Cuisine of economy, cuisine of excess: materializing value in culinary practice

Abstract

Certain culinary practices are often interpreted as evidence of ‘economizing’ (a frugal use of available resources) or of ‘excess’ (a celebratory expenditure of resources for symbolic purposes). This article uses these categories as a way to interrogate analytical assumptions about materialism more generally. Drawing on ethnographic research from both rural Tanzania, and the contemporary suburban United States, it argues that various qualities of discernment, taste, and preference are not determined by the material affordances of foods, but rather that these judgements can be materialized in social and cultural practice.

“For us women, flavor is king”: Gender, saf sap and flavor work in urban Senegal

“…Stories about saf sap can be used to index both poverty and excess. Like Brad Weiss’s example of the meatball, saf sap seems to simultaneously “express economizing limit and/or excessive celebration in the very same material form” (Weiss 2022 ).…”