Food as language and the market as kitchen: food in public markets as a social symbol

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect and analyze the symbology of the practice of eating in public markets and to introduce the methodological strategy of a case study carried out in the Municipal Market of Diamantina (a historic site in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil). Following a theoretical framework based on the concepts of “food-language” and “kitchen-market,” present in the explanations of Lévi-Strauss (1991, 2006) and “habitus,” as proposed by Bourdieu (1987;1998), the approach of the classic geographic category of Place was added, whose development proposes that, historically, the Market is a space subject to social interventions and public policies, not only related to economic factors – it is worth mentioning – and which visualizes such public establishment as a place that allows the reproduction and construction of a local popular culture and in which the “habitus” of eating relates to diversified identities that are intrinsic to the regulars, such as regional, familial, communitarian, and rural/urban.

Keywords

• public market. place. food-language. symbol.