often blurred into each other during everyday forms of interaction. I observed and discussed (1) the recipes and ingredients that domestic cooks and consumers of food consider to be Yucatecan in the private domain; (2) the recipes and culinary elements that restaurant managers and chefs consider to be Yucatecan in a public sphere ruled by the catering industry; (3) the dishes that the print media, radio, and television (local, national, and international) promote as part of the regional culinary tradition; (4) the recipes, ingredients, and techniques that cookbook writers represent as being Yucatecan in a traditional and authentic sense; and (5) the components of the gastronomic field that the bureaucratic and cultural institutions of the nation-state and the state of Yucatán recognize as such. These five levels are present in my analysis of the foodscape and the culinary and gastronomic fields. Although there is an abundance of layers of meaning in the constitution of the gastronomic field, in this volume I pay specific attention to the part played by cookbooks and restaurants. A greater emphasis on the ways in which Yucatecan gastronomy is constructed in different media (e.g., on television and radio shows and in newspaper columns written by cultural brokers who have been authorized by the local government to speak as appointed ‘chroniclers' of Mérida) was beyond the scope of this project and will be left for future research. However, from the examples presented in this volume, I would suggest that the importance of the media is to contribute to the cultural constructs instituted primarily by cookbooks and restaurateurs.
In Yucatán, as in many other places, people love to talk about food. It is treated not simply as a source of nourishment but as a pleasurable activity to be shared with relatives and/or friends in different contexts and, often, to be remembered (Sutton 2001). For example, on one's return from travels to other places, friends will ask about how pleasurable the trip was. Food is usually viewed as an important dimension of the experience of travel, and it is not uncommon to hear a narration that describes what the traveler ate each day of the week and the dishes that she or he missed while away from home. As I noted above, many families have members who are recognized as ‘experts' in the preparation of a certain dish or a number of dishes. These experts find gratification in this recognition and strive to maintain their privileged position within the family, so that they will always be needed on special days. Some are called upon for specific days of the week, while birthdays and special days of the year are occasions when these members of the family are counted on to perform their culinary art for the pleasure of relatives and friends (e.g., during the celebration of Independence Day, invitations from those who have mastered central Mexican recipes, such as pozole or chiles en nogada, are much appreciated). On these special days, friends anticipate an invitation to eat this or that Mexican or Yucatecan dish that they lack either the know-how or the patience to prepare. Also, in anticipation of the Day of the Dead and All Saints' Day, relatives put pressure on the women or men who know how to cook mucbil pollos (a special chicken tamale) so that the dish can be enjoyed at that time of the year. These experts enjoy talking about their cooking abilities and are always passionate when referring to the family tradition that they inherited and that allows them to cook such a special dish. Nonetheless, I have found that when they speak of the recipe itself, they often describe it in general terms and ‘forget' to mention what they consider either key ingredients or steps, so that relatives and friends always fail to replicate the recipe at their homes. An important part of the gastronomic performance is to serve the food properly, to consume it willingly, and to openly display one's satisfaction with the high quality of the meal by consuming more than one serving of each dish, later requesting leftovers to take home or, in some instances, asking permission to return the following day to procure an additional share of the dish's leftovers.
In this food-centered context, as an anthropologist, I gained access not only due to my curiosity or the authority of my ‘science'. I found an advantage in displaying culinary abilities of my own, which were on a par with those of domestic cooks, and in showing an ample appreciation for food in general—and for Yucatecan food in particular. Because the nature of my social interaction was mediated by food, I avoid referring to the people who spoke, cooked, and ate with me as ‘informants'. Food was a social binder that allowed me to see everybody as subjects and not as information-giving objects. The approach of talking about food, cooking a meal, and sharing it with others requires a negotiation of aesthetic, ethical, political, and culinary values that the objectification of individuals as informants usually leaves unexamined. During the years that I lived outside Yucatán, I appropriated the skills to cook a few Indian, Thai, and Italian dishes for my friends. I also cooked Yucatecan dishes for Yucatecan and non-Yucatecan friends abroad, thus gaining acceptance as a culinary interlocutor who could ask questions and, every so often, even obtain a ‘secret' ingredient or be taught a secret procedure for special dishes (as I could also share some learned secrets of my own). When cooking and eating in company, whether I was seen as the group's resident anthropologist or simply as another friend, family members and friends, motivated by the meal, spent a long time talking about their favorite dishes, the ingredients they like best, the ones they would omit in their cooking, their favorite cooks for different meals, their favorite restaurants and food places, and their own skills in cooking. Thus, performing anthropological work at these family reunions and at gatherings of friends was, and continues to be, an enjoyable task.
The fact that Yucatecans live in a multicultural society also fosters the exchange of information. As an anthropologist, I hosted and was hosted by people from different cultural traditions who were often willing to share their knowledge, informing others about their culinary techniques, about where to find fine ingredients or cooking appliances, and about their experiences seeking good restaurants in different neighborhoods of the city. Friends would sit and long for the meals that they used to have in the past or in their places of origin. It is also in these contexts that people become more explicit about the boundaries of their own culinary fields. People would make remarks in confidence, such as “in Yucatán we do not use—” or “in Oaxaca they add—whereas here we—” or “in Indian cooking they heavily douse their food with—.” In these contexts, people do not mind having an anthropologist at the table. The anthropologist cooks every so often and eats food with the others as well.
During my research, restaurateurs proved to be a different matter. In speaking with restaurant managers and chefs, I found them to be more secretive about the cooking techniques and ingredients used in their establishments. Public health concerns, tax issues, and trade secrets were looked on as requiring circumspection or protection, and these concerns constituted barriers to gaining access to restaurant kitchens. Some restaurateurs claim that a particular dish was created in their own kitchen. Thus, they treat their recipe as a trade secret to ensure their economic success. They were willing to speak with me at the table, sharing a special dish or drinking a coffee, and they were often generous when narrating the trajectory of their restaurants, their importance, or their awards. However, they turned silent and reserved when the conversation shifted to issues related to the cooks, their kitchen staff, and the source of the ingredients they use. Restaurant managers were not impressed by my cooking abilities and knowledge. Their main concern was that no publication should impair the public image and thus the economic success of their restaurants. In contrast, there were some instances during conversations when some chefs were willing to tell me their secret for preparing a dish, often only after I had revealed my own secret for another recipe.
For this volume I interviewed restaurant managers and chefs, as well as domestic cooks, mainly in Mérida but also in Valladolid and some former haciendas around the city of Mérida. The descriptions that illustrate this book are all based on my participation, as both host and guest, in numerous meals among acquaintances, friends, and relatives, as well as in larger celebrations that involved different degrees of commensality. Many conversations on food were informal and unstructured, and some were triggered spontaneously by the experiences being shared. I was invited to see other friends (or their relatives) cook, and three of my licenciatura students (Guadalupe Cruz Flores, Ashanti Rosado Novelo, and María José Quintal Ávila) at the Autonomous University of Yucatán fulfilled their social service obligations by conducting a short survey on economic kitchens in a neighborhood located in the north of Mérida. Because some informants asked me not to reveal their names or the names of their businesses, I use pseudonyms in some instances (which I note in the text), while in other
