HIDDEN RESOURCES? HOUSEHOLDS’ STRATEGIES FOR MAINTAINING CONTROL OVER FOOD: BETWEEN CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY

Abstract

This paper deals with internal household strategies for regaining control over quality, safety and the meaning of food, as applied by people in Poland. Using material gathered by interviewing representatives of two generations, the paper analyses the bottom-up, scattered and intra-family solutions woven into the structure of everyday life. Although alternative food networks and food activism are emerging nowadays as an important area of criticism towards contemporary food production and supply, the paper goes back to the choices made within the mainstream food system. Although the interviewees could be classified as middle-class and for this reason are expected to eagerly adapt to new lifestyle patterns, the research material allows one to focus not only on the novelty in people’s culinary choices, but above all – on the continuity. Forms of domestic cooking and buying provisions for the household – as embodied skills based on physical work and time available – are interpreted in the light of contemporary food distrust. The similarities between late modern and traditional mechanisms of maintaining trust are analysed, showing how different layers overlap, shaping a mix of traditional and modern forms.

Keywords

• food trust
• domestic cooking
• household economy
• intergenerational transmission
• tradition
• modernity
• post-socialism