Galinha à cabidela: a construção da comida como memória para os cidadãos da grande Fortaleza

Abstract

Food is a richly symbolic element. Not only of a physiological nature, but also as a historical, geographical point (MONTANARI, 2008) and the identity of a community (SILVA, 2000); being the first way to get in touch with a culture (SANTOS, 2018). With the advancement of technology and the great demand for practicality, the rituals and traditions surrounding eating habits have undergone changes to the point of turning what was common into memories, bringing to food another role: memory. The influence of these changes in the formation of food as memory is analyzed through interviews with citizens of the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, in relation to the dish of Chicken to Cabidela; culinary preparation chosen as an analogue point for such analysis. With the bibliographical survey and the results of the interviews, a reflection on the formation of food as memory and its influence for the present time is started. It is a memorialistic and qualitative research, whose method of ethnomethodology (GARFINKEL 1984; GUESSER, 2003) focusing on collective memory (HALBWACHS, 1990) leads us to the interviewees' life histories and the culinary preparation present in their memories. It is hoped that the research will serve as an argumentative basis for a possible (re) appreciation of the alimentary practices left to the mercy before the binomial convenience and practicality.