Uncertain Tastes

Memory, Ambivalence, and the Politics of Eating in Samburu, Northern Kenya

Bibliographic Data

ID8094324
AuthorsJon Holtzman, Jon D Holtzman (corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages296
Publication date2009-10-13
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueUncertain Tastes (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of California Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1525/9780520944824
OpenAlexW4245518675
Open LibraryOL29602626M
ISBN9780520944824
LanguageEN
Citations received59

This richly drawn ethnography of Samburu cattle herders in northern Kenya examines the effects of an epochal shift in their basic diet-from a regimen of milk, meat, and blood to one of purchased agricultural products. In his innovative analysis, Jon Holtzman uses food as a way to contextualize and measure the profound changes occurring in Samburu social and material life. He shows that if Samburu reaction to the new foods is primarily negative—they are referred to disparagingly as "gray food" and "government food"—it is also deeply ambivalent. For example, the Samburu attribute a host of social maladies to these dietary changes, including selfishness and moral decay. Yet because the new foods save lives during famines, the same individuals also talk of the triumph of reason over an antiquated culture and speak enthusiastically of a better life where there is less struggle to find food. Through detailed analysis of a range of food-centered arenas, Uncertain Tastes argues that the experience of food itself—symbolic, sensuous, social, and material-is intrinsically characterized by multiple and frequently conflicting layers

Economics · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Culture conflict · Domestic Animals · Economic conditions · Food · Food habits · Food preferences · Kenya · Samburu (African people) · Samburu District · Samburu District (Kenya) · Social change · Social conditions · Symbolic aspects · Symbolic aspects of Food