Practice of culinary hybrids, portraits in the kitchen

This is a book a little special, which consists of revenue multicultural, photographic portraits, information dietary and nutritional images of meals shared. It presents different ways of cooking, at home, in the framework of the workshop, kitchen, friends, family… and various meetings. Mix. Portrait kitchens is a part of these “beautiful books” we like to keep in his library : printed on glossy paper, in color, blending photos, titles, color, close-ups, it is indeed rare to have to deal with such objects in the humanities and social sciences. And for good reason, this book is not a book of sociology or anthropology. Edited by the Agency of associative communication services and solidarity (aacess) éditions Érès, it is to be read as a recipe book. The summary is, in fact, designed as well : some contributions to random ” Attiéké fish at Mary’s house “, “piperade basque in Hala” or ” Cassoulet of Asturias or Fabada in Célia “. This work offers a route of taste in kitchens individual foreign. We propose in this report a little special, a journey through the book to show his interest for a sociology of power, more precisely, a sociology of culinary practices. Extracts of dialogues, photos are here the subject of a secondary analysis.

That comes to do a book of recipes in Links Socio ? It seems to us that in itself, the book provides an interesting look at the culinary practices of individuals, practices of “mix”, we may say, to paraphrase the title. Each double or triple page offers a recipe of course, but not in the canonical form of a list of ingredients followed an operation mode. The recipes are in the form of dialogues between several people or in a form that is told with the emphasis on tricks, tricks. It is in this way that it may be of interest to the sociologist. Thus, it is the carrier of a description of the culinary practices by the actors themselves. It allows to show how the kitchen is a carrier of know-how and techniques : photographs and descriptions complement each other ” Hala form a kind of cone with the paste made up of boulghour and meat crushed. She stuffs then these cones of minced meat, back in the oil with the onion, cumin, salt, and pepper ” (p. 55). This work is mainly to think about the diy culinary practices of the individual. The culinary practices appear to be practices of hybridization, selection, breaks with a family practice or regional ” Between my aunt and my mother there was a difference. My mom does not put any onion, my aunt, yes, both versions are very good. I did not put in any bell pepper, I put pepper “(p. 47), ” at the end of the cooking, I will add a bit of rum. This is my trick to me. “(p. 71), “I said to myself, if I orientalisais and if I put the white meat and the sauce dog in Guadeloupe” (p. 33)

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