“The Comic and the Rule” in Pastagate: Food, Humor and the Politics of Language in Quebec

Abstract

When the OQLF, Quebec’s language police, ordered an Italian restaurant to use the French “pâtes” instead of “pasta,” Pastagate broke. Initial (global) laughter about the events quickly turned into public outcry resulting, among others, in a partial reform of the OQLF. This article examines the dynamics that drove the scandal and that subsequently engendered political change, and more broadly the intersections of food and language as identity markers and sites of contestation. Based on an analysis of the media discourses that accompanied the scandal in Quebec, Canada and to a lesser degree abroad, the argument is made that Pastagate was able to challenge the status quo because the scandal was both comic and tragic when it questioned the perceived “authenticity” of “foreign” cuisines as well as the nationally grounded identity of the cosmopolitan consumer. An action that was meant to protect Quebec’s national identity undermined a largely uncontroversial source of national distinction, the consumption of the other through their cuisines.

Keywords:

• foreign cuisine
• authenticity
• national identity
• cosmopolitan consumer
• linguistic anthropology
• humor
• the tragicomic
• Quebec

Acknowledgements

I thank the participants of the “Food and Power” panel at the 2014 meeting of the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), in particular Christine Jourdan, as well as three anonymous reviewers for insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. First passed in 1977 Bill 101 was born out of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. The Quiet Revolution not only secularized Quebec society and expanded state infrastructures and bureaucracies but also increased calls for the empowerment of French speakers and the recognition of a distinct Quebecois identity. Despite a francophone majority in the province, fluency in English had long been a requirement for jobs and commercial transactions. This changed with Bill 101. Bill 101 proclaimed French as the official language of the province, and its educational, judicial and governing systems. All signs were to be written in French and education in English was severely restricted, allowed only to children whose parents had been educated in English in Quebec. Subsequent amendments have, to some degree, eased these restrictions, e.g., by allowing English on signs as long as French is prioritized, with the allotted space and size of characters being at least twice as large for the French text.

The bill and related policies, including the establishment of the Office québécois de la langue française as enforcement agency for Bill 101, have received broad support from Quebec’s francophone community who recognize the bill as protection against the predominance of English in North America. However, especially among Quebec’s Anglophone residents and in other Canadian provinces, Quebec’s language laws have been highly contentious. The laws have also prompted several legal challenges. Debates over Quebec’s language laws persist, for example, in disagreements concerning the attempted reforms of Bill 101 that coincided with Pastagate. The then governing Parti Québécois intended to strengthen the dominance of the French language further, among others, by no longer allowing military families living in Quebec to send their children to English schools, and by requiring companies with more than twenty-five (instead of more than fifty) employees to conduct all business in French.

2. I prioritize the term “foreign” in lieu of, e.g., “ethnic,” “national,” or “global-cosmopolitan” cuisines to emphasize distinctions made between “us” and “them” in differentiating between “foreign” and “local” foods and foodways.

3. “Ont eu des effets qui ne sont pas souhaitables pour les commerçants, pour le personnel de l’Office, pour la population et pour le Québec en général” (La Presse, March 08, 2013).

4. I agree with Edward Forman about distinguishing between tragicomedy and the tragicomic, with the latter being ideally used in reference to discussions about “real-life situations” (2014, 768) that are not directly linked to a dramatic literary form such as a theatrical performance that may be classified as tragicomedy.

5. A sketch from the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, the Ministry of Silly Walks makes fun of the functioning and purpose of government ministries, and of how funding can even be obtained for the most ridiculous of tasks, in this case the development of a particularly silly way of walking.

6. “Long live free Quebec! But please long live free Quebec with its ethnic groups and their Spaghetti, Cannelloni, Moussaka, Thai Curry, Roast Goat and Jellied Eels, boiled beef and carrots”.

7. “Because the menu is in Italian it brings life into the restaurant. It is part of the concept. People ask what individual words mean. I serve many tourists, also Italians, it encourages interactions.”