Cookbooks and diets in dispute

Discover the first session of the 2024-2025 Americanist Anthropology Seminar: Cookbooks and diets in dispute: food, taste and citizenship in Mexico

This presentation will focus on cookbooks as resources used by indigenous populations to proclaim their social and political rights, in open opposition to modern policies of recognition and management of cultural diversity. To do this, we will first explore the institutionalized, multiculturalist notions of indigeneidad that make up the Colección de recetarios indígenas y populares (1999-2022), published by the Mexican Ministry of Culture. This unique collection of 78 volumes represents the nation's indigenous culinary heritage. Secondly, we will examine two community recipe books - Recetario indígena coca (Mezcala, Jalisco) and Manual de cocina cosoltepecana (Mixteca baja, Oaxaca)- to discover alternative notions of indigenous citizenship that are constructed from the culinary domain.

• Sarah Bak-Geller (Institute of Anthropological Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico)
• Charles-Edouard de Suremain (IRD)