Ovinos e caprinos como hábitus alimentar na história dos sertões cearenses

Abstract

The present work is a historical research on the formation of a traditional food habit in the backlands of Northeast Brazil, that is, the habit of eating sheep and goat meat in Crateús, a region which belongs to the hinterland of Ceará. We structure this research into three parts, the first devoted to the History / Philosophy of Food from the beginning, showing the characteristics of the ontological objects "food" and "commensality," taking into account the conflicts between Nature and Culture. In the second part, we go through all cultural regions of Brazil, always focusing on the issue of food and commensality, in order to clarify the paths we call "Brazilian food pathways", which can be considered as elements that define the habitus of the people of a region. At the end of the work, we enter the world of food and cultural Brazilian Northeast, reaching the Hinterland region and, more specifically, Crateús, in Ceará, where we develop the practical part of this research. Our theoretical frameworks were composed by concepts of food and food culture, based on the historical-anthropological foundations, as well as ones of oral history, and finally by concepts of anthropological foundations of thick description and participant observation. Also, we borrow concepts like habitus, tradition and cultural reproduction, establishing a dialogue with the theoretical works of thinkers such as P. Bourdieu (habitus) E. Hobsbawm (tradition) and R. Williams (cultural reproduction). This research turns therefore to material culture, understood as immediate aspects of human survival related to daily life, such as food, housing, clothing, living standards, techniques and biological data. So we try to demonstrate, through the analysis of various data, whether there is a tradition, a habitus, based on certain animal sources. In case we find it is true, it is our goal to clarify the reason why and the way how this habitus settled, as well as the social dynamics that made and makes possible its maintenance.