ANTHROP 1AA3 Study Guide - Final Guide: Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Marvin Harris, Tim Hortons
3 Feb 2018
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Cultural meanings of food and food taboos: food, the item and its meaning, consumption, the process of eating, mouth: 1 minute, esophagus: 4-8 seconds, stomach: 2-4 hours, small intestine: 3-5 hours, colon: 10 hours to several days. Food is a form of material culture: anything made or modified by humans. Food as culture and identity: everybody eats, what and how we eat can become an expression of our ideas and beliefs. Food classification systems: people tend to classify food in different ways, according to culture, foods can be: edible-inedible, male-female. Food restrictions- periodic denial of certain foods (pregnant) How do we explain food taboos: a marker of a group; a way of separating your group from others (identity, protection against diseases, ecological theories (marvin harris) Explanations for religious prohibitions against pork: symbolic/interpretive perspective- for ancient hebrews pigs were classified as unclean, adaptive/materialist perspective- environment of the middle east made raising pigs maladaptive (harris)
