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Taste and meaning

  • Ugo Volli EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: May 12, 2016
Semiotica
From the journal Semiotica Volume 2016 Issue 211

Abstract

A basic anthropological fact is that, although hunger is a constant experience in human history, not everything that from a biochemical point of view could be nutritious, in fact is eaten. In every human culture, food, not unlike language, is controlled by rich sets of rules that establish obligations and prohibitions, contextual bonds to time, and circumstances and syntactic structures for different types of meal. Often these rules – as well as linguistic ones – are unconscious, taken as “natural.” All of these rules detach food from its simple and natural properties, and give it some meaning, although this meaning is not easy to define, making food more similar to a self-referential mark than to a regular text. In this paper I analyze a specific case of these almost linguistic alimentary systems, the set of the dietary laws in the Jewish tradition and in particular its complex alimentary interdictions. The hierarchical structure of these rules is discussed and the problem of the connected effects of sense is addressed.

Keywords: food; kasherut; alimentary interdictions; Bible; Jewish culture; food meaning

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Published Online: 2016-5-12
Published in Print: 2016-7-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. The Umberto Eco gaze
  4. “La morte non avrà signoria”: Domande per Umberto Eco
  5. Vistas for organized global semiotics
  6. Semiotics of food
  7. Introduction: Semiotics of food
  8. Food and translation
  9. The translation of food in literature: A culinary journey through time and genres
  10. Semiosis of intercultural cooking: The nineteenth century travel literature as a case study
  11. The semiotics of migrants’ food: Between codes and experience
  12. Lost in translation: Food, identity and otherness
  13. Glocal and food: On alimentary translation
  14. Contemporary foodspheres
  15. A note on the meanings of junk food
  16. Are nutrients also good to think?
  17. Critique of the culinary reason
  18. Food and taste
  19. Food meaning: From tasty to flavorful
  20. L’esthésique et l’épiphanique: Traces figuratives de la saveur
  21. Taste and meaning
  22. Cooking and eating
  23. The culinary and social-semiotic meaning of food: Spicy meals and their significance in Mexico, Italy, and Texas
  24. Semiotic food, semiotic cooking: The ritual of preparation and consumption of hallacas in Venezuela
  25. Food and communication
  26. Myths, traditions, and rituals of food in Spanish cinema
  27. Starred cosmopolitanism: Celebrity chefs, documentaries, and the circulation of global desire
  28. Food design chez Bras
  29. Food design: Symbols of our daily nutrition
  30. Food-ography: Food and new media
https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0106
Keywords for this article
food; kasherut; alimentary interdictions; Bible; Jewish culture; food meaning

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. The Umberto Eco gaze
  4. “La morte non avrà signoria”: Domande per Umberto Eco
  5. Vistas for organized global semiotics
  6. Semiotics of food
  7. Introduction: Semiotics of food
  8. Food and translation
  9. The translation of food in literature: A culinary journey through time and genres
  10. Semiosis of intercultural cooking: The nineteenth century travel literature as a case study
  11. The semiotics of migrants’ food: Between codes and experience
  12. Lost in translation: Food, identity and otherness
  13. Glocal and food: On alimentary translation
  14. Contemporary foodspheres
  15. A note on the meanings of junk food
  16. Are nutrients also good to think?
  17. Critique of the culinary reason
  18. Food and taste
  19. Food meaning: From tasty to flavorful
  20. L’esthésique et l’épiphanique: Traces figuratives de la saveur
  21. Taste and meaning
  22. Cooking and eating
  23. The culinary and social-semiotic meaning of food: Spicy meals and their significance in Mexico, Italy, and Texas
  24. Semiotic food, semiotic cooking: The ritual of preparation and consumption of hallacas in Venezuela
  25. Food and communication
  26. Myths, traditions, and rituals of food in Spanish cinema
  27. Starred cosmopolitanism: Celebrity chefs, documentaries, and the circulation of global desire
  28. Food design chez Bras
  29. Food design: Symbols of our daily nutrition
  30. Food-ography: Food and new media
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