Bread as World: Food Habits & Social Relations in Modernizing Sardinia --Carole Counihan

2 Bosa, Sardinia Once men grew wheat & women baked bread together in their homes Bread was shared through kin & friendship networks Bread was consumed communally

3 Let’s begin with a premise: Human nature is a product of history & society (Gramsci, Marx) In Sardinia, people practiced communal labor & reciprocal exchange Identity was based on group, lineage, family membership

4 Sardinian Context Geographic isolation, low population density Tradition of sheep raising & wheat cultivation Subsistence economy

5 Bread… Is the nexus of economic, political, social, symbolic, and health concerns 78% of diet in 1930s (+ vegetables, cheese, pasta) Astounding variety & beauty of breads Bread as a symbol of life  “One who has bread never dies”

6 Wheat Production Wheat as major crop until 1960s Concentrated land ownership, but large landowners rented land to landless peasants for wheat production Harvest & threshing involved reciprocal cooperation

7 Wheat Threshing

8 Women Took grain to mill Collective labor (neighbors, relatives) for baking every days Social communication: “While they prepare dough & bake bread they make an X-ray of the town,” reinforced social norms

9 Baking Bread

10 Post World War II Massive cultural & economic change Capitalist agriculture replaced subsistence production Decline in subsistence agriculture & pastoralism Mechanized agriculture reduced employment Bosa imports consumer goods, & sends workers to the industrial North of Italy ¾ of the adult populations depends on government assistance

11 Capitalist economic production & market exchange Today Bosans no longer grow wheat Abandonment of wheat cultivation in 1960s dealt a final blow to home baking Today, not one woman bakes bread The 1 st bakery opened in 1912 but viewed as a source of shame Today they buy bakery bread distributed according to market principles & consume it individually Modernization Without Development

12 Individualization: Atomization of social relations Reduction of inter-dependence among people  Men’s work groups for threshing  Women’s organized labor for baking  Men’s & women’s mutual dependence Decline in gift-giving Decisions & actions become more independent of community ties

13 Distribution of Wheat

14 Bosa transformed from a pre-war commercial center to what Counihan now describes as the “end-of-the- road” & commercially obsolete Shift from small neighborhood stores that were centers of social relations to large, centralized, self- service stores Loss of reciprocity as the basis for economic relations  “For a plate that goes, let a plate come back”  “My mother always said that if you were baking bread & a person came to the door, you must always give him apiece of freshly baked bread”  “A gift of bread…was one of the most enjoyed gifts, and they reciprocated it every time that they lit their ovens” One of the most important forces in linking people together—reciprocal prestations—is fading away & with it goes people’s interdependence”

15 Consumption Meals are a central arena for family in Italy Festive consumption took place within the community People knew who grew the wheat, Who baked the bread

16 Consumption of bread reaffirmed the complimentarily of men & women and of family & society  —the locus of identity Community feast days: Exaggerated consumption at an exceptional time & place  Excess consumption brings the community together, temporarily obliterates social & economic differences, satiates hunger collectively, at least for one day Demise of community feasts

17 The Ethic of Consumption in the World Market Today “opulent” consumption takes place privately, satisfying the individual, rather than altruistic, communal ends What happens to humans if they become increasingly separate, losing communal ties?