The Frontierity of Everyday Gastronomic Practices. Translation from Russian

Abstract

The object of this study is the everyday gastronomic practices of the individual and the phenomenon of food, in which elements of frontierity are revealed. Food consumption, as both a fundamental physiological necessity and a form of self-care in the existence of the individual, is tied to the periodic appropriation of the unmastered and the incorporation of the Other into one’s own space. Through the daily act of eating—through the transitions from hunger to satiety—the individual continually discloses new horizons, thereby expanding personal domains and assimilating what was once Other into what becomes one’s own, i. e., appropriated. This process is facilitated by the paradoxical repeatability of irrepeatability (and irrepeatability of repeatability) inherent in any dish, where taste always appears as Other; by the consumer society’s cultivation of novelty in gastronomic experience and its encouragement of trying; by the status-laden pathos of gastronomic practices; and by the rise of gastronomic tourism. Moreover, the desire to taste dishes is bound to the mystical dimension of cuisine: despite the fixity of recipes, no dish ever has the same taste twice. Consequently, the gastronomic experience of the individual constitutes an infinitely expanding space that shapes taste and generates the desire to consume—therefore to appropriate and to bring the new into one’s world, continually re-thinking it.