Las fronteras del sabor: Taste as Consciousness, Kinship, and Space in the Mexico–U.S. Borderlands

Abstract

R e s u m e nInformada por teorías sobre corporeización, investigaciones regionales sobre el parentesco, y nociones del espacio social, este artículo presenta un modelo etnográfico del sabor. Más que el ejercicio práctico de la ideología doméstica, el sabor influye la mentalidad, la sociabilidad y la espacialidad. Es una conciencia sensual centrada en gozar, aprender y compartir. Como una intervención epistemológica, se desestabiliza al concepto de gusto como racional y fijo y se lo reubica como encarnado y personal y aun así social y dinámico. El parentesco es el modo primario para la construcción del sabor; de este modo, las madres, hermanas, hijas, nueras, vecinas y amigas son socias en el ciclo de cuidado familiar y la búsqueda del sabor. Además, mientras se subvierten las divisiones sociales y espaciales entre cuerpo y mente, doméstico y público, local y global, el sabor se abre el camino para repensar las nociones del espacio social y sus fronteras. [comida/nutrición, género, México, parentesco, teoría] A b s t r a c tThis article presents sabor as a food-based worldview prevalent in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands. Informed by studies of embodiment, scholarship on regional kinship patterns, and notions of social space, I use interviews with a key informant to present an ethnographic model of taste. More than the practical exercise of domestic ideology, sabor constructs consciousness, sociality, and spatiality. It is a sensual awareness focusing on relishing, mastering, and sharing. As an epistemological intervention, it destabilizes taste as rational and fixed and relocates it as embodied and personal yet social and dynamic. Kinship is the primary mode for the construction of sabor and mothers,

Paqueteros and Paqueteras

“…Often those foods are associated with special occasions and ceremony, and are likely to be foods that are labor intensive-in the Mexican context, such foods are mole or tamales-as opposed to everyday foods or foods that are easily replicable in the location of settlement (Gálvez 2018;Viladrich 2017). Pérez (2014) chronicles the ways that gendered kinds of socially reproductive labor around food preparation and transmission of knowledge about cocina-foodways and cuisine-contribute to strengthening the bonds of kinship and culture. In addition to foods like tamales or pasteles having many ingredients, they often require multiple steps in preparation, and rely on knowledge from someone, often a matriarch, who safeguards family recipes and techniques for preparation.…”

“Everything Went Boom”: Kinship Narratives of Transfronterizo University Students

“…Cristina mentioned “the fact that I can't go [to Mexico] very often” as a source of strain in her relationship with her boyfriend, who lived in Mexico. This was not because she did not get to spend enough time with her boyfriend, but because having to cross made it difficult to foster “recurring personal connection” through the kinds of activities that, at least in the nostalgic chronotope, would have allowed her to “solidify kinship” (Pérez :312).…”

“…For example, like Mary, Cristina faced the question of how to strengthen kinship ties to potential affines—her boyfriend's family and friends—through the shared activities related to food preparation and consumption that Pérez () describes as essential to the maintenance of Mexican‐origin kinship. Cristina mentioned “the fact that I can't go [to Mexico] very often” as a source of strain in her relationship with her boyfriend, who lived in Mexico.…”