3 - Production and consumption among the LoDagaa and Gonja of northern Ghana

Summary

One way, then, of looking at cooking and the sociology of cooking somewhat differently from those we have outlined, is to examine the link with the processes of production, distribution and consumption of food, not only in a particular society but also in a comparative perspective. This approach in no way negates attempts to elicit universal or even widespread features of the verbal concepts and expressions, or of the actual practices of cooking. However, it must affect the nature of the general patterns we seek, whether these are assumed to originate in the human mind or in some more proximate source, just as it certainly modifies our understanding of the differences. That is to say, certain differences between French and English cooking have to be related at some point to differences in the local crops (such as the virtual absence of the vine and the olive in England), in the organisation of production (for example, the early death of the ‘peasantry’ in England, some would say its total absence), just as certain broad differences in African and Eurasian cooking need to take into account the nature of hierarchy and the means of communication. Not that all important differences and similarities can be accounted for in this way, but nor do cultural explanations in terms of underlying homologies, nor yet a universalising account of the same kind, make much sense until the other aspects have been adequately explored and adequately comprehended.