Wild Food Thistle Gathering and Pastoralism: An Inextricable Link in the Biocultural Landscape of Barbagia, Central Sardinia (Italy)

Mattalia, Giulia; Sõukand, Renata; Corvo, Paolo; Pieroni, Andréa

doi:10.3390/su12125105

Cited by 25 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Some important wild food plants ( Figure 4 ) and dishes prepared by the visited communities were available for photographing ( Figure 5 ). Traditional culinary processing included cooking the plants as vegetables (43 mentions), followed by raw snacks (33), confirming what documented in other ethnobotanical studies too [ 73 , 74 , 75 ]. Raw snacks were eaten especially by transhumant herders, and it has been shown that herding develops specific linkages between humans and their surrounding ecosystem [ 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 ].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 76%

Gathered Wild Food Plants among Diverse Religious Groups in Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan

Majeed

Bhatti

Pieroni

et al. 2021

Foods

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent ethnobotanical studies have raised the hypothesis that religious affiliation can, in certain circumstances, influence the evolution of the use of wild food plants, given that it shapes kinship relations and vertical transmission of traditional/local environmental knowledge. The local population living in Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan comprises very diverse religious and linguistic groups. A field study about the uses of wild food plants was conducted in the district. This field survey included 120 semi-structured interviews in 27 villages, focusing on six religious groups (Sunni and Shia Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Ahmadis). We documented a total of 77 wild food plants and one mushroom species which were used by the local population mainly as cooked vegetables and raw snacks. The cross-religious comparison among six groups showed a high homogeneity of use among two Muslim groups (Shias and Sunnis), while the other four religious groups showed less extensive, yet diverse uses, staying within the variety of taxa used by Islamic groups. No specific plant cultural markers (i.e., plants gathered only by one community) could be identified, although there were a limited number of group-specific uses of the shared plants. Moreover, the field study showed erosion of the knowledge among the non-Muslim groups, which were more engaged in urban occupations and possibly underwent stronger cultural adaption to a modern lifestyle. The recorded traditional knowledge could be used to guide future development programs aimed at fostering food security and the valorization of the local bio-cultural heritage.

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 76%

Gathered Wild Food Plants among Diverse Religious Groups in Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan

Majeed

Bhatti

Pieroni

et al. 2021

Foods

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In addition, WFP are important as ancestors or relatives of cultivated, including major crop, plants [ 29 ], and as a reservoir of genes not present in domesticated taxa or races that could be useful for new crop developments [ 30 ]. Irrespective of their relevance, WFP have been the object of cultural erosion [ 31 ] and face conservation problems [ 32 ], this making their study and possible protection plans (comprising both plants and associated traditional knowledge) highly desirable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Power of Wild Plants in Feeding Humanity: A Meta-Analytic Ethnobotanical Approach in the Catalan Linguistic Area

Gras

Garnatje

Marín

et al. 2020

Foods

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wild food plants (WFP) have always been present in our kitchen, although they have not always been given the same importance as crops. In the Catalan linguistic area (CLA), covered in this paper, WFP were of great importance as a subsistence food not only during the years of the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) and World War II (1939–1945), but also long before these periods and in the years thereafter. The CLA has been well studied at the level of traditional knowledge on plant biodiversity, and much of this information is collected in a database by the EtnoBioFiC research group. The aim of this work is to carry out a meta-analysis of the WFP dataset of the CLA (only regarding edible uses, drinks excluded) and to identify the most quoted plants, and the information associated with them. With data from 1659 informants, we recorded 10,078 use reports of 291 taxa (278 of which at specific or subspecific levels and 13 only determined at generic level) belonging to 67 families. The most reported taxa, also with highest cultural importance indexes, are Thymus vulgaris, Foeniculum vulgare subsp. piperitum, Laurus nobilis, Rubus ulmifolius and Mentha spicata. The ethnobotanicity index for food plants is 6.62% and the informant consensus factor, also for food uses, is a very high 0.97, supporting the robustness of the information. The results provided and discussed in this work concern a significant part of the edible resources in the territory considered, which is, often and mainly, underestimated and underutilised. Its consideration could be an opportunity to promote closer and more sustainable agriculture. From the state-of-the-art of this question, it is possible to propose old, in some cases forgotten foods that could be newly introduced onto the market, first, but not only, at a local level, which could be interesting for new crop development in the frame of a valorisation of territorial identity.

show abstract

“…Finally, snack foods provide small amounts of nutrients, mainly sugar and vitamins, but have had a relevant role as thirst quenchers and refreshments for shepherds and children while herding the sheep's and goats' flocks or looking after the pigs, as also have been documented in other Mediterranean regions (Łuczaj et al, 2013a;Mattalia et al, 2020b). The use of these species is associated with an extinct way of life, when shepherds and children spent long periods of time out in the countryside and ate wild plants to stave off the hunger or just to entertain themselves.…”

Section: Values Associated With the Food Contextmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The use of these species is associated with an extinct way of life, when shepherds and children spent long periods of time out in the countryside and ate wild plants to stave off the hunger or just to entertain themselves. As several authors have argued, children (Łuczaj and Kujawska, 2012;Kalle and Sõukand, 2013) and shepherds (Mattalia et al, 2020b) have a wild food flora of their own, since the way they interact with nature shares some aspects with the hunter-gatherers, who wander around looking for something to eat for hours. As a female informant in her 70's told us: "when we were children we were always out in the country, with the cows, the sheep, the pigs.…”

Section: Values Associated With the Food Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Persistence of Flavor: Past and Present Use of Wild Food Plants in Sierra Norte de Madrid, Spain

Aceituno-Mata

Tardío²,

Pardo‐de‐Santayana

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite the increasing scientific and public interest in wild food plants, their traditional knowledge is undergoing a deep cultural erosion process at a global scale. The paper assesses past and present use of wild food plants in Sierra Norte de Madrid (Spain) in order to understand which are the main drivers of its evolution. We interviewed 132 informants and analyzed the cultural importance and present use of the following: (1) the human food use-category compared with all the other use-subcategories, (2) the food plant species, and (3) the human food use-subcategories (e.g., vegetables, fruits, condiments, or beverages). The useful wild flora included 252 plant species, of which 74 were traditionally used as human food, which is the most culturally important use-category. The most important species were three vegetables consumed cooked (Scolymus hispanicus, Bryonia dioica, and Silene vulgaris), other two greens that were eaten raw (Rumex papillaris and Montia fontana), a condiment (Thymus zygis), and a fruit (Rubus ulmifolius). Among food use-categories, vegetables was the category with a higher cultural importance index, but beverages and condiments had the lowest cultural erosion rate. We found several drivers of change in the use of wild food plants, some enhancing the trend of abandonment that affects differently certain uses and species, and others encouraging their maintenance. Factors that may explain the general erosion trend are linked to the abandonment of traditional agricultural practices and shepherding: (1) the decrease in the abundance and quality of wild food plants; (2) wild food plants are no longer necessary for subsistence; (3) the reduction of time spent in the countryside; and (4) the negative connotations of some species that are considered famine food. On the other hand, there are several motivations for gathering and using wild food plants: (1) gathering is seen as a leisure and community building activity; (2) the intense flavor of wild plants, which cannot be substituted by cultivated or commercial ones; (3) positive values associated with some species consumed as everyday food that are now considered delicatessen; and (4) the medicinal role of food, mainly food uses closer to medicine such as beverages and condiments.

show abstract

Wild Food Thistle Gathering and Pastoralism: An Inextricable Link in the Biocultural Landscape of Barbagia, Central Sardinia (Italy)

Cited by 25 publications

References 49 publications

Gathered Wild Food Plants among Diverse Religious Groups in Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan

Gathered Wild Food Plants among Diverse Religious Groups in Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan

The Power of Wild Plants in Feeding Humanity: A Meta-Analytic Ethnobotanical Approach in the Catalan Linguistic Area

The Persistence of Flavor: Past and Present Use of Wild Food Plants in Sierra Norte de Madrid, Spain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About