Bread as World:

1. 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 10-14 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 1st 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?