A sad day for the UK

I don’t often post anything political on my blog, at least not about my personal views, but today’s news that we are to be subjected to another 5 years of Tory government has made me feel angry, upset and disillusioned.   

This morning I posted the following status update on Facebook:

To which one of my friends – one of the few Tories I do associate with – replied:

I know she said this in jest and that much of the rant that follows does not reflect her views, but nonetheless I feel compelled to respond.

I am not a communist; there is not one historical example of it working in reality and contemporary examples are hardly textbook. However, I do believe that people less fortunate than me should be given a chance to succeed and that means affordable education and a welfare system. I know there are some people who take advantage of this, but what about people who are disabled or from an impoverished background who haven’t had the chances I was given in terms of education and a loving and nurturing family environment?

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Food is symbolic

Food is symbolic. I encountered this idea early on in my studies in food anthropology. It is often presented as one of reasons why food is useful as a ‘lens’ through which to explore wider social, cultural, political and economic issues. But what does this really mean?

It took me a while to gain more than a superficial understanding. As I write this it becomes clear why that might have been. I had never been encouraged to think beyond the macro level. The idea that food is symbolic remained an abstract concept, referring to food in general and applied broadly.

A few months into my studies I had a eureka moment. I read two papers in which the authors honed in on a single foodstuff of particular importance to the society they were studying. Their focus on a specific food in a particular context made it much clearer to me why food is symbolic and how this can be a useful way of exploring other issues.

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