No, this is not fantasy. Pizza shops and hamburger joints figure visibly on the Internet (still in its infancy). Their structure and functioning, as well as the expectations connected to them, are what defines them as belonging to the civilization of illiteracy. But the picture of what people eat and how their food is prepared is more complicated than what this example conveys. This chapter will describe how we arrived at this point, and what the consequences of the fundamental shift from the civilization of literacy in our relation to food are.
Food and expectations
How does one connect food to literacy? In the first place, how we eat is as important as what we eat and how we prepare it. There is a culture of dining, and an entire way of viewing food-from obtaining raw ingredients to preparation and to eating-that reflects values instilled in the civilization of literacy. Food and eating in the civilization of illiteracy are epitomized not only by the pizza outlet on the Internet, by McDonalds, Burger King, and the frozen dinner waiting to be thrown into the microwave oven, but also by the vast industry of efficient production of primary and secondary foodstuffs, the anonymous, segmented processing of nutrition. It is not an individual's literacy that characterizes the meal, but the pragmatic framework in which people emerge and how they project their characteristics, including dietary and taste expectations, in the process.
The hunger-driven primitive human and the spoiled patron of a good Italian restaurant have in common only the biological substratum of their need, expressed in the very dissimilar acts of hunting and, respectively, selecting items from a menu. Primitive beings are identified by projecting, in the universe of their existence, natural qualities pertinent to the experience of feeding themselves: sight, hearing, smell, speed, force. Restaurant patrons project natural abilities filtered through a culture of eating: taste, dietary awareness, ability to select and combine. These two extremes document a commonalty of human self-constitution. Nevertheless, what is of interest in the attempt to understand food and eating in the civilization of illiteracy are actually differences. The nuclei of ancient incipient agriculture, which were also the places of origin for many language families, are distinct pragmatic frameworks relevant also to the experience of cooking. Within agriculture, absolute dependencies on nature are changed to relative dependencies, since more food is produced than is needed for survival. The food of this period is cause for some of the rituals associated with the elements involved in producing it. The layers between animal hunger and the new hunger, filter new experiences of satisfaction or illness, of pleasure or pain, of self-control or abuse. Symbolism (concerning fertility, agriculture, power) confirms patterns of successful or failed practical experiences against the background of increased awareness of the biological characteristics of the species. Notation and writing contribute to the change of balance between the natural and the cultural. But the difference between the primitive eater and the person who awaits his dinner at a table derives from the distinctive conditions of their existence.
In the pragmatic framework that constitutes the foundation for literacy, expectations regarding food were already in place: slow rhythm, awareness of the environment, environment and natural cycles, labor division according to sex and age (the female was usually the homemaker and cook). Food preparation was characterized by its intrinsic sequentiality, by linear dependencies among its variables. Cooking was inspired and supported by the sequence of seasons, local stock, and relative immediacy of needs, affected by weather conditions, intensity of effort, and celebration pertinent to seasons or special events. In short, the relation to food was governed by the same principles that notation and writing were.
In the civilization of illiteracy, personal attitudes towards preparing food and eating, whether at home or in a restaurant, are affected by a different pragmatic framework. Probably more is known about food in the civilization of illiteracy than at any other time in the history of agriculture and cuisine. But this knowledge does not come from the direct experience of the food, i.e., how it is grown and processed. Human beings in the civilization of illiteracy know better why they eat than what they eat. It is not what is in the food that concerns many people, but what the food is supposed to do for them: maintain and service the body through the proper balance of vitamins, minerals, and protein; help people cope with residue; and, eventually, conjure meaning as a symbol in a universe of competing symbolisms. Fashion extends to food, too!
People feed themselves today according to expectations different from those of primitive human beings-hunters, farmers, craftsmen, and workers involved in pre- industrial experience. Needs are different, and food resources are different. Many layers of humanity stand between an individual projecting animal hunger in a world of competing animals and an individual expressing desire for French cuisine, in its authentic variations, in its snobbish form, or in its fast food versions, fresh or frozen, regular or dietetic. Pizza, spaghetti, falafel, sushi, tortillas, cold cuts, and egg rolls figure no less on the list of choices. Many filters, in the form of various taboos and restrictions, as well as personal tastes, are at work. Meaning is incidentally elicited as one chooses the recipe of a celebrity cook, or decides on a certain restaurant.
The hungry primitive human, the human beings working the land in the agricultural phase, the farmers, craftsmen, soldiers, and scholars of the pre-industrial age expected only that food would still their hunger. More is expected from the eating experience today, and some of these expectations have nothing to do with hunger. People take it for granted that they can buy any type of food from anywhere in the world, at any time of the year. Globality is thus acknowledged, just as the sequence of seasons is ignored. In between these two extremes is the literate eating experience, with its own expectations.
The experience of eating reflected a way of life, a way of self-constitution as civilized, progressive, literate. Here are the words of Charles Dickens, recorded during his visit to the United States in 1842. He gave a vivid summary of American eating habits west of the big eastern cities (Boston, New York) as he observed them on steamboats and in inns where stagecoaches stopped for the night in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri. I never in my life did see such listless, heavy dulness [sic] as brooded over these meals: the very recollection of it weighs me down, and makes me, for the moment, wretched. Reading and writing on my knee, in our little cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the hour that summoned us to table; and was as glad to escape from it again as if it had been a penance or a punishment. Healthy cheerfulness and good spirits forming part of the banquet, I could soak my crusts in the fountain with Le Sage's strolling players, and revel in their glad enjoyment: but sitting down with so many fellow-animals to ward off thirst and hunger as a business; to empty each creature his Yahoo's trough as quickly as he can, and then to slink sullenly away; to have these social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere greedy satisfaction of the natural cravings; goes so against the grain with me, that I seriously believe the recollection of these funeral feasts will be a waking nightmare to me all my life. Dickens was the epitome of the literate experience, and he was addressing a literate audience that had literate expectations in the experience of dining: what time meals were held, who sat where and next to whom, the order in which certain foods were served, how long a meal should last, what topics could be discussed. Literate characteristics persist in the literate frameworks of political and formal dinners: hierarchy (who sits where), the order in which food is presented, the types of dishes and eating utensils.
Fishing in a videolake