditions define categories whether social or ontological. Food and its preparation are thus differentiating signs or markers of otherness. Depending on the context of preparation and consumption a basic and rude distinction can be drawn between daily and ritual food; in other words, situations of simple commensality versus contexts of commensality and offering. During the costumbre rituals of the totonac of the Huasteca, located at the northern end of the state of Puebla (Mexico), we will witness the way these three different types of steamed corncakes define specific relations of reciprocity dictated by a precise numerical code. The interrelation of this code (that implies the notions of fraction and completeness) with the different animals used and the contexts of commensality and offering of the steamed corncakes will be the ethnographic basis of a culinary triangle to the totonac steamed corncakes that it’s proposed here.

Keywords

• offering
• fraction
• completeness
• commensality
• autophagy