Micro-Ethnography of the Intangible Linguistic Culture of Food in the Traditional Culture of Mazandaran People

In the anthropological literature, the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food are considered to be the main elements of the culture of any community. What and how a person eats varies from period to period, place to place, and community to community. Food binds the personality of individuals and the identity of groups and becomes an important tool for social communication and understanding.In anthropology, local communities, as they provide their food in close connection with nature and with the help of local knowledge, have always been a privileged field for research on food, its related cultural relations and food systems. This indigenous knowledge, which was the result of effective adaptation to the environmental conditions and acquiring knowledge from it, is rapidly being destroyed. In most cases, the current elders of the villages are considered as the last owners of native knowledge in various fields. In such a situation, the need to record and analyze the local food system, the evolution of the food pattern, its local sources and the effects of these changes on the health of the local people is revealed.

Theoretical foundations:

From the viewpoint of functionalism, society is like a living organism, which will ensure the adaptation and connection among its members, the interdependence and survival of the society. In this view, ethnographies are mainly limited to the description and analysis of the food system of societies. But the structuralists have highlighted a wide range of perspectives, such as examining the capacities of human societies in the field of food preparation, processing, distribution and consumption, and most prominently, the semiotics of food in their research. In recent years, rather than following a specific approach in their research, anthropologists have benefited from various viewpoints and opinions and have applied historical, symbolic, material and development analyses in a unified approach.

Literature and food in Mazandaran:

By using the linguistic semiology of food and the habits formed regarding that, it is possible to understand the culture, relations and rituals of a group or society. In fact, food represents distinctions and reinforces social constraints. The manner and cultural content of food, from one table to another, shows many distinctions and social characteristics. These distinctions are caused by beliefs, food ingredients, tastes and different cultural habits in the matter of food. Food beliefs, with their simple appearance, depict a small world of the culture of each society and help us understand human actions. This symbolic world represents itself through the language of cooking in everyday life.In the Mazandarani language, the main adjectives used to describe the quality of food are exactly the same descriptive words used to describe human personality: cold, hot, raw, cooked, sour, bitter, sweet, spicy, sour, tasteless, stale, crisp, pleasant, strong, weak, watery, fresh, corrupted, damaged, etc. Mazandarani language is also very rich in other linguistic forms that create a symbolic link between food and social-emotional situations.In the popular literature of Mazandaran, the use of the language of cooking and food in human interactions shows the position of this phenomenon in the culture. This literature has thousands of years of bitter and sweet experiences and has transferred the lived experiences of previous generations to the next generation in the shortest form. These proverbs direct how to live, think and behave, regulate relationships among people, classes and strata of society and determine its limits and gaps.Beliefs about food in Mazandaran have a state of mind in which there is no empirical evidence, rational or necessarily logical reasons, but it is accepted as a certainty. The origins of these beliefs are different. These beliefs are slowly formed over many years in the context of culture, and the depth of culture can be found in them. Themes such as paying attention to the guest, the other, xenophobia, softening the situation, sanctifying food and paying attention to health are highlighted in Mazandarani proverbs.

From an anthropological point of view, food and what is formed around it is a cultural text that can be read to study the depth of the culture of any society. Classification of foods in Mazandaran culture, cultural identity through food, cultural and biological perceptions of appetite, hunger and overeating among Mazandaran’s shows the cultural meanings of food in Mazandaran. The symbolic roles of food in Mazandaran show how food plays a role in creating or breaking social bonds and opens a way to identify how social cohesion is realized in Mazandaran. Food and technology of preparation, production and consumption contain many messages and speak of various lifestyles. Food is one of the phenomena that has been formed over a long period of time in the indigenous system of the people of each ecosystem and has turned into a complex reservoir of indigenous knowledge.