Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83

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Appetite
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet

The cultural transmission of food habits, identity, and social cohesion: A T

case study in the rural zone of Cali-Colombia
Mauricio Quintero-Angela,∗, Diana Marcela Mendozaa, David Quintero-Angelb
a
Universidad del Valle, sede Palmira, Carrera 31 Av. La Carbonera, código Postal, 763531, Palmira, Colombia
b
Social and Environmental Sense, Colombia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: While the cooking-culture relationship is a biocultural phenomenon that gives meaning to gastronomic practices
Gastronomical practices through signs and symbols shared within a community, in the 20th century, its transmission has been influenced
Food by important processes of change, such as urban expansion and environmental pollution, which put the con-
Culture tinuity of immaterial cultural patrimony at risk. These changes have altered the supply, conservation, and
Ancestry
preparation of food and utensils, which are elements that demarcate the society-nature relationship and gender
Orality
roles, among other things. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the role of the cultural transmission of
food habits in identity formation and social cohesion, based upon an ethnographic case study in the Ancestral
Community La Playa Renaciente, in Cali (Colombia). This study presents the cultural transmission of food habits,
culinary practices, and their relationship with the inhabited environment. Likewise, this article presents a
temporal-spatial contextualization of the locality and some oral testimonies that reveal how dietary practices
constitute an important element in socialization, social cohesion, and the transmission of knowledge from
generation to generation.

1. Introduction individuals' and communities' life cycles are accompanied by festive

Food can be conceived of as a daily social practice that permits the
survival of humanity and, at the same time, facilitates social re-
production (Franco-Patiño, 2010). From an anthropological perspec-
tive, Contreras and Gracia Arnaiz (2005) characterize food as a social
act, an aspect of people's intimate life that goes beyond biology and is
interrelated with culture, that is, a biocultural phenomenon.
The cultural transmission of food habits is extremely relevant, given
that it brings cohesion to and forges the identity of human groups. This
transmission occurs in daily life based upon a wide variety of practices
that include everything from food provision to food conservation,
preparation, consumption, and even its disposal.
The choosing of what is good to eat is determined by the cultural
norms of each society (Levi-Strauss, 1983). For many authors (Gómez
Benito, 2008; Contreras, 1995; Fischler, 2011; Gómez; McIntosh, 1996;
Mennell, Murcott, & Otterloo, 1992; Mintz & Du Bois, 2002; Poulain &
Proença, 2003), dietary practices are linked to behaviors that are de-
termined by culture and its social norms. Food constitutes an important
element among community members because sharing allows them to
strengthen the ties that generate social cohesion. Therefore, it is not a
coincidence that many social and religious occasions that mark
meals. The latter, facilities social interaction and social ties that are
created between the members who take part (de Garine, 2002).
Nonetheless, dietary practices are framed by a socio-cultural and
historical context that is the product of social and environmental
transformation. In the 20th century, these changes included the ac-
celerated process of urbanization, changes in rural-urban relationships,
and changes in lifestyle, in traditional knowledge and the homo-
genization of diet, among others (Giddens, 2013; Khoury et al., 2014),
with differentiated impacts in different societies.
In the case of Colombia, and specifically in the city of Cali during
the 20th century, there was unplanned urbanization, which gave rise to
the housing deficit and the transformation of the landscape (the drying
out of wetlands, loss of vegetation cover, displacement of avifauna);
new forms of land use that transformed labor dynamics; lack of access
to natural resources and the occupation of ejidal (communal) lands; and
spatial segregation as a product of violence due to armed conflict and
narco-trafficking (Vásquez-Benítez, 2001). These changes had im-
portant repercussions on dietary practices and their transmission.
Nonetheless, because dietary practices are considered to be actions
within the private sphere, as Machado pointed out, food consumption,
understood as a complex process of interrelations, is one of the least

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mauricio.quintero@correounivalle.edu.co (M. Quintero-Angel).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.04.011
Received 18 December 2018; Received in revised form 20 March 2019; Accepted 15 April 2019
Available online 23 April 2019
0195-6663/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
studied aspects in Colombia. There are notable gaps in topics such as
distribution and access to goods, self-production, preparation and sto-
rage systems in homes, the cost of preparation and habits (Machado,
1986).
In this context, this article's objective is to reveal the role of cultural
transmission of food habits in identity formation and social cohesion in
the community, using as an example, the case study of the Ancestral
Community La Playa Renaciente in the rural area of Cali (Colombia)
during the 20th century. La Playa Renaciente is a relevant case because
it concerns a community that managed to consolidate its status as an
ethnic-territorial organization through the application of the 1993 law
70, with the formation of the Ancestral Community Council of
Negritudes [Consejo Comunitario Ancestral de Negritudes] La Playa
Renaciente, the community's objective being to obtain a collective title
for the inhabited territory. The community council is constituted as the
legal form that legitimizes their settlement in a territory that is under
great pressure as a result of the city's urbanizing dynamics. Nonetheless,
this legal form does not guarantee that the community will remain on
the banks of the Cauca River. Continued presence in the territory has
not depended upon legal forms, but rather upon the transmission from
generation to generation of an ancestral identity. This oral transmission
can be understood as part of the cultural identity, in other words as a
feeling of ownership in a social collective that have a series of unique
cultural features and traits that make them different from the rest and
for which they are judge, value and appreciated (Cepeda-Ortega, 2018).
The community of study has generated customs, traditions, norms,
parties that are constructed and reconstructed by women and men
through orality.
The Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente, as other commu-
nities nearby, had lived a constant process of threats of eviction by the
local government, e.g. The territorial planning (Plan de Ordenamiento
Territorial-POT in Spanish) argues that this community is located in an
area of high risk of flooding and on the longitudinal mound, dyke that
protect the city of eventual flooding. Therefore, they plan actions to
recover these areas and evict their inhabitants. Although 75,3% of
homes (177) are affected by flooding, such as the majority of the
community houses are located on the Cauca river bank (Cifras y
Conceptos, 2012). The community has been adapted to their environ-
ment and the river dynamic, therefore all valued elements are located
in the high parts of the houses, and more than threats, it recognizes
opportunities in the river's swelling, such as sand accumulation.
Facing a possible eviction, the community is in constant alert and
initiated multiple actions for the territorial defense that goes from
public denounce, legal mechanism and mobilizations, up to perma-
nence of a discourse based on their ancestors (Mendoza, 2013). Such
discourse is an important form of territorial resistance and is based on
the first settlement, according to the people, they were free slaves and
cimarrones (rebel slaves) that were living in the river's banks since the
second half of 19th century, and whose descendants, according with the
inhabitants, still remain in the area and make part of the community.
Lastly, the method used was ethnographical with an historical focus,
which made oral sources relevant for this study. Information-gathering
techniques included structured and semi-structured interviews, life
stories, and archival and newspaper investigation. The interviews and
oral sources used in this article were documented between 2010 and
2011 in field work carried out for the study (Mendoza & Rodríguez,
2011) and were translated from Spanish (see Spanish quotes in the
supplementary material).
2. Territory of the ancestral community La Playa Renaciente
The Afro-descendent Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente is
located to the east of the rural zone of the city of Cali (Colombia), on
the left bank of the Cauca River, in a territory that came to be known as
Puerto Mallarino beaches in the 20th century. Cali is a city in the west
part of Colombia, that in 20th century experience a fast population
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Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
Fig. 1. Evolution of urban population in Cali from 1870 to 2014 (in thousands
of people).
Source: based on data from (Aprile-Gniset, 1992; Vásquez-Benítez, 2001) and
the newspaper El País (2014).
growth and urbanization (Fig. 1).
Cali is the capital of the Valle del Cauca Department (Map 1), a
region with two branches of the Andes mountain range cutting across it,
made up of coastal and mountainous regions and valleys. The region
has numerous rivers running through it that feed into the Cauca River,
the second most important tributary in the country, with a length of
1350 km (Ocampo-Duque, Osorio, Piamba, Schuhmacher, & Domingo,
2013).
The Cauca River was geographically strategic in the commercial
development of the southwestern region of Colombia and in the urban
development process of Cali. Cali consolidated close to the river's banks
in the 16th century and began commercial activities in the first decades
of the 20th century through the development of this waterway.
To the east of Cali, on the banks of the Cauca River, is Juanchito, an
area that includes the two river banks and their surrounding areas and
is confined to “El Guabito,” one of the traditional haciendas (farm es-
tates) that made up almost the entirety of the city's territory from the
time of its foundation and were the property of at least 15 land-owning
families (Escorcia, 1982, pp. 119–133). At the end of the 19th century,
Puerto Mallarino was situated in this place. This location was the nu-
cleus of the loading and unloading of merchandise when steam navi-
gation operated in the Cauca valley region at the end of the 19th cen-
tury and during the first decades of the 20th century.
The Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente is situated in this
spatial context in the rural area of the municipality of Cali, in the vil-
lage of Navarro (Map 2), a place that formerly formed part of Puerto
Mallarino. Its limits are marked, to the north, by 8th Avenue at the
latitude of Holguín Bridge; to the west, by the eastern side of the jetty of
the Cauca River and the Puerto Mallarino district; to the south, by the
Puerto Mallarino Residual Water Treatment Plant; and to the east, by
the Cauca River.
The area is a territory that was populated at the end of the 19th
century by descendants of freed slaves who worked on the haciendas of
Cali in the colonial period. However, it's from the 20th century that is
evident the massive arrival of people due to different migration waves
that come to Cali as a consequence of the establishment of steam na-
vigation in the Cauca river (1880) and the construction of the Pacific
railway (1872) (Mendoza & Rodríguez, 2011).
The women and men who had family links with the territory's first
inhabitants, together with the people who arrived during successive
waves of migration to the city during the 20th century, consider their
community to be ancestral due to the history of slavery that shapes its
identity and due to the establishment and preservation of socio-cul-
tural, economic, and religious practices connected with the inhabited
space.
The community's ethnic composition is characterized by an Afro-
descendent majority, but there are also mestizos who come from var-
ious regions of the central Andean zone and from southwest Colombia.
At the beginning of the 21rst century, the community was composed by
235 households (720 inhabitants), being 50,4% woman and 49,6%
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
Map 1. Location of Cali on the map of Colombia.
Source: (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical-CIAT, Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca-CVC, & Departamento Administrativo de Gestión
del medio Ambiente-DAGMA, 2016).
man. Eighty-six-point six percent of the population recognize them-
selves as Afro-Colombian, 2,3% as indigenous, and 10,8% recognize
themselves as none in any of the previous categories. Seventy-four-
point nine per cent of interviewed houses belong to the Community
Council, and 25,1% stated that they are not involved. Moreover, of the
720 people in the community, 581 (81%) are at work age, being the
population effectively active 57% (331) and the unemployment rate of
14% (Cifras & Conceptos, 2012).
As for food preparation at the beginning of the 21rst century, in the
Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente, 91,5% of the houses have a
room used only to cook, while 1,3% of the homes cook in the backyard
(patio), corridor, in temporal shelters or in the open air, and 0,4%
doesn't cook. Eighty-two-point one percent of homes cook with elec-
tricity, 14,9% with propane gas, and 1,7% cook with firewood, wood,
charcoal (Cifras y Conceptos, 2012).
The productive activities of the community Playa Renaciente has
been the one of a riverside culture, since the settlement process, be-
cause of the proximity to the Cauca river. Their economic activities
have been associated with their coexistence with the river, most of the
families work around the artisanal extraction of sand and guadua flu-
vial transport. Although some of the few families has been dedicated to
agriculture in their own land, under rent or share-cropping. In addition,
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Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
as the population grow, the employments were wider and some in-
habitants were involved in fried food preparation (fritanga) to sell
outside of their houses, others sell lunches and other went out of the
community for jobs in the city as part of the work force. For example,
some women of the community work at the beginning of the 20th
century, on the street sells of avocado, fish and peach palm (chonta-
duro), working in restaurants or as daily domestic service in family
houses or establishments.
3. Settlement, consolidation and fragmentation of the ancestral
community La Playa Renaciente
Since the massive arrival of population, in the 20th century, asso-
ciated with different waves of migration that occurs in Cali, at the
Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente, it's possible to identify three
periods: settlement, consolidation and fragmentation, which are im-
portant in the space history to understand their population and cultural
practices.
According to Mendoza & Rodríguez (2011), in the settlement period
there is a first approximation with the physic-natural environment of
the place and it's related to the first inhabitants from external contexts.
In this period there are a display and prioritization of building houses,
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
Map 2. Location of La Playa Renaciente on the rural perimeter of Cali municipality.
Source: Administrative Department of Municipal Planning.
taking elements from the natural environment to transform them and
make them functional in the housing space. Moreover, it generates the
first encounters with other migrants that regularly create familiar ties
for the arrival of more inhabitants, and there is an encounter of diverse
customs and cultural practices.
The settlement in the space corresponds to a period between 1920
and 1940, when the river bank starts to populate at Puerto Mallarino
beaches by traders that came from nearby towns, as well as their fa-
milies, which came looking for a job in the city. The place structure was
transforming, the river beaches become a place for guadua storage,
places to sell fried food, spaces used to assist people arriving in the
steamboats or to assist the place workers.
78
Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
The consolidation period implies the appropriation of the environ-
ment and the search for an organizational work force. It starts the
hereditary transmission of knowledge and learning by familiar and
neighborhood connections that had strengthen and it gets a community
participation in the organizational processes, distribution and terri-
torial defense, construction of community social spaces and legit-
imization of the properties (Mendoza & Rodríguez, 2011).
In the consolidation period, at the space of Puerto Mallarino bea-
ches, rural population from 1920 to 1940, become a semi-urban po-
pulation in 1940–1960, by the slowly urban expansion of Cali. By the
second half of the 20th century, in Colombia and other Latin American
countries the rural migration to the cities become a problem of big
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
magnitude due to a deficit in the popular housing. Urbanization process
in Cali, between 1940 and 1960, was characterized by a unplanning
expansion, anarchy and a lot of invasions that were favor by migration
of rural population due to the violence in the country (Aprile-Gniset,
1992), as well as the furor for the progressive discourse linked to the
industrial growth associated with the image and representation of the
city as a progress place by the 20th century.
At the Puerto Mallarino beaches, cultural adaptation as a con-
sequence of migration was a process that occurs to migrants and ethnic
communities (raizal). Between 1940 and 1960, daughters and sons
were born from the migrants of the first migration wave in the 20's and
30's. In this context, work practices mean a close relationship with the
living environment, therefore they were daughters and sons of sand and
guadua workers, who look the new arrivals as different from the posi-
tion of an ethnic community. The space of Puerto Mallarino beaches
become a place of a majority of afro-descendants and some mixed-race
(mestizos) (Mendoza & Rodríguez, 2011). In this context, for some
women who migrate in the first migration wave, there were an ethnic
differentiation vision, Marina Teresa stated: “[…] The beach was a
place for Afro-descendants and my mom wasn't one, then although she
like afro-descendants, black man, and my grandmother don't, she didn't
like them, she was racist […]” (Sánchez, personal interview made on
September 14, 2009).
The fragmentation period corresponds to the external agents en-
trance which worsen the community process, e.g., urban expansion,
patronage, developmental and industrialization processes through the
state and institutional non-governmental projects, external work pro-
grams that alters the modus vivendi that were achieve in the con-
solidation period, breaking up the neighborhood links, rent and sell of
properties to external people. These phenomena generate a loss of
territorial ownership and can be like a fracture in the culture given by
the interruption of new practices and activities. It is not a proper phase
of the territorial occupation, but a social phenomenon that contains the
culture for its reproduction and the creation of new communities
(Mendoza & Rodríguez, 2011).
The fragmentation in the space occurs from 1960, being a temporal
period characterized by territorial conflict between the inhabitants of
Puerto Mallarino beaches and Puerto Mallarillo neighborhood, which
produce a differentiation in the social status between them, char-
acterized by: esthetic ways of housing, cultural attire and acquisitive
economic power. After the community cohesion achieved in the con-
solidation period, inside of the community, they lived the arrival of
people migrating to Cali between 1960 and 1970, this people arrived as
tenants to find a job in a city of progress with a housing deficit since
several decades before. However, the new people in this place, added to
the people which migrated in the previous periods blend their cultural
practices with the ethnic communities without leaving the feeling of
their original places: a representation of ethnic reminiscent (Mendoza &
Rodríguez, 2011).
4. Cultural transmission of food habits and culinary practices
Throughout the 20th century, people from different parts of
Colombia arrived at the settlement in different waves of migration.
Raizal people and migrants began to live together in the same place and
developed notions of what differentiated them, e.g., their ethnicity,
behavior, hygienic practices, or diet.
The beach on the shore of the Cauca River, which formed part of
Puerto Mallarino in 1940, was the place shared by Raizal people and
Afro-descendent migrants, as well as mestizos from the north of Cauca,
Valle and Chocó. Men and women, descendants of slaves, formed a
shared place in which a native of Cali Viejo, Gustavo Lotero, when
relating a conversation about the Pensión Ortiz, mentions a Cali co-
medero (dining hall) that was founded in 1910 and was famous for its
high-end clients and owners:
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Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
a good sancocho1 is made in a clay pot, with firewood from the
Burilico tree, on a stove with three “tulpas” and the cook should be
black and from the banks of the Cauca River. I claimed then and I
claim now that el sancocho has to be made by black people who
imported this delicious soup when they were brought over from
Africa by the Spaniards to extract gold from the rivers that flow
down from the mountain range and deposit it onto the beaches
when the current reaches the lowlands (El Despertar vallecaucano,
1978–1980, p.4).
Sancocho constitutes what De Garine calls a “culinary code,” which
contains an element of originality given the conditions and place of
preparation that identify it and are validated both by those who cook it
and those who consume it. Regarding the originality of gastronomical
traditions, in a world where societies tend to become standardized,
culinary code appears as a field in which the originality of regional
cultures and subcultures find refuge (de Garine, 2002).
The above reveals the perception of city dwellers and their identi-
fication with the people of the banks of the Cauca River, in this case,
Afro-descendent women whose cultural practices include cooking over
a wood fire and with traditional plants such as coriander, thyme, laurel,
oregano and similar. Such practices continue to be a tradition for some
of these women, as in the case of the local Afro-descendent Mendoza
family, which has maintained these traditions from generation to gen-
eration, through to the present, in the place where their ancestors set-
tled at the beginning of the 20th century on the beaches of Puerto
Mallarino.
A large part of the city of Cali was constructed not only through the
complex labor involved in extracting sand and the transport and mar-
keting of guadua (bamboo) that developed on the shore of the Cauca
River but also through the cultural baggage that, by tradition, has been
maintained by the majority of the zone's inhabitants. This population
contributed to the city's physical development and introduced customs
that expanded, shaping the eating habits of the rest of the Caleña po-
pulation.
Men and women created their place of identification around the use
of the river, around its materials and resources that they found on the
beaches and were familiar with as a result of their tradition. Aguilar &
Machado mention this creation in reference to the settlement near
Playa Renaciente, el Hormiguero:
[…] what had taken place since the constitution of the Palenques
continued, the equilibrium between these populations and the nat-
ural resources that they depended upon for their livelihood. This
shows us that it is not without reason that Afro-Colombians inhabit
zones that were once rich in natural resources and continue to be in
some cases. They always settled on the shores of rivers and seas that
ensured them access to water and fishing, and in zones where they
could hunt and collect many fruits. Thus, emerged a characteristic of
Afro-Colombian people: the multiplicity of forms and cultural
adaptation to geographic conditions, developed through the ap-
propriation of natural resources, where the abundance of these re-
sources is a factor that fulfills the essential function of attracting
communities and determining their economic type (Aguilar &
Machado, 1994, p. 53).
A riparian existence was common even in colonial times, as men-
tioned by Mina when describing the conditions in which the official
introduction of black people was made and carried out, citing a docu-
ment signed by Lic. Francisco de Anunziba of the Council of Indians in
1592, directed by His Majesty, which states, “The people will settle in
healthy locations and when possible, locations free of mosquitos and
next to the river, because for black men, fish is health, cleanliness and a
1
Sancocho is a soup that is traditionally prepared using chicken meat, yucca,
green plantain, and spices.
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
great sustenance” (Mina, 1975, p. 26).
Once each community internalizes culture through its practices,
despite territorial removal, it will continue reproducing its culture
through tradition and integrating the new elements it finds, which al-
lows it to recognize and differentiate itself. Notwithstanding, the
community, finding itself in a place with different characteristics and
contexts to which it must adapt even though it may attempt to find
similar adjacent territories, responds by transforming, renovating, and
camouflaging its cultural repertoires; its members build houses and
plant their crops in fallow land with which they have some social re-
lation. Such was the case with trade, specifically, with the passage of
navigation in canoes and steamboats that from 1887 until 1930 arrived
at Cali by Puerto Mallarino through family, neighborly, or compatriot
relations, e.g., Mr. Leonardo Márquez, one of the inhabitants of Playas
de Puerto Mallarino, arrived from Puerto Tejada in 1961 through the
trade relations of his mother, who bought and sold plantains on the
banks of the Cauca River and sold them in the market square.
It is in this setting of interaction with nature, of transit by in-
numerable migratory routes, and of specific socio-economic and cul-
tural conditions in Puerto Mallarino beaches where we find migrant and
Raizal people who recreate the transmission of their culture. One way
in which they do this is with their food practices. In this way, de Garine
mentions that cooking appears as a process of civilization, a process
that tries to integrate the cultures' wild foods and, upon modifying
them, acts as a mediator between nature and culture, society and the
universe (de Garine, 2002). However, cooking not only appears as an
integrator of external elements but also as a form of cohesion between
members of a population.
Likewise, the sector's labor practices experienced a sexual division
of work. Women took charge of gastronomical tasks because this was
their primary area of expertise and knowledge, and this division of
labor allowed them to contribute to the family income. At the same
time, this work strengthened the tie with the domestic sphere and the
transmission of cultural knowledge from generation to generation
through the maintenance of recipes and forms of preparing them.
Thus, the interior space of houses was equipped with objects
common to the times, most notably those having a recreational use.
Women maintained the practice of using natural elements from the
environment as domestic utensils, particularly those related to gastro-
nomical activities. An inhabitant of the community, Azalia Mendoza,
mentioned that they had
A little old radio, an old-fashioned radio, and there were irons, but
they were coal irons, and mom also had the treadle sewing machine.
The hand mill not so much because they mashed, mashing was done
with a stone. My mom still uses the stone a lot, she still hasn't lost
[the custom] of the stone […] (Mendoza, Mendoza, & Márquez,
personal interview February 20, 2010).
It was common in the families of the community of Puerto Mallarino
beaches that the women were responsible for maintaining the family's
well-being through food. In the press, we find advertisements targeting
women and promoting the use of dietary supplements. An ad in the
newspaper La Voz Católica from the year 1945 reads,
Mothers and their great responsibility. Mothers have a great re-
sponsibility: that which concerns the health of their children. For
this reason, prudent mothers keep on hand an inoffensive and ef-
fective remedy for the illnesses that most often affect children. The
deadly illnesses of children are anemia and chlorosis, caused by poor
blood (La Voz Católica, year XIX, N° 955, January 13, 1945).
In consonance with this thought, among the gastronomical practices
of the women of Puerto Mallarino beaches was that of bolstering the
nutritional diet with orange juice and raw egg, criadillas de toro2 stew or
2 9
Bull testicles.
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Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
soup, corroncho3 soup, and chocolate whipped with cow eye; women
ensured that these foods had high multivitamin content.
Mothers were usually in charge of preparing food, and the sharing of
the food they prepared was a symbol of family unity. Azalia and Hilda
Mendoza comment,
In this time, here, my mom has always done the cooking, then my
sister, the other who is there and me, she4 cooks very little.
It has always been with a wood-burning stove, because my mom has
never allowed [anything else]. Here I have a space with a stove and
everything, but she never stops using the wood-burning stove. She
doesn't stop using it because it is like our roots, the flavor of the
food. My mom at least, sancocho [is more elaborate] because it must
be boiled. Before, at least, chicken was not used like it is now.
Women used la gallina (hen), and my mom put the pot on to boil
with coriander, it boils, boils, boils, when it's ready, she adds
manioc, corn cob, and then chops plantain until it's really yuyito5
(soft), then the hens and this boils, boils; now you have a really
delicious meal, this is a sancocho made the right way. She didn't like
the pitadoras,6 none of that because she says the meal turns out bad,
that traditional food is best. -You need a sancocho by noon today?
Get up early and at 5:00 a.m. put your pot on the stove, and you'll
see that at 12:00 on the dot you have sancocho- That's what my mom
said, oh this pitadora, my mom never used the pitadora […]
-Hilda Mendoza says-: She doesn't like spices.
-Azalia continues the story-: She has her things for this. It was like
mondongo soup, she used a lot of mazamorra, fish, fish eggs, or she
also fried them, or she prepared them with perico.7 They used cor-
roncho,8 they also cooked corroncho, and with its water they made
chocolate.
-They still do this. No? - says Hilda Mendoza
Azalia says: This was food, and boys had to take it and women on a
diet,9 when they were on a diet right there the corronchos -don't
forget to bring the corronchos because so and so is on a diet, whip the
chocolate-
In that time, breakfast was really early, and it was tinto (black
coffee) before anything else, at 4:00, 5:00 a.m., people drank tinto;
at about 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., they made breakfast, and breakfast was
always calentado, which was rice with beans, this was what they ate
the most. And between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m., they had lunch, and
between 7:00, 7:30 they had comida (dinner) […] On Sundays and
holidays people usually ate, in those times, not like it is now, now
people eat chicken every day. Then, it was gallina (hen), sancocho de
gallina and fish were specialties […] (Mendoza et al., personal in-
terview February 20, 2010).
In this case, the importance that women give to both utensils and
eating techniques is relevant. These are elements that women char-
acterize as authentic insofar as they determine flavor and texture. This
distinction is notable in the use of firewood and the stone to mash food
instead of the hand mill. Regarding this specificity, Garine mentions
that dishes and utensils also influence the physical quality of food (de
Garine, 2002); this influence constitutes an example of the transmission
3
A type of fish that inhabits rivers; one of its characteristics is that it keeps its
surroundings clean. It is often used in ornamental tanks to keep them free of
slime and residue.
4
She refers to Hilda.
5
Yuyito means that the food is boiled until it is soft.
6
Pressure cooker.
7
Perico is a way of preparing scrambled eggs with onion and finely chopped
tomatoes.
8
Corroncho is a type of fish of the Chaetostoma genus.
She refers to the restorative diet following pregnancy.
M. Quintero-Angel, et al. Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83

of culinary knowledge from generation to generation. preparing food was tied not only to family consumption but also its
Nutritional diet was connected with the products that could be economic livelihood. When it came to attainment of income, men
obtained from the environment in relation to fishing and what was sometimes participated, for example, in cases where the wife was ill.
cultivated in plots of land and backyard (patios). These foodstuffs were Women had the reputation of preparing succulent meals, with
combined with other products obtained in different parts of the city. specific recipes for sick people, women on a birthing diet, and for
Talking about her family's food practices, María Cruz mentions that hangovers. These women had formulas for preparing a good dish.
Among these formulas were steady boiling of food with natural spices
There were bunches of plantain, here we ate roasted and fried, and
and cooking on a woodstove. The woman who cooked was generally the
she [the mother] brought those pork lonchones10, and she chopped
mother. She was the one who held tradition in her knowledge, in the
them up and put them in a pot, because in those times they didn't
way she prepared food and the type of recipes she made, and this
have a refrigerator, and they salted all of it, they stored the meat in a
knowledge was transmitted to her daughters. In this way, gastro-
large clay pot, and the next day I would eat this fried chicharron (pig
nomical traditions were a way of passing ancestral culinary knowledge
skin) even tastier with plantain. […] My father fished, and we ate
from generation to generation.
fish and other times someone bought meat and prepared meat, my
The forms of appropriation in food preparation could vary by
mom bought things in the galería,11 cow's eye and la raíz del toro,12
gender, according to the occasion. On festive occasions, men and
it's a long thing that has fatty meat and everything, and you cook it
women were assigned food preparation tasks. Traditional food in festive
and it's so good. My mom cooked this for a whole day and made us
times became spaces for socialization and the gathering of family. In
really delicious sancochos with it, she added eye, tripe, callo,13 and
these spaces, men and women's roles were classified. Marina Teresa
we grew up that way. Now, nobody cooks that way. My mom didn't
mentions that
like it when people came to the house to beg, but it was so that she
would feed them. Her cooking was delicious, she used common The batida del dulce16 (sweet smoothie) at Christmas […] my pa-
everyday herbs, she'd use her coriander and all of that, her spices, ternal grandmother, […] mom and dad, and my grandfather
cumin, pepper […] Manuel, my father's father, every Christmas they prepared […]
Christmas ahead of time. So, the batida del dulce, all of the grand-
To be honest, there were times that the situation was difficult, eat a
children could be there when the dulce was whipped, and it was like
little bread and coffee. Other times my mom fried us up chicharron
a party, it was really cool, […] they made sancocho while my
with fried plantain and made us tostadas and we'd have a hearty
grandmother whipped the dulce, and others went and prepared a
breakfast. Also, there is always poverty, there are always times when
sancocho, and everybody was given some, but we didn't go off, we
there is food and other times when there is nothing to eat, and you
ate the dulce or the desamargado from the paila (large metal pan), my
have to accept it. At least at 7:00 a.m., we'd eat breakfast, at lunch
grandmother grew the figs herself and made the desamargado with
time it was my turn to cook, it was my turn, lunch was around 12:00
them, and my mom who made a sweet that they call victoria, but I
p.m. I prepared my meal early because I had to go palendrear14 sand
didn't like it, the victoria, and she made it from papaya and limes.
(Colorado, personal interview July 4, 2010, Cali).
- And what did the men do? You whipped the dulce. What did they do? -
Food traditions were also influenced by the traditions that migrants
No, they were there helping to carry up the paila, it was heavy,
brought with them. They began to introduce other gastronomical forms
empty out the milk, all of the hard work of setting up the stove,
that were incorporated into those of the Raizal people. Speaking of the
carrying the cans of liquor to my grandmother, because my grand-
food her husband ate, Ruth Escobar comments that
mother sat and put her can of liquor to one side and began to whip
He likes his coffee, he doesn't like chocolate, he likes his coffee or the dulce. I think she ended up drunk, this was really good, to this
panela15 water. Before, they drank a lot of panela water. I have day I haven't eaten a dulce better than the one she makes.
gotten him used to drinking coffee because in the fields, we always
-Did you do this in the street or where did you do it? - In the house,
hung the coffee [crop] and toasted it, and well, we prepared it, and
in the patio of the house. Yes, the house had a large patio, there was
now he drinks coffee, but before, he didn't drink it. He only drank
a large mango tree and there was also […] some platanillo bushes
panela water, and I always taught him to eat other things, because I
that today they call heliconias, […] and there was a space where the
always got up really early to make arepas, I made him fish soup
house had an eave over the patio, that is, before walking out onto
when he fished, I kept the fish and made it when he wanted to eat:
the big patio, there was a large eave, and if it rained, nothing got
má, I want you to make me a fish broth today- I'd use a little tomato
wet there, because this was a really well made house. [The dulce de
and onion and spices and garlic and all that, and I made him his
leche] was shared with the neighbors, but […] at this moment there
broth, and he'd eat it with arepa […] (Escobar & Dradá, personal
were a lot of kids waiting there, and when the dulce began to set,
interview June 26, 2010).
then my grandfather told us to hand it out, because this was like
In this way, the influence of food practices in the locality, and the condensed milk when it set well. So then we could try it to see how it
way in which the diet of migrants and Raizal people complement one turned out, but they didn't let us drink water because they said that
another, can be observed. De Garine explains that generally, individuals it would give us colic and diarrhea […] eating hot dulce and
tend to adopt food habits that are practiced by the social group to which drinking water, and afterwards when they finished, then all of us
they belong. The family unit plays a fundamental role in the develop- would scrape the paila, the best part […] (Sánchez, personal inter-
ment of food habits (de Garine, 2002). Thus, the incorporation of food view conducted June 25, 2010).
habits as a form of belonging to a social group is important.
According to the persons interviewed, the Christmas celebration
Women also participated in the sale of food products that were
was attributed the most importance between the decades of the 1960s
popular among the Cali's population. In this way, the activity of
and 1970s. In this way, sharing food continued to be a symbol of unity
in holiday celebrations. In these practices, a feminine/masculine sexual
10 division in food preparation was made evident. Men, due to their
Parts of the pig with excess fat.
11
Market. physical characteristics, did the heavy work such as carrying pots or
12
Raíz de toro is the part of its testicles that are known as criadillas. setting up the stove, thus maintaining the tradition of using firewood,
13
Callo is part of the intestines of the pig or the cow.
14
Extract sand with a shovel.
15 16
Panela is a paste made by boiling down sugar cane juice. This traditional Christmas dish in Colombia is known as manjar blanco.

81
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
and the women did the rest of the work.
Religion has also play an important role in the food practice by the
20th century population, e.g., some Christian churches as the catholic
church during Easter continue fasting in certain days and constrain the
intake of certain food
[…] eating meat of warm blood animals, meat broth, beacon, pork
crackling or blood. Animal butter is allowed to food preparation and
use of fish, turtle, oyster, etc., cold blood animals. Abstinence is
stopped in the same day every time meat is consumed and as they
are numerical different sins, you have to explain that in the con-
fession (La Voz Católica, Nº 961, February 24, 1945, p. 6).
Additionally, every year since 1952, on August 15, there are cele-
brations of Virgen de la Asunción, which starts with reville at 5 a.m. and
a procession joint by drums and gunpowder, in the afternoon the virgin
is located in a raft that navigates part of the Cauca river join by a chorus
by traditional singers. The festivity last two days, and after the prayers,
traditional games are exhibited and typical local gastronomic products
are sold, specially the fried products made from plantain and fish
(Alcaldía de Santiago de Cali. & Red de Bibliotecas Públicas y comu-
nitarias de Cali., n.d.). Previously, the drafts carried people going with
the Virgin, food stand also were carried (Cifras y Conceptos, 2012).
Regarding the relationship between food, culture, and environment,
Montanari mentions:
Food is culture when it is produced, because man does not use only
what he finds in nature (as do the rest of the animal species), rather,
he strives to create his own food, superimposing the activity of
production on that of capturing. Food is culture when it is prepared,
because once he acquires the basic products of his food, man
transforms them through the use of fire and an elaborate technology
that is expressed in the practice of cooking. Food is culture when it is
consumed, because man, even though he could eat anything, or
perhaps precisely for this reason, in reality does not eat everything.
Rather, he chooses his own food using criteria linked to the eco-
nomic and nutritional dimension of the gesture, or to symbolic va-
lues of the food itself (Montanari, 2006, p. 9–10)
Therefore, the relationship between food, culture, and environment
is dynamic as it was showed in the context of the Ancestral Community
La Playa Renaciente. Cultural practices and specially food practices in
the 20th century, had experienced a series of transformations associated
with the processes of settlement, consolidation and fragmentation,
which included changes in the way to obtain the food, it's preparations,
utensils, cook ways among others (Table 1). However, in the space
history we can appreciate different cultural repertories which allowed
the transmission of food practices.
Finally, in the present case study, we showed the relationship be-
tween culture and food in the 20th century and the importance of
cultural transmission based on food habits for the conservation of im-
material cultural patrimony. Nonetheless, in some contexts, such as that
of Playa Renaciente, its conservation can also create risks for human
health due to the alteration of ecosystems as a result of urbanization
and exposure to contaminants. The pollution of water and food con-
stitutes a growing health risk at the global level that varies according to
Table 1
Gastronomic features at Playa Renaciente by period.
Source: Based on data from Mendoza y Rodríguez (2011)
Settlement 1920–1940 Consolidation 1940–1960
- Food obtention through exchange with neighbors - Consolidation of food traditions
- Food preparation as a way of subsistence, establishment of - Development of a gastronomic repertory associated with
food stands of fried food (fritanga) festivities (Christmas, Easter and special dates)
- Food practices associated with place of origin - Use of traditional utensils for food preparation (stone, mortar,
clay pots)
- Food preparation in bonfire
82
Appetite 139 (2019) 75–83
the concentration and doses of contaminants and duration of exposure
(Figueroa, Caicedo, Echeverry, Peña, & Méndez, 2017).
The Cauca River in particular has been polluted for many years with
municipal and industrial wastewater, agricultural runoff, and by the old
municipal solid waste landfill “Navarro,” which is located on a riv-
erbank and operated near the water above Playa Renaciente for almost
40 years, until 2008. In its final functioning years, it received close to
1700 tons of waste per day. In Navarro and its area of influence, the
presence of 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4 D) and diuron has been
detected (Echeverry, Zapata, Paéz, Méndez, & Peña, 2015), in addition
to heavy metals such as mercury and zinc (Mendoza-Marín, González, &
Benítez-Vásquez, 2007). Likewise, the presence of cadmium in some
fish in the river has been reported in fish that were marketed in a zone
close to Playa Renaciente in Cali's Aguablanca district (Figueroa et al.,
2017).
The above implies an environmental risk for the population of Playa
Renaciente, given the importance of the rivers for its livelihood and
daily life, and considering that within the food practices and cultural
repertoires that are maintained at the beginning of the 21st century,
fish is part of the diet and is used especially to feed children, pregnant
women, or people on diets. Due to the bioaccumulation capacity of fish,
this practice increases this population's exposure and vulnerability to
the effects of pollution.
5. Conclusions
Daily diet and the transmission of food practices are framed within a
socio-cultural context that is influenced by the historical moment in
which each society finds itself. Therefore, food in today's societies
cannot be understood outside of the dynamics of its globalization, de-
velopment models, industrialization, rural-urban migrations, urbani-
zation, among others, that influence and transform food practices.
The case of the Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente in Cali is
a specific example of the relationship between culture and food in a
context with strong transformative pressures that are experienced in
many regions of the world and which demonstrate how food practices
are maintained over time through the transmission of cultural re-
pertoires that cultivate identity and social cohesion. Particularly,
transformations associated with settlement, consolidation and cultural
fragmentation processes in the 20th century at Playa Renaciente, has
impacted the cultural practices and especially food, e.g., technological
change in pot materials to cook, but at the same time transmission of
different food and cultural practices, which allowed the development of
ownership feelings and cultural identity.
Likewise, this case also reveals the constant vindication of many
communities and their struggle during the 20th century to maintain
culture and stability inside their territories, whether they are facing
displacement or the intervention of external agents with particular in-
terests. Moreover, this case illustrate how the cultural identity enable
ways of resistance or permanence in the territories, e.g., cultural con-
structions of the Ancestral Community La Playa Renaciente about their
relationship with the river, enables them to adapt to flooding and fight
for their territory, while from the institution/city hall it is recognized as
a high risk zone of flooding that needs to be evicted.
Fragmentation from 1960
- Use of pression pots
- Food preparation in electric and gas
stoves
- Use of freezers and blenders
- Use of artificial seasonings
M. Quintero-Angel, et al.
Finally, we should note the importance of the conservation and
transmission of cultural repertoires in the face of transformations and
external pressures. Notwithstanding, the case of La Playa Renaciente
also illustrates the importance of exploring environmental changes that
generate elements such as urbanization, especially the socio-cultural
implications that these can represent for the population. Cultural
practices, and in particular culinary traditions, can increase the popu-
lation's exposure and vulnerability to the effects of contamination.
Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach is needed for the study of
cultural traditions, their interactions with food practices and the study
of urbanization's impact on health.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank M.Sc. Rosa Elena Rodríguez, whose
thoughtful field work and research in the Afro-descendent Ancestral
Community La Playa Renaciente established the foundations for this
paper. The activities by Quintero-Angel, D. were developed with the
scholarship of COLCIENCIAS for doctoral studies in Universidad
Nacional de Colombia.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.04.011.
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