The culinary and social-semiotic meaning of food

Spicy meals and their significance in Mexico, Italy, and Texas

Bibliographic Data

ID5003246
AuthorsAlfredo Tenoch Cid Jurado (1Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilco, México City, Mexico, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume2016
Issue211
Pages247-269
Publication date2016-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2016-0108
OpenAlexW2462988080
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited2

The objective of this study is to provide insight into culinary systems. Each culture expresses its own identity through the way in which it transforms food into an elaborated cuisine. The phases of a cooking process start with the choice of ingredients, their preparation, their processing, how they are served, and how they are eaten. Each of these phases makes it possible to understand the semiotic and social behavior of a human group in the moment they choose to prepare and eat a particular food. Therefore, this article contains a contrastive analysis of how Mexican, Texan, and Italian cuisines show how spicy and hot food is interpreted depending on the values that are given to it in regards to being considered a dish, a spice or a vegetable. It bases its analysis on the mechanisms built around the meaning of chile ("chilli") in order to express cultural characteristics and differences. The recipes and their narrative processes, in addition to the use of color, allow the identification of parameters to describe the various cuisines through recipes books

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Biology · Cooking methods · Cultural identity · Epistemology · Food culture · Identification (biology) · Identity (music) · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Narrative · Semiotics · Social science · Sociology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Ecology · Food Science · History · Philosophy

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