“It’s women’s obligation:” constitutive elements of gendered domestic cooking practices performed by women from western Brazilian Amazon

ABSTRACT

This article examines constitutive elements of contemporary domestic cooking practices among women who live in the urban area of Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 self-identified women and mothers, who cook at home at least once a day. Here, we offer an in-depth analysis of our qualitative data, having coded our interviews with attention to the elements of cooking practices (i.e., understandings, procedures, engagements, materials, competencies, and meanings). Our findings reveal that cooking practices are not only gendered but also play a vital part in the construction and affirmation of these Brazilian women’s identity, as indicated by how they negotiate elements of their domestic culinary practices regarding financial availability (materials), time availability (procedures), sociocultural gender norms (competences), and aspirations and personal desires (understandings). Read from a feminist perspective, we conclude that tensions surrounding the performance of femininity occurred when buying food at the supermarket or participating in the practice of “comprar fiado” in small neighborhood markets; preparing menus to meet familial preferences; preparing meals quickly and with little effort; offering the best foods to her children and husband; and showing affection and appreciation to those they feed.

KEYWORDS:

• Cooking
• women
• gender roles
• feminism
• qualitative research
• Brazil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior Brasil (CAPES) [8882.330823/2019-1]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2019/00031-0]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2017/05651-0]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2016/00270-6].

Notes on contributors

Mayara Sanay da Silva Oliveira

Mayara Sanay da Silva Oliveira Graduation in Nutrition from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Master’s in food, Nutrition and Health from the Federal University of Bahia and PhD student in the postgraduate program in Nutrition in Public Health at the University of São Paulo (USP - current). She has experience in the field of Nutrition in Public Health, with an emphasis on Food and Culture, working mainly on the following themes: Culinary Practices, Feminism, Dietary Guidelines, and Health Promotion.

Priscila de Morais Sato

Priscila de Morais Sato Graduation in Nutrition from the University of São Paulo and Master and Doctorate in Sciences in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Program at the Federal University of São Paulo. She did a research internship at the Bloomberg School of Public Heath, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA in 2015. She has experience in the articulation between Nutrition, Food and Sociology, with an emphasis on the socio-cultural aspects of food based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework. Currently, she holds a post-doctorate at the Faculty of Public Health, University of São Paulo.

Mark Anthony Arceño

Mark Anthony Arceño is a food anthropologist and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. His research broadly focuses on issues of food, place, and identity. In particular, Mark Anthony is especially interested in how foods and drinks of geographic origin help individuals articulate sociocultural and political senses of self and belonging. Comparing the experiences of winegrowers in central Ohio and Alsace, France, his ongoing dissertation research analyzes conceptions of place-based identity in times of climatic and other forms of change. Mark Anthony’s work is grounded in the French notion of terroir, which he approaches from social-ecological systems, multisensory, and multispecies perspectives. His previous work includes symbolic and material readings of food-based dietary guidelines (for his Master’s at OSU) and an ethnographic study of ethnicity, language, and religion in South Africa (for his Honor’s thesis at Albion College).

Mariana Dimitrov Ulian

Mariana Dimitrov Ulian Graduation in Nutrition from the Federal University of São Paulo and master’s in sciences by the same institution. Also, she has a Doctoral degree in Sciences (University of São Paulo, School of Public Health). Currently, she is a postdoctoral student at the University of São Paulo, School of Public Health, and participates of the Research Group on Food and Culture. She works mainly in the areas of obesity, food choices, culture and body, and has experience in applying proposals of care based on the Expanded Clinical Nutrition and nutritional counseling for fat people.

Ramiro Fernandez Unsain

Ramiro Fernandez Unsain Graduation in Anthropology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Master in Anthropological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and PhD Sciences in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Program at the Federal University of São Paulo. He has experience in the field of Anthropology, with an emphasis on Collective Health, acting mainly on the following themes: sexuality, gender, food, identity and research methodology.

Marly Augusto Cardoso

Marly Augusto Cardoso Graduated in Nutrition from the University of São Paulo (USP). At that same university, she obtained the titles of master and doctor in Food Sciences and Free Lecturer in Nutrition in Public Health. She is Full Professor at the Nutrition Department at USP’s School of Public Health. She served as a visiting researcher in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and as a Lemann Research Fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, Boston, USA. She has experience in the area of Nutrition, with an emphasis on Nutritional Epidemiology and Public Health, working mainly on the following topics: assessment of nutritional status, food consumption and nutritional disorders. Currently coordinates the MINA Project - Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition in Acre: birth cohort in Cruzeiro do Sul

Fernanda Baeza Scagliusi

Fernanda Baeza Scagliusi Graduation in Nutrition from the University of São Paulo (USP). Ph.D. in Physical Education from USP. Post-doctorate in Nutrition in Public Health by the Faculty of Public Health (FSP/USP). Professor at the Nutrition Department at FSP/USP. She has experience in the area of Nutrition, with emphasis on Nutritional Analysis of Population and Socioanthropology of Food and. She works mainly on the following themes: socio-cultural aspects of food, obesity and dietary assessment methods. She has a CNPQ productivity scholarship. She coordinates the Research Group on Food and Culture at FSP/USP. Member of the Commission for Human and Social Sciences of the Brazilian Association of Public Health (Abrasco). Coordinator of the Nutrition Course Committee at FSP/USP since 2017