F ROM the very first, for the human being ingestion is culturally structured. Is the
infant put to the breast, or given the bottle? Will his first suckling be that of colostrum, or of milk, or of some other fluid ? Will he be held in a fetal position as he suckles, cradled in naked contact with a mother who curves herself around him, experiencing simultaneously comfort, social warmth, solace, emotional communication and nutrition ? Or will he experience his first feeding held in meticulous sanitation against the starched bosom of someone to whom he is merely a case with a name, of someone who regards and expresses this situation as one of sheer nutrition ? These questions are answered differently according to the culture of the society into which the infant is born.
The first experience of solid food will differ according to the culture. If he is a Tikopia, ‘ he will get premasticated food, warmed with the mother’s body-warmth, partly digested through her salivary juices; his mother will put it directly to his mouth with her lips. In our society he will get food with a hard metal spoon, introduced into a mouth which has never experienced anything so solid or hard, into which not even teeth have yet erupted. In all this, the culture enters into the food experience, shaping, emphasizing, even choosing the significant factors for defining that experience. In our own society, we define it-at least academically- as nutrition. Other societies may emphasize the aspect of social sharing to such an extent that nutrition and even the search for satiety may become secondary. Culture From the Merril-Palmer School, Detroit, Mich. Presented at a Symposiumn on Nutrition and Behavior held at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, University of Minnesota, April 27, 1956, with the cooperation of the National Vitamin Foundation, Inc., New York and under the sponsorship of the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota.
May present food mainly as a means for the stilling of hunger, or of getting nutrition, or as
the way to psychosomatic health ; it may regard eating as a duty or a virtue, or as gustatory pleasure, or as a social or a religious communion. It is the difference in the cultural structuring of the food situation which has made it possible for the people in one urban society to bolt unpalatable food at a quick-lunchi counter, while the men of another society, fully as urban, have been prepared to close shop for two hours at noon for the sake of having a leisurely meal at home with their families. The emphasis on the family meal may be so great as to overshadow other aspects. In Athens, during the last war, when the population was starving and cold, soup kitchens were set up by the Red Cross so as to give the people one hot meal a day in a heated room. However, many people asked to be given the food to take home, where they could eat it cold, in a cold room, as a family group. Some of us, in this country, go to great lengths of deprivation and discomfort so as to be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner with our families. An instance of almost exclusive emphasis on
the social aspect of the situation of food ingestion is found among the Arapesh of New
Guinea, as described by Margaret Mead.2ı Here food and feeding, in its entire process,
from production or gathering to consumption, is regarded primarily as a medium for social
warmth and intercourse; and this view of food affects the nutritional pattern, as it makes for gross inefficiency from our point of view in food production. The Arapesh in question live in a mountainous area, so rugged that there is almost no level land.